Tao Temple Ruins,
It is the most important since the founding of New China.
One of the greatest archaeological discoveries,
October 2021,
Selected as one of the "Top 100 Archaeological Discoveries in a Hundred Years".
From the discovery of the cultural relics census in 1958 and the official excavation in 1978,
For 43 years,
Many major archaeological discoveries and research results have been made,
To write and empirically prove the history of Chinese civilization
Made an important contribution.
At the ruins of the Tao Temple,
Archaeologists have discovered the earliest Zhushu script,
The oldest musical instruments are the drum and brass bell,
The earliest true dragon totem,
The largest prehistoric cemetery in the middle reaches of the Yellow River,
The world's oldest observatory and the site of a very large prehistoric city.
Archaeologists call the ruins of The Tao Temple as:
The capital city with the most complete prehistoric elements in China,
And now many people also believe,
Tao Temple,
It is the capital of the two holy kings of Yao Shun in the legend——
This is where the first China was born.
Selected for the "Tao Temple Ruins Palace Base Site Archaeological Project",
With the large rammed earth building No. 1 palace base site as the main feature,
This is by far the largest rammed earth building site in prehistoric times,
Two main halls, an outbuilding on the east side, were found on the base of the building,
Central courtyard, eastern suspected gallery, etc.,
Its structure is complex, the layout is regular, and it is rare in prehistory,
It is the source of the ancient Chinese palace form.
Its main hall D1,
It is the Neolithic period of archaeological discoveries
The largest single rammed earth building.
▲ Shanxi Evening News reported on January 13, 2022
An archaeological breakthrough to fully expose the base site of Palace No. 1
From 2013 to 2017, excavations that lasted five years gradually confirmed the existence of nearly 130,000 square meters of Miyagi Castle at the tao temple site, and more comprehensively exposed the side gates at the south east gate site and the southeast corner. During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, the archaeological work of the Tao Temple site was included in the "Archaeology China" major project, and with the support of the project, the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Shanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute jointly began to excavate the largest rammed earth building site in Miyagi Castle, IFJT3 (now changed to the No. 1 palace site), in 2018.
From March to July 2021, the archaeological team comprehensively exposed the base site of Palace No. 1, basically clarified the scale, four to, pile, age, layout structure of Palace No. 1 base site, and had a preliminary understanding of the nature.
▲Floor plan of the tao temple site and the location of FJT3 (the base site of the No. 1 palace).
Palace No. 1 is located in the slightly elevated southeast of the ruins of the Tao Temple, with a rectangular shape, about 84 meters long from north to south, 76.5 meters wide from east to west, and an area of nearly 6,500 square meters – equivalent to a standard football field. Four thousand years of history of the wind and smoke blowing, the use of a small order is "sad Yao Shun through the place, the palace has been made of soil", the palace has long been unable to see the original appearance, only its basic part reflects the winter sun. On the base site, there are 1 clear palace building (number D1), 1 suspected palace building, 3 housing sites and other important buildings, as well as a large number of ash pits, human skull pits H235 and well H236.
This D1 hall sits north to south, front and back, seven rooms wide from east to west, about 26.8 meters long, 20.3 meters wide, with a total area of more than 540 square meters, as a contrast, the area of the Forbidden City Taihe Hall is 2377 square meters. Although it is less than a quarter of the Taihe Hall and much smaller in volume, it is after all a building from four thousand years ago, and it is remarkable that the ancients could do that level -- in fact, it is also the largest single rammed earth building of the Neolithic period found by archaeology.
Two meters east of the D1 hall, a large site with an area of about 100 square meters was also found, and there were two small house sites with an area of 40 or 50 square meters in the southeast, both of which are annexes to the D1 hall, the function is not clear, the excavators have some speculations, but the conclusion needs to be further studied.
▲The base site of Palace No. 1
Perhaps, advanced political civilization spread from the Tao Temple
The ruins of Tao Temple are the capital of the legendary great emperor Yao Shun. If the legend is true, then the ruins of Tao Temple should be the capital of Yao in the early days and belong to Shun in the middle. It can also be said that at the site of the Tao Temple, China completed the transformation from the era of the state to the era of the kingdom, the tribes of "Yao" and "Shun" became stronger and stronger over the course of hundreds of years, their chieftainship power was continuously strengthened, and advanced political civilization extended from the Tao Temple to the vast territory of the Central Plains and East China, opening the precursor of a vast kingdom.
The no. 1 palace was built in the middle of the ruins of the Tao Temple, whether it was a hall of pilgrimage or a temple dedicated to the ancestors of heaven and earth, because in the absence of more conclusive evidence, archaeologists were reluctant to make a conclusion. However, earlier excavations have found a sacrificial area near the royal cemetery, and we will let us say that he is the temple hall - that is, the "Taihe Hall" of the Tao Temple era. Back then, the great king, surrounded by his servants, received leaders from various countries. They had never seen such a vast and majestic hall, so they all bowed to the king's throne. This made the king even more satisfied, believing that his rule would last forever like this temple.
▲Main hall D1 floor plan
But history proves that there has never been a dynasty in history that has lasted for a thousand years. Whether it is the king's rule or the palace, "the wind is always blown away by the rain and the wind", which has finally become a sigh of history. Archaeologists have learned through the investigation of the site that in the late Tao Temple era, a riot swept through the entire capital, the "mausoleums" of the previous kings were stolen and excavated, the ancestral temple was demolished, the precious ceremonial instruments symbolizing the solemn kingship and the sacrifice of the heroic spirits of the ancestors were discarded at will, and the nobles were killed in terror, and even suffered great humiliation, and the bones were layered on top of each other, and it was impossible to distinguish who was more noble. The specific scene is difficult to restore, and the Tang Dynasty poet Wei Zhuang's poem describing Huang Chao's invasion of Chang'an can make us feel this more intuitively: the prosperity of the past is buried, and the eyes are desolate and unprovoked. The inner library is burned into splendid ashes, and the heavenly street tramples on the bones of the secretary of state...
Scholars have two speculations about this riot, one is foreign invasion, the spearhead is pointed at the tribe that is now the ruins of Yulin Shi'an in Shaanxi, this tribe came from the northwest, crossed the Yellow River, crossed Lüliang, destroyed the Tao Temple, and built its own dynasty, which may be the bloody truth behind Shunyu Chan; one is the bottom uprising, the Cruel Exploitation and Oppression of the people by the Rulers of the Tao Temple, which finally ignited the anger at the bottom, and the strong walls and the towering palace are not worth mentioning before this anger. This retaliatory riot destroyed everything, and since then, the ancient capital of the tao temple that has stood for hundreds of years has gradually disappeared into the long river of history, covered by layers of loess, until archaeologists four thousand years later relied on the ruins of broken walls and broken pottery tiles to restore everything.
▲Copper bi shaper
The first example in the ruins of the Tao Temple
Crocodile bone plates were found in the accumulation of housing sites
In this archaeological excavation, although only a few relics were found, they also amazed and puzzled us 4,000 years later.
On the interface of the base site of the No. 1 palace, a copper bi shaped vessel was unearthed, shaped like a jade bi, the body of the instrument with two circles of 28 small rectangular cutouts inside and outside, the shape system is special, rare in prehistory, the excavation leader Gao Jiangtao said that it is an "isolated case", so whether it is a ceremonial vessel or an ornament, or both, can not be conclusive. In the palace, crocodile bone plates were also found, most of the crocodile bone plates were excavated in large tombs in the past, most of them were left over from the burial drums, and the crocodile bone plates found in the accumulation of the house site were the first cases at the tao temple site, what did it do? Archaeologists can only guess that it is some kind of tool, and the specific function is not yet asserted.
▲Crocodile bone plate
There was a philosopher in ancient Greece who said, the more you know, the more you don't know. This phrase is also apt for use in archaeology. Archaeologists have found a lot of things that really solve many of our doubts. However, these things pose more problems that we can only fill in the blanks with our imaginations.
A human bone pit was found near the base site of Palace No. 1, numbered H235. There are 10 human skulls and individual cervical vertebrae in the human bone pit, which are judged to be young and middle-aged, both men and women, and square or circular trauma holes are obviously visible on the bones, indicating that they died of intentional massacre. The age of the human bone pit is the late Tao Temple, and later than the riot that destroyed the Tao Temple. However, at that time, the Tao Temple was destroyed, losing its status as a royal city, and Xia Yu rebuilt his capital at Yangcheng (in present-day Wangchenggang, Chengcheng Town, Dengfeng City, Zhengzhou City, Henan Province), who would be killed outside the old palace?
▲ Human skull pit H235
History does not repeat itself, but it can be strikingly similar. In ancient times, when the dynasty was easier, such a thing was not uncommon, and there were roughly two situations, one was the collapse of the old dynasty, and although the royal family and nobles were like dogs that lost their families, they lived in fear in the old capital, but the new dynasty did not trust these "remnants of the previous dynasty" and killed them for the purpose of cutting the grass and rooting out the roots; the other situation was that it was inevitable that the descendants of the old dynasty would cherish the homeland and do some similar actions like "anti-Qing and restoration", which made the new dynasty even more unbearable, so they deliberately appeared on the side of the palace of the former dynasty to shock people's hearts. Perhaps, a great kingdom that has lasted for hundreds of years should have some "lonely sons" who will not go to the new Lord, or for the remnants, or for the stubborn people, although they have died without remorse - however, such speculation is too much like a tightly sewn script, so it is bound to be different from the facts.
History is not always logical, it is often unanswered, and what it leaves behind is often blank. Just like Chinese painting, the ink color depicts the image, while the blank space makes the painting far away, majestic, and mysterious charm.
▲Ochre
▲Grinding rod
▲ Yu Zhen
Expert reviews
Wang Weilin, archaeologist and professor of the Department of Archaeology, School of History and Culture, Shanxi University:
The tao temple site was discovered in 1958 and has been more than 60 years old, and in the archaeological work in Shanxi, the tao temple site represents the archaeological project of "the earliest China" and is a very critical site that demonstrates China's 5,000-year civilization. As the public and the archaeological community in Shanxi, it is time to cheer for the Tao Temple and pay tribute to the generations of archaeologists who have contributed to the Tao Temple for more than 60 years.
The Tao Temple site has solved many problems over the past few decades, and has done a lot of key work on the distribution of sites, cultural staging, settlement structures, large buildings, etc. As a capital city, Tao Temple is the first archaeological discovery to form the miyagi and Kukujo twin-city system. Others, including Ishiga and Liangzhu, actually have no real miyagi and guocheng functions. The excavated building site is the largest architectural rammed earth foundation site of the Neolithic Era, with more than 6,000 square meters, and the large palace building site found on it, there are also more than 500 square meters, which is also the largest, which is the two "largest". At the same time, the auxiliary buildings found copper components, painted pigments and their grinding rods, houses with white gray skin and ornamentation on the walls, as well as wells, human head sacrifice pits, architectural remains of large buildings with edges similar to galleries, central axis layouts, etc., all of which represent the prototype of early Chinese palaces. The Tao Temple is not only of great significance to the origin of Chinese civilization, but also to the origin of palace architecture. Generally speaking, the discovery of the Tao Temple site is of great significance, which empirically proves the path and mode of civilization development with the Central Plains as the core.
▲ Pottery wedge shaper
▲Arrow shaft straightener
Neolithic ruins of Xiangfen Tao Temple in Linfen
Excavation units: Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Shanxi Institute of Archaeology, Linfen Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, Linfen Taosi Ruins Management Center
Project Leader: Gao Jiangtao
Main participants: He Nu, Tian Jianwen, Zhao Baobao
Wen | Shanxi Evening News all-media reporter Li Yu Wu Shuai
Photo | Shanxi Archaeological Research Institute
Poster production | Shanxi Evening News all-media editor Zhao Mandi
The copyright of the image belongs to the original author or institution
Edited | Shanxi Evening News All-Media Editor Nanlijiang
Audit | Fang Tianji
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