I think everyone has studied dynasty songs, and we know that the Xia Dynasty is the first hereditary dynasty in our country. The dynasties before the Xia Dynasty were essentially tribes with cities and pools, slightly lower than the real state, and today we will understand this era earlier than the Xia Dynasty, or the shijia ruins of the window of the origin of Chinese civilization.
This ancient city, which has been lost for about 4,000 years, has no written records of its figure in the historical records. From the excavated artifacts, it is speculated that it belongs to the late Neolithic period to the early Xia Dynasty.
In 1976, an archaeology professor was on an expedition in Shanxi, and he heard some rumors about ShiMao in the folk, so he went to Shimao Village in Yulin City, Shaanxi Province to investigate, and after a series of investigations and excavations, he found this magnificent stone city site. The three independent buildings of the "Imperial City Terrace", the Inner City and the Outer City form this ancient city with a strong stone culture, with a total area of 4.25 million square meters, which is equivalent to the size of six Forbidden City in Beijing (720,000 square meters).
Not only is the area extremely large, but the site is even more amazing in form, and it is interlinked between the inner and outer cities and the imperial city. The Imperial City Terrace is located in the center, roughly equivalent to the Taihe Hall; the inner city is similar to the Forbidden City, and the outer city is Beijing City, and the total length of the walls separated by the city is more than ten kilometers. Archaeologists speculate that it was once a hierarchical capital city, with rivers crisscrossing the city and people living here, which was conducive to both productive activities and observation and observation, guarding the city-state. Such a layered and interlocking design has appeared in this era, which is surprising. And this may have been the center of northern China in the early Xia Dynasty, and it can be called the earliest "Forbidden City".
In ancient times, the shiya ruins belonged to the junction of nomadic and agricultural, and they built layers of walls to prevent foreign enemies from invading, but did this city-state belong to the steppe tribe or the agricultural civilization?
The ruins of Shi'an were built around the time of the Yellow Emperor, and this city-state may be the orphan of the Yellow Emperor's tribe, the city-state of the branch of the descendants of the Yellow Emperor, or it may be the traditional grassland culture of Shizhu. Some people also believe that this was established by Yu during the period of water control, and it was the former capital of Wang Yao. From a geographical point of view, the Shi'an site is located on the high slope of the Loess Plateau, south of the desert, close to the Ming Great Wall, and it is basically determined that it is the place where the nomadic people live.
As the core of the Shiya ruins, the Imperial City Terrace covers an area of 80,000 square meters and has a 1.5-meter base pillar as the base. There used to be a number of large palaces, which were inhabited by royal families. It is located on a high platform, surrounded by a solid stone wall, and is stepped from bottom to top. Some rare stone carvings have also been excavated here, such as stone carved human faces, diamond-shaped eye pattern stones and so on.
The ruins of the outer city are now only preserved by the East Gate, which is important in location and has a wide field of view, which is composed of urn castle, north and south piers, and horse-faced gates from the inside out, with military use of the city defense facilities. Somewhat appallingly, nearly a hundred skulls buried near the East City Gate were found and buried in two places, most of these skulls were young women, which may have something to do with sacrifice, but human sacrifice was a feature of the Shang Dynasty, and this behavior was unprecedented in the early days.
The perfect defense system at the city gate adopts the "horse face", which is also the mainstream building of ancient Chinese defense, which refers to the construction of an auxiliary facility at intervals on the outside of the city wall, which can form a multi-party attack on the invading enemy.
A large number of jade artifacts have been excavated from the Shi'an site, but the tombs in the site have been seriously stolen, and nearly 2,000 pieces of jade have been lost overseas, and many pieces of jade have been scattered by folk collectors. And that goes back to the 1930s.
At that time, foreigners purchased a large amount of jade from the farmers of Yulin Province, including a huge jade zhang in the kunsthalmus museum in Cologne, Germany, and many jade objects were scattered in overseas academic institutions and museums.
But the Shi'a site is an obvious stone tradition, there is no jade mine nearby, there are so many jade excavations in the Border Plug area, it can be known that the old Shi'a city-state was a prosperous capital with the nature of "Wanbang Lai Dynasty" with trade exchanges, but after 500 years, the metropolis was gradually abandoned, about the environment gradually deteriorated, the original climate was pleasant and warm, the livable area became arid and cracked, no longer suitable for long-term residence, but I don't know where the Shi'an people moved later.
The discovery of the Shi'an site has re-sorted the veins of Chinese civilization, which may be the true origin of Chinese civilization. Today's China is the best way to gather the strengths of a hundred schools of civilization, take its essence to remove its dross, and carry forward many cultures.
Shaanxi Shi'an Ruins: An ancient city not recorded in the history books, or the true origin of Chinese civilization
Shaanxi Shi'an Ruins: The area is equivalent to 6 Forbidden City, or the window of the origin of Chinese civilization