Mr. Zhang Shengzang (1903-1992) was a fossil excavator of the skull of the "Ziyang people" who shocked the world, and was the first person to open the door to cultural relics in the New Southwest. Mr. Zhang Shengzang was born on July 16, 1903 in Jiangling County, Hubei Province, to a family of scholars. Since childhood, he has been intelligent and has learned little from his family. In 1915, he lived with Wang Jing'an and Mr. Luo Shuyan in Tokyo, Japan to learn oracle bone script and Dunhuang archaeological data, northwest geography, and Mongolian historiography.
▲ Zhang Shengzang
In the spring of 1916, he went to Tianjin Nankai Middle School to study, and was transferred to the third grade. In 1923, he graduated from the Department of History of the National Peking University, and later participated in the Peking University Examination Fee international students, ranking first in the list. In 1924, he studied at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, Harvard University in the United States, and Leipzig University in Germany, and obtained a doctorate in history and economics. He has successively studied philosophy, literature, Chinese and Western transportation history, economic history, Chinese history, social psychology, and revised the history of the Qing Dynasty. In 1928, he went to Germany, France, Italy, Britain, Canada and Japan. In 1929, he returned to China as a professor at Fudan University and St. John's University in Shanghai. In the following year, he became the Dean of Liberal Arts at Northeastern University. During this period, in addition to teaching, mr. Li wrote the Outline of Uighur History, which has high historical value, in italics. From 1934, he was a professor in the Department of History of Chongqing University, and he liked to socialize with literati and celebrities. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, he was appointed "Ministry Professor" by the Ministry of Education, concurrently served as a professor of history at the Central University in Qianchuan, the director of the Department of History and Geography of the Sichuan Institute of Education, and the successor as an advisor to the National History Museum and a researcher at the Roosevelt Library.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, in 1951, Mr. Zhang Shengzang served as the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway Road Construction Team of the Southwest Military and Political Committee and advanced at the same time, doing practical archaeological work along the line. In March of the same year, turtle fossils were found in Huang eel Creek, southwest of Sanxian Town, Chengguan, Ziyang. Mr. Li carefully observed from the geological soil layer, felt that there was a need for excavation, and with the consent of the governor of Liu'an County, recruited migrant workers to excavate for more than ten days without seeing the physical object. At that time, the rain was continuous, the water was quite deep, but the peasant water wheel was used to pump water, work day and night, and use gas lamps to illuminate every night, and when the water was drained, the mud at the bottom of the pond was very thick, and it was impossible to smoke anymore, and it was said that no physical object was seen. The gentleman took off his shoes and socks, went down into the mud, and suddenly stepped on a stone bone, stinging the heart of the foot. He scooped up a broken skull by hand and touched several fragments in succession; later, after repairing, it was the "Ziyang Ren" object on display at the China History Museum.
▲ The skull of the "Ziyang man" and the only Paleolithic bone cone next to the skull
He found the fossil skull of the "Ziyang man", which was reported in detail at that time. He pointed out that the "Ziyang people" are the ancestors of the Shu people, and she is the closest anthropological skull to modern humans, unlike the skulls of ape people such as the Beijing Mountaintop Cave Man and the Yunnan Yuanmou Man. It has not yet been discovered in Sichuan and the provinces of the Yellow River, Yangtze River, Pearl River and other river basins, so it is extremely precious. At the same time as the "Ziyang people", there are a variety of paleontological fossils, especially the black saber-toothed elephant bone fossils, which proves that the climate in the inland sea of Sichuan was hot at that time, providing a scientific basis for the study of ancient meteorology.
In 1953, Guo Moruo invited mr. Guo Moruo to Beijing to participate in the circumstantial evidence seminar on the discovery of fossil skulls of Ziyang people. Mr. Li expressed his opinion: from the discovery of fossil skulls of Ziyang people, it can be confirmed that Sichuan was an inland sea in ancient times. The Chengdu area is the center of the sea, and Ziyang is the edge of the sea. The saber-toothed elephant fossils unearthed from Ziyang are significantly different from the tusks of today's India. From paleontological studies, saber-toothed elephants are found only in the tropics. It can be seen that Sichuan was a tropical climate in ancient times, and there were many tropical plants and people around the inland sea. The discovery of a skull not far from the saber-toothed elephant, and the disappearance of the body, can it mean that the elephant ate the person? The earliest people in Sichuan, living on the edge of the inland sea, can be established. As for when will the Chengdu inland sea dry up? Is it a frozen glacier? It is possible that the end of the fourth or fifth glacier has caused the sea waters of the Chengdu Sea to be evaporated and dried up. Guo Moruo agreed with this view.
▲Zhang Shengzang's Collection: Literary Research Law
Since 1954, he has been a member of the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics Management Committee. He worked tirelessly and led a team out to archaeology. Among them, important cultural relics such as statue buildings in Dazu, Anyue, Zizhong, Neijiang and Jiangjin counties have been investigated, and important cultural relics in 31 districts of the above counties have been preliminarily understood, and rezoned and numbered, and more cultural materials have been found. In addition to taking the train, mr. and his party spent most of their time walking on the muddy mountain road on rainy days, and the work was quite arduous and complicated. After 23 days of investigation, Mr. Li personally wrote the "Comprehensive Report on the Investigation of Major Cultural Relics Such as Golden Stone Statues and Buildings in Jiangjin Counties in Dazu Anyue, Sichuan Province". As a scholar, he personally participated in field archaeology and investigation, and there was nothing more pleasing to him than the actual investigation.
The "Research on the Draft History of the Qing Dynasty" and the "Collected Poems of Lin Lin" written by Mr. Lin are exquisite in words and rich in content, and they are a valuable cultural heritage that needs to be sorted out and studied. In his early years in England, he organized the "Shenzhou I Ching Society" and translated Zhou Yi into English. In addition, he has also authored five kinds of research works on the I Ching: "New Notes on the I Ching", "Dialectics of the I Ching", "Comparative Commentary of the Zhou Han and Song Dynasties", "Ancient and Modern Yi Xue Kao", and "Discussion on the Flow of Gua Qi". Mr. Yixue is deeply researched and introduces Hongfu. He also has a lot of research on Confucius, and has written "Ten Treatises of Confucius", which describes Confucius's thought and its influence on Chinese culture from different angles In 1986, he was hired as a special librarian of the Sichuan Provincial Research Museum of Literature and History to engage in cultural research.
He is of high moral character, upright, and a loyal elder with a kind heart, who cares more about others than himself. He preached, taught, solved puzzles, talked about it, and never tired of asking questions, and he made great contributions to the archaeology, education, and collation and research of literary and historical materials in the motherland.
▲ Zhang Shengzang's family portrait, the first on the right is Zhang Shengzang
In 1991, at the age of 90, Mr. Li finished writing the article "I Found the Fossil Human Skull in Ziyang" with illness, but he made a wish for the cause of national archaeology. A scholar of great renown at home and abroad, after the journey of life, left a huge manuscript and passed away for a long time.
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Edited by: Wang Yang
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Review: Tang Yuanbo