Dingcun Jiulong Cave site stone pieces mosaic group.
Linfen, Shanxi is one of the important birthplaces of Chinese civilization. 100,000 years ago, the Ding villagers in the Fenhe Valley ignited the fire of early human civilization; more than 4,000 years ago, the Tao Temple at the foot of chongshan Mountain built a palace and a city; 2,600 years ago, Jin Wengong achieved hegemony here...
On the beautiful banks of the Fenhe River, surrounded by green pines and cypresses, the Linfen Museum, which is shaped by "sun and moon embraces", shows its elegant atmosphere. Its design concept originates from the ancient observatory of the Tao Temple, which symbolizes "the same glow of the sun and the moon", and once it opened in 2018, it has become a place where many cultural enthusiasts compete to punch the clock.
Linfen Museum now has more than 150,000 cultural relics (sets), including 101 national first-class cultural relics (sets), especially bronzes, ceramics, woodblock New Year paintings and other most distinctive features. The museum's basic exhibition "Mountains and Rivers in the Table" includes four exhibition halls, including "Ancient Footprints", which spread out the Chinese culture from ancient times to the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Trace your ancient footprints
Through the in-depth interpretation of archaeological achievements such as the ruins of Dingcun, Persimmon Beach and Zaoyuan, the "Ancient Footprints" exhibition hall shows the long history of early Homo sapiens in the land of Linfen.
Located 5 kilometers south of Xiangfen County, the Dingcun Ruins are the first large-scale Paleolithic sites found outside Of Zhoukoudian in Beijing after the founding of the People's Republic of China. In the autumn of 1954, an archaeological team led by archaeologist and paleoanthropologist Pei Wenzhong and Jia Lanpo found 3 fossil Homo sapiens teeth, 28 animal fossils and more than 2,000 stone tools from 100,000 years ago in the thick sand layer on the banks of the Fenhe River, filling the gap in the early Homo sapiens and middle Paleolithic cultures in Chinese history.
"This is a replica of 3 Dingcun human tooth fossils. These teeth are shovel-shaped, and the shovel-shaped teeth are characteristic of yellow people. Liang Jun, head of the exhibition department of the Linfen Museum, introduced that there are very few fossils of Dingcun people, but it is very important for understanding the continuous evolution process of ancient Chinese humans. The Dingcun people belong to the early Homo sapiens stage, inheriting the Beijing people and the lower Qishan Cave people, and are in the critical stage of evolution to modern people.
The three groups of display cases show the stone tools of the early, middle and late Dingcun culture. In the early and middle periods, it is more typical of stone chips, three-sided large pointed tools, stone balls, scrapers, etc., and in the late period, fine stone tools made by incorporating fine raw materials based on flint appeared. Liang Jun introduced that in the late Paleolithic period, stone tools were of higher quality, the shape of the tools was more regular, the types were more abundant, and the fine stone tool products characterized by the fine stone leaf process occupied the mainstream position.
The Persimmon Beach Site in Jixian County is a large area, thick accumulation and rich connotation of a buried site in situ between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago, which belongs to the late Paleolithic Period. In the exhibition hall, there is a group of stone grinding discs and stone grinding rods excavated from the persimmon beach site, the surface abrasion degree is high, and the residues and traces of use show that they have both food processing, ornament grinding and pigment grinding functions, among which the traces of processing wild grains reveal the dawn of agricultural production.
The Zaoyuan culture dates back 7000-6400 years, and is the earliest Neolithic cultural relic found in Shanxi. The pottery bowls, clay pots, house base site maps, and house models of the Zaoyuan ruins show that people at that time had already lived an agricultural and settled life.
Painted dragon plates have been unearthed from the ruins of the Tao Temple.
Interpret the tao temple culture
At the entrance of the second exhibition hall, a painted dragon plate attracts people's attention. It was excavated from the site of the Tao Temple in Xiangfen County, the texture is gray pottery, the plate is painted with red and white dragons, the red represents the dragon head and the coiled dragon body, the white expression scales, and the mouth also spits out branches and branches.
"A total of 4 painted dragon plates have been unearthed from the early king-level tombs at the Tao Temple site, which is one of them and is also the treasure of our town hall." According to Liang Jun, the dragon pan of the Tao Temple is likely to be a ceremonial instrument used by people at that time to pray for rain or a good harvest, which is the product of the combination of divine power and royal power, and is also the representative of the "dragon heir" of the Chinese nation.
Tao Temple is located in the linfen plain in the south of present-day Shanxi Province, east of the Fenhe River, backed by chongshan Mountain. More than 4,000 years ago, the soil was fertile and watery, making it suitable for farming. The exhibition hall has a set of three-story three-dimensional sand tables, combined with digital three-dimensional technology, showing the evolution of the Tao Temple site in the early, middle and late periods.
The tao temple culture began to build the city in the early days. In the middle of the period, the city site expanded rapidly, and functional areas such as palace areas, storage areas, and tomb areas were readily available. In the late Tao Temple culture, the functional area was abandoned, the city wall was destroyed, and the tao temple ruins became a general settlement. "There is a clear hierarchical division and social division of labor at the Tao Temple site, showing the rudiments of the early capital city." Liang Jun said.
In front of a large 3D naked-eye immersive platform, many spectators were queuing up to experience. This is a simulated ancient observatory of the Tao Temple, standing at the observation point, or soaring upwards, or circling the valley, as if immersed in the four seasons, the flow of time. "The ancient observatory of the Tao Temple, discovered in 2003, integrates viewing, timing, and sacrifice, which confirms the record of the Shang Shu YaoDian that 'the calendar is like the sun, moon, and stars, and the time of honoring the people'." Liang Jun said.
In the display cabinet, Zhu Shubian pot (replica) and Zhu Shubian pot fragments attracted the attention of reporters. In 1984, the site of Tao Temple unearthed a pottery flat pot with Zhushu characters, which attracted the attention of the academic community. He Nu, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, interpreted the Zhushu on the flat pot as the word "Wenyao". In 2006, the late base site of the Tao Temple Palace Area unearthed fragments of Zhu Shu bian pots, and He Nu, as the leader of the archaeological team, believes that the zhu shu on the inside of the fragments is the lower half of the word "Yao", although it is mutilated, it can still be seen.
Super large city sites, the world's oldest observatory, large-scale tomb groups, Zhu Shubian pot... Some scholars believe that the ruins of Tao Temple are likely to be the capital of Yao.
"This is a gui table that is restored according to the proportion of cultural relics excavated from the Tao Temple. Guibiao measurements can determine the 'middle of the earth', determine the location of the capital, and can also be used to formulate a calendar. Liang Jun said. The tomb of the king in the middle of the Tao Temple unearthed a lacquered Gui ruler and used as a vernier, jing charm, and hanging attachment, which is the earliest gui table physical set excavated by archaeological excavations.
The Zhou Li records that the founding of the king must be in the "earth", and the change of power is accompanied by the handover of the "middle" of the Gui table or the change of the standard of the summer solstice shadow length in the "earth". According to the field simulation observations by experts, the length of the summer solstice sun shadow to the Tao Temple Gui ruler coincides with the "ground" standard recorded in the "Zhou Hip Calculation Sutra" that records that "the sundial of the summer solstice is one foot and six inches".
Copper bird cups were unearthed from the Western Zhou Baguo cemetery.
Tell about the jin dynasty
Speaking of Shanxi, we cannot but say jinguo. The State of Jin was an important princely state of the Zhou Dynasty, founded in the Western Zhou Dynasty for more than 600 years, and after 38 monarchs, it created a brilliant Jin culture. Linfen was the core of the Jin Dynasty and the source of the Spring and Autumn period of the Jin Dynasty. During the same period, there were also some small princely states around the Jin state, such as the Southern Qin of Hongdong and the hegemony of Yicheng, which were an important part of Jin culture.
The Western Zhou Cemetery at the mouth of the Great River in Yicheng was rated as one of the "Top Ten New Archaeological Discoveries in China in 2010", and its discovery brought the hegemony that has never been recorded in the history books into people's sight. In the exhibition hall of "Jinba Spring and Autumn", tomb No. 1017 of the Western Zhou Dynasty of Dahekou is displayed in a holistic boxing manner, covering the tomb with a thick layer of bronze and white shells, and presenting the original appearance of the cemetery with holographic phantom imaging. Several pieces of lacquered wood inlaid with mussels have been found in the cemetery, as well as many bronzes with inscriptions.
The bronze bird cup excavated from the Baguo Cemetery is strangely shaped and covered with exquisite ornamentation. The copper bird has a long, tubular flow that extends obliquely forward, and has an elephant head and foot at the bottom of the lower abdomen of the tail, and the trunk is rolled outward. The bronze bird has a lid on the back, and the lid is engraved with a 51-character inscription. Some experts believe that it is a wine vessel, and some scholars speculate that they are the utensils used by ancient nobles to wash their hands on occasions such as sacrifices, feasts and drinks, based on the copper plates unearthed with them.
"From the middle and late Western Zhou Dynasty onwards, the hegemonic state gradually declined, and it was likely that it was annexed by the powerful Jin state in the early Spring and Autumn Period." Liang Jun said.
The "Model Giant Array", composed of 26 pottery molds and pottery fans, occupies a wall of the exhibition hall. These models and fans were excavated from the Houma cast bronze site, with a variety of types such as tool fans, weapon models, and ceremonial instrument fans, and the surface has decorations such as crab patterns and scales as thin as hair, which are the products of the development of bronze culture in the Jin Dynasty to the peak.
At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, the Jin Dynasty was in constant strife, and the princes and Qing Dafu formed alliances to fight against hostile forces. In the exhibition hall, there is a group of Hou Ma Meng books unearthed in 1965, made of jade pieces, on which vermilion characters are written with a brush. "The discovery of the Book of The Huma League is of great significance to the study of the ancient oath system, ancient scripts, and the history of the Jin Dynasty." According to Liang Jun, the Covenant Book is generally in duplicate, one is hidden in the League Mansion, and one is buried in the ground or sunk in the river.
The Book of Hou Ma meng witnessed the participation of Zhao Martin, the jin secretary of state, in the late Spring and Autumn period in a fierce political struggle within the Jin state from the dispute between the six secretaries and the four secretaries. It was this political struggle that opened the prelude to the major event of "three branches of the Jin Dynasty", which marked the beginning of the Warring States era.
Witness the vicissitudes of Pingyang
Linfen was called Pingyang in ancient times, and was named after the city built on the north bank of Pingshui. The exhibition hall of "Qianqiu Pingyang" features units such as "The Development of Iron", "Ancient Sources" and "The Light of Banruo", which show the local characteristic culture of Linfen from the Qin and Han dynasties to the Ming and Qing dynasties.
Liang Jun led the reporter to a booth more than 12 meters long, "I want to introduce the Zhao Cheng Jinzang in particular." "This vast Buddhist text was engraved and printed during the reign of the Jin Emperor, with more than 7,000 volumes and more than 4,000 existing volumes, which are not only Buddhist books, but also involve philosophy, history, astronomy, almanac, etc., and are now an isolated and extremely precious book.
In 1933, the Zhao Cheng Jinzang was discovered at Guangsheng Temple in Hongdong. In 1949, it was transferred to the collection of The Peking Library (now the National Library). The "Zhao Cheng Jinzang" and the "Yongle Classic", "Siku Quanshu", "Dunhuang Testament" and called the treasures of the four major towns of the National Library, and there is also a volume in the Linfen Museum.
Linfen iron smelting industry has developed since ancient times, there are records of iron smelting in the Spring and Autumn Period, and reached its peak during the Tang and Song Dynasties. In the exhibition hall, a 44-centimeter-long Tang Dynasty iron reclining cow bears witness to the thousand-year vicissitudes of Linfen City and is also the treasure of the Linfen Museum. This iron bull has been excavated 3 times in history, the earliest was in the second year of Later Liang Kaiping (908), when Xu Huaiyu, the assassin of Jinzhou, led an army to repair the city wall, and everyone believed that it was an auspicious object, so it was carved in stone, and it was placed in a stone box with the iron cow and buried in the old place. In the sixth year of Ming Hongwu (1373), When Pingyang commanded Hu Yuan to clean up the foundations of the old city, he found stone boxes and iron cattle, which were regarded as strange objects, and ordered people to write inscriptions and bury them here. In 1977, the iron bull was excavated again with stone boxes and stone tablets, and they were well preserved.
"Linfen has a profound historical and cultural heritage, and under the premise of ensuring academic and scientific nature, we use ingenious exhibition methods and advanced scientific and technological means to make cultural relics come alive and tell the story behind cultural relics." Di Youfei, director of the Linfen City Museum, said. (Reporter Fu Mingli) (The pictures in this article are provided by Linfen Museum)
People's Daily Overseas Edition (07th edition, January 25, 2022)
Source: Xinhua Net