Excavation area T8560, 8561 three-story lower remains
H32 Second Layer Bone
Y1
He Yuling's report from the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is entitled "Excavation of Bone making and pottery workshops in Huanbei Shangcheng, Anyang". The excavation began in October 2020 and is a continuation of the excavation of the ruins of the bone-making and pottery workshop in the north of Hanwangdu Village, with a total of 7 exploration parties and an area of 315 square meters. A total of 6 Shang Dynasty house foundations, 80 ash pits, 4 pottery kilns and 7 tombs were excavated. Through archaeological exploration and excavation in 2021, the main harvests are as follows: exploring a set of effective bone-making and pottery archaeological excavation models, fully ensuring the standardization and scientificity of field excavations such as on-site excavation, information extraction, data collection, etc.; through the identification and analysis of the phenomenon of relics, the cleaning and research of relics, there is a very clear understanding of the bone-making and pottery technology, operation chain production, handicraft products, etc. in the Huanbei Shangcheng period. In particular, the unique stripping method of bone making and the kiln construction technology in the cooked soil area of the Huanbei Shangcheng period constitute the unique technical style of Huanbei Shangcheng; the bone making and pottery workshops are closely adjacent, and the production areas overlap with each other, whether the production management, practitioners, and production processes make the two have a correlation, or whether there are other reasons that are not yet known, it is worth exploring in depth.
[The report was published at the "2021 Henan Archaeological Work Achievements Exchange Meeting" held in Nanyang, Henan on the morning of December 18, 2021]
Extended Materials:
Henan Anyang Huanbei Shangcheng cast copper, bone making workshop site
(Originally published in Popular Archaeology, No. 1, 2017)
Aerial photography of the excavation area
Pillar mold
Pattern pottery fan
Bone-making waste
Blower mouth
Crucible fragments
Copper engraving knife
From June to December 2015 and from March to September 2016, the Anyang team of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences conducted archaeological excavations in the east of Han Wangdu Village, Beiguan District, Anyang City.
A total of 2,547 square metres were uncovered during the two excavations, of which 1,497 square metres were excavated into the living soil. A total of 5 house foundations, 3 roads, 2 ash ditches, 346 ash pits, 7 wells and 38 tombs were found in the Huanbei Shangcheng period. After preliminary collation and analysis, this should be the copper casting and bone handicraft workshop area of the Huanbei Shangcheng period, which is the first time that a large number of related cast copper, bone-making relics and relics have been found in Huanbei Shangcheng. This discovery filled the gap in the copper casting and bone-making handicraft industry in the middle of the Shang Dynasty, and provided a substantial material for studying the evolution of process technology from the early Shang to the late Shang Period, so far, from Erlitou to Zhengzhou Shangcheng, to Huanbei Shangcheng, Yin Ruins, and Zhouyuan ruins, the bronze casting technology of the three generations of Xia and Shang dynasties has been penetrated. This excavation also provides conclusive evidence for the study of the handicraft layout of Huanbei Shangcheng and even the three generations period. (He Yuling)
Image source: Anyang team of the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Excavation leader: He Yuling
2018-2019 annual archaeological excavations in huanbei shangcheng workshop area
Excavations at the site of the Copper Casting and Bone Making Workshop in Huanbei Shangcheng began in 2015 and a large number of relics have been unearthed. Since October 2018, a total of 150 ash pits, 41 tombs, 4 house foundations, 4 wells and 3 cellars have been cleaned. The scale of the house base is small, of which F17 soil is more chaotic, containing a large number of broken pottery pieces, animal bones, etc., F20 has three pillar foundations, the bottom of the column hole is filled with broken pottery pieces; most of the ash pits are irregular in shape, filled with a large number of cast copper, bone making, living relics, speculated to be related to the production of fan and wake mud; most tombs are buried with pottery, and some are buried with bronze Yao, Jue, Xue, Ge and so on. The southernmost row of 9 tombs, arranged neatly from east to west, has a certain degree of planning, showing the characteristics of the family cemetery. The discovery and confirmation of artisan cemeteries is crucial for the study of the organization and management of handicraft production.
Anyang: The archaeological project "Huanbei Shangcheng" fills the gap in handicraft workshops in the middle of the Shang Dynasty
Time: 2020-12-31 Source: Anyang Municipal People's Government
In addition to the research directions such as the layout and shape of the capital city, what are the important discoveries of the Huanbei Shangcheng Archaeological Project? On December 30, the reporter learned from the press conference on the new archaeological achievements of Anyang City in 2020 that through archaeological exploration and excavation in 2020, the scope of the handicraft workshop area in the Huanbei Shangcheng period was further confirmed, and the gap of handicraft workshops in the middle of the Shang Dynasty was filled.
He Yuling, deputy director and researcher of the Anyang Workstation of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, introduced that the new pottery workshop was discovered in the archaeological project of Huanbei Shangcheng, and the central area of the bone-making workshop was found, laying the foundation for in-depth discussion of the layout and connotation of the handicraft industrial park; after preliminary collation and research, there was a clearer understanding of the technical characteristics of copper casting and bone making in the Huanbei Shangcheng period.
According to reports, in 1999, Chinese and foreign scholars jointly carried out a regional archaeological survey in the Huanhe River Basin in Anyang and found a large-scale late Shang Dynasty city site, which is the "Huanbei Shangcheng". Based on stratigraphic relations and carbon 14 data, it is speculated that the city site dates slightly earlier than the traditional Yin Ruins centered on Xiaotun, which is the location of the two Shang Dynasty capitals one after the other. The discovery of Huanbei Mall changed the previous academic understanding of Yin Ruins and rewrote the traditional concept of "Yin Ruins". In 2006, Huanbei Mall was listed as a World Heritage Site along with the traditional Yin Ruins.
Since 2015, the Anyang Workstation of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has been excavating the handicraft workshop area of Huanbei Shangcheng for 6 consecutive years, 570 meters north of the north wall of Huanbei Shangcheng, east and north of Hanwangdu Village. The excavation work in 2020 is divided into two parts, one is to continue to complete the task of excavation work in 2019. The purpose of the excavation is still to reveal the functional layout, production technology, production management and other aspects of the copper casting and bone making workshop in Huanbei Shangcheng under the guidance of the theory of handicraft production operation chain, and on this basis, to provide solid materials for the research of handicraft production technology, inheritance, product distribution, social etiquette and so on. Excavations of the remains of the copper-cast workshop area continue, particularly the large ash pit on the north side and the artisan cemetery. And through drilling and trenching, the scope of the workshop area is determined; the second is to test excavate the newly discovered bone-making and pottery workshops in the western part of the workshop area.
He Yuling: Huanbei model from the perspective of handicraft archaeology
Special Topics in Yellow River Studies: Lecture Series on Shang Civilization (Lecture 7) Academic Lecture on the Centenary of Chinese Archaeology
Lecture Title: Huanbei Model from the Perspective of Handicraft Archaeology
Speaker: He Yuling, Researcher, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Moderator: Hou Weidong, Associate Professor, Yellow River Civilization and Sustainable Development Research Center, Henan University
Lecture time: October 10, 2021 (Sunday) 15:00-17:00
The main contents of the lecture:
From 2015 to 2021, under the guidance of the theory of handicraft operation chain, after several years of continuous excavation, the archaeology of the handicraft workshop site in Huanbei Shangcheng has achieved important results, and a large number of relics and relics related to handicraft production have been found in the industrial zone mainly based on copper casting, bone making and pottery, laying a solid foundation for the study of handicraft archaeology in the middle of the Shang Dynasty. The unique "inlay method" copper casting technology, "stripping" bone making technology, and even pottery technology all highlight the concept of shouzheng innovation at this time, and its characteristics are more prominent than those of early and late shang. The uniqueness of this different industry should be related to the larger political environment at that time, which we tentatively call the "Huanbei model of the archaeological perspective of handicraft industry". Etiquette or social needs are the biggest driving force generated by the Huanbei model, but the craftsmen who are directly engaged in production activities are the direct driving force, "seeing through things and seeing people", and the excavation of the artisan cemetery also provides a unique perspective for the study of the Huanbei model.