From 2020 to 2021, the Zhouyuan Archaeological Team, composed of the Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology, the School of Archaeology and Archaeology of Peking University, and the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, will work to find the site of the Western Zhou City and the large buildings of the Pre-Zhou Period. Through investigation, shoveling and scraping sections, drilling, test excavation, large-scale exposure and other means, the site of the Western Zhou City in the Zhou Dynasty was confirmed, and a city gate and a large rammed earth building in the pre-Zhou and Warring States periods were excavated.
I. Site of the Western Zhou Dynasty
The exploration of the site of the Western Zhou City in Zhouyuan began in the 1980s. After several generations of unremitting efforts, by the beginning of this work, a large amount of information on the distribution of various types of remains has been mastered, and a "strip of rammed earth remains" (now identified as the northern city wall) has been identified in the south of Fengyan Village. Based on this information, we observed that Wangjiagou has a square bending angle and is surrounded by G30, G9, G18 and other Western Zhou ditches into rectangles, which speculates that there may be city sites in this range, and part of the ditch is a moat. After two years of verification work, it can be clear that this is the small city site.
1
Small town
The small city is located in the northwest of the Zhouyuan ruins, about 1480 meters from east to west and about 1065 meters from north to south, with a regular rectangle as a whole, with a direction of 352 ° and an area of about 1.75 million square meters. There are artificial moats on the north, east and south sides of the city site, and Wangjiagou as the moat on the west side (Figure 1).
Figure 1 The site of the Western Zhou City of Zhouyuan
East City Wall: Starting from the north of Qijia Village, turning to the northeast of Yuntang Pond, intersecting with the north wall in the west of Qiangjia Village. The city wall contains only base grooves, about 8 meters wide, and is partially superimposed by the later roads. An anatomical groove was opened, with a depth of 0.8 m in the visible base groove, 13 layers of rammed soil preserved, and a layer thickness of 0.06–0.12 m. The rammed earth was broken by ash pits in the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty. The east wall is a moat (G18) 14.9 meters to the east, with a width of 21.2 meters, a bottom width of 7.2 meters, and a maximum depth of 3.75 meters, and there are five dredging acts (Figure 2).
Figure 2 Section of the east wall of the small city and the trench of the east city (QiZhen T1)
South city wall: from the corner of Wangjiagou to the north of Qijia Village, the width of the preservation base trough is 25 meters. The plan reveals a section of the 10-metre-long city wall, complemented by a section of the fault to understand the structure, and the visible base trough consists of 6 parallel rammed earth blocks, each 4.2–5.7 m wide and 0.6–0.8 m thick (Figure 3). The ash pit at the time of the Shang Zhou under the rammed earth was broken by the ash pit in the late Western Zhou Dynasty.
Figure 3 The south wall of the town (Licun North T1)
West City Wall: From the west of Fengyan Village to the west of Hejia Village, 30-50 meters away from Wangjiagou. Two anatomical ditches were opened, and the visible wall base was 12.5-13 meters wide, consisting of three parallel rammed earths, with a thickness of 0.6-0.85 meters. A small tomb of the Foundation of the Shang Zhou Dynasty was found on the foundation of the wall, which was broken by a number of ash pits in the late Western Zhou Dynasty (Figure 4).
Figure 4 The western wall of the small city (Dongjia T1)
A total of 4 trenches and 5 shoveling ridges were opened for the verification of the small city wall. Work shows that the city wall was built between the time of the Shang Zhou Dynasty and the early Western Zhou Dynasty.
2
Big city
At the same time as the verification of the small city was carried out, in view of the large number of remains of the Zhouyuan ruins distributed in the east of the small city, we began to consider whether there was a big city in the east and southeast of the city. Based on the clues that some of the rammed land points were distributed in a linear manner, we investigated and found the south and east walls of the Ayutthaya, and then confirmed the Ayutthaya through drilling and excavations, and three cross-sections.
The big city is located in the southeast of the small city and basically includes the core part of the Zhouyuan ruins. It starts from Qiangjia-Yuntang (that is, the extension of the northern wall of the inner city) in the north; it goes to Xiawuzi-Zhaochen in the east, Zhuangbai-Liujiabei in the south, and Wangjiagou in the west. It is about 2700 meters from east to west and about 1800 meters from north to south, with a regular shape, a direction of 352 °, and an area of about 5.2 million square meters. Except for the southwest city wall, which was destroyed by soil extraction, most of the other parts have intermittent rammed earth foundation troughs.
East Wall and Gate: The east wall runs from the east of Xiawuzi Village to the south of Zhaochen Village, with a length of 1770 and a width of 5 meters. To the northeast of the base site of the Zhao Chen building, there is a 90-meter-long section of the base trough about 10 meters wide. After full disclosure, the doorway was found, which was 17 meters long and 5.3 meters wide, with a thin wall built separately on the north and south walls (Figure 5). The doorway was burned and covered with collapsed red-burned earth, and fragments of the abdomen of copper artifacts from the late Western Zhou Dynasty were unearthed on the ground (Figure 6). On the north side of the doorway, there is a gatehouse embedded in the city wall, which is 7.5 meters wide and 8.9 meters deep (Figure 7). One side of the city is connected to a curved ruler-shaped rammed earth platform, which limits the turn to the south after entering the city, similar to the urn structure (Figure 8-10). A horse pit has been found inside and outside the city wall on the south side of the gate (Figure 11), which may be a sacrificial remnant related to the gate.
Figure 5 Summoning Chen's eastern wall and door
Fig. 6 Fragments of bronze artifacts excavated from the doorway
Figure 7 Gate and collapsed pile
Fig. 8-10 Restoration of the city gate
Fig. 11 Horse pit next to the city gate
Southeast City Corner: Located in the southeast of Zhaochen Village, the plane is completely exposed, and the rammed earth plate can be seen vertically and horizontally. The south wall is 7.5 meters wide and the east wall is 7.2 meters wide (Figure 12). The dissection showed that the rammed soil was 0.65 m thick, the rammed layer was clear, about 0.08 m thick, and the ash ditch or ash pit of the late Western Zhou Dynasty was pressed down. Late Western Zhou pottery mane was unearthed in rammed earth.
Figure 12 Southeast corner of Zhao Chen
South Wall: From the southeast of Zhao Chen Village to the southwest of Li Village, it is 2415 meters long and about 10 meters wide. The plane exposes two places, the shovel scraping section 3 places, it can be known that there are 4 pieces of parallel rammed soil in the base trough, the bottom of the base trough is uneven, the depth can reach 2 meters, and the base trough is not dug deep in the raw soil. The rammed earth contains pottery pieces of late Western Zhou, which were broken by ash pits in late Western Zhou (Fig. 13-15).
Figure 13 Ayutthaya South Wall (Reimura South T1)
Figure 14 The southern wall of Ayutthaya (Licun South Break)
Figure 15 The southern wall of Ayutthaya (Qi Jia Nan T1)
2. Large-scale building site
Previous work has shown that the Zhouyuan site was the largest settlement in the Shang period in the central and western Parts of The Guan; bronze tombs have been excavated many times in the area of Wangjiazui and Shuang'an, but scientific excavation materials that can solve the nature of the settlement are very scarce. In order to explore the center of the pre-Zhou dynasty, we drilled in the Wangjiazui area and found a hard soil with many impurities. After test excavation, it was thought that it might be rammed earth, so combined with the 2020 Peking University undergraduate field archaeology internship and the field practice training of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, a large-scale exposé was carried out, and one large-scale building was found in the pre-Zhou period and the late Warring States period.
Pre-Zhou Dynasty Large-Scale Buildings (F1)
The base site of Building No. 1 is located in the north-central part of Wangjiazui. It is 38 meters wide from east to west and about 58 meters long from north to south, with a total area of more than 2,200 square meters. The 28 meters to the south have been revealed, which consists of the main hall, the east and west wing rooms, the front and rear courtyards, and the outbuildings. The main hall of the building is 19 meters wide and 12.5 meters deep, and it is a house with a width of 6 rooms, a depth of 3 rooms, and a porch in front. It is speculated that the overall structure is the front hall and the back room, similar to the fengchi group building (Fig. 16-18).
Figure 16 Wangjiazui No. 1 building base site
Figure 17-18 Restoration of Wangjiazui No. 1 Building
The foundation part of the base site has been flattened by the Warring States Cultural Layer and the Ming and Qing Dynasties, but hundreds of rammed earth foundation pits have been preserved, showing the regular column network layout (Figure 19). The surrounding courtyard has many preservation of road soil.
Figure 19 Foundation pit of Wangjiazui No. 1 base site
The foundation of the building is preserved as thick as 1 meter, and under it are the ash pits of the late Jingdang type, Yangshao and Longshan periods of the Shang Dynasty. The foundation is taken from the soil in situ, mixed and screened and rammed, so the soil is mixed (Figure 20).
Figure 20 Rammed earth foundation at Wangjiazui No. 1 base site
F1 rammed earth was broken by small tombs, urn coffins and ash pits of the late Pre-Zhou Period, and there were 6 small tombs buried in the front and back courtyards of the Pre-Zhou Dynasty, which were dated by carbon 14, with the upper limit of the late Jingdang type and the lower limit being the late Pre-Zhou period (Figure 21).
Fig. 21 Excavation of pottery mane from a broken rammed earth unit
Late Warring States Period Large-Scale Building (F2)
The no. 2 building site is located 25 meters west of the No. 1 base site, with an east-west width of 41 meters, a north-south length of 30 meters, and an area of 1,200 square meters. There is no rammed earth in the four corners of the base site, and a stampede was found. The base site is divided into 9 by 10 through wall base grooves, each of which is irregularly distributed with a large number of pillar pits with a diameter of 0.4-1 meter (Figure 22).
Figure 22 Wangjiazui No. 2 base site
The rammed earth of Building No. 2 is also an early cultural layer taken in situ, with many impurities and small impurities, and the rammed soil is even harder. The base site was broken by more than 20 late Warring States urn coffins, and during the dissection, it was found that the rammed earth contained pottery pieces of late Warring States, so the age is the late Warring States period.
The amount of pottery with the inscription "Gong" (Fig. 23) excavated from the abandoned strata of the building, combined with the special shape of the building and the dense wooden columns, is speculated to be a large granary of the dry column type.
Figure 23 "Gong" inscription pottery
3. Academic significance
The large scale and rigorous layout of the Western Zhou City site of the Zhouyuan Provide important evidence for further exploring the nature of the Zhouyuan site. ZhouYuan used to be considered "the religious center of the Zhou people" and "the settlement of the nobility". The city site discovered this time is the largest city site in the Western Zhou Dynasty, with a square shape and obvious planning, which is enough to change the previous understanding of "scattered settlements". Since the Warring States period, Zhou Yuan has not been clearly positioned in the traditional western Zhou historical narrative. However, archaeological remains and excavations of Western Zhou Jinwen reflect that Zhou Yuan was the most important capital city of Western Zhou, and some scholars even proposed that Zhou Yuan was the "Zong Zhou" in the written material. New archaeological discoveries support this understanding and may change the traditional perception of two millennia and advance research in related fields.
The discovery of the city site provides a reference background for the previously known ruins, and takes an important step towards clarifying the urban layout structure. For example: the Zhaochen building complex is close to the eastern wall of the outer city, it will not be a royal palace building, it may be a functional building of the city; the bone-making, jade, and copper casting workshops from Yuntang to Qijia are located near the eastern wall of the small city, far from the city center; the Fengyan building complex is located in the middle of the northern part of the small city, the direction is exactly the same as the city site, combined with the large area of rammed earth that exists around, the northern part of the small city should be the palace area. The vast majority of the bronze cellars of the nobles at all levels were found outside the small city, implying that in the late Western Zhou Dynasty, the small city was equivalent to the royal city, and the east and south of the small city were Guo Cheng.
The Wangjiazui No. 1 building is the first archaeologically discovered large-scale building of the pre-Zhou Period with a clear age, and its scale and complexity are unexpected. Drilling found that there was also a large area of rammed earth in the Wangjiazui area, which provided evidence for confirming the location of the center of the pre-Zhou state and laid the foundation for in-depth study of the formation of the pre-Zhou state. The Wangjiazui ruins area is facing a ditch on three sides, low and near the water, and 0.6 kilometers northeast of the site of the Western Zhou City with high-pitched and open terrain. From the natural terrain to the planned square city, it reflects the establishment process of the Zhou Dynasty.
Wangjiazui No. 2 has a special architectural form and may be a large official granary in the late Warring States period. At that time, the official warehouse was set up above the county level. The "Mei Ting" pottery text has been excavated many times around Wangjiazui, and this time we have also excavated two cases of "Meiyang" pottery in the Liu family cemetery (Figure 24). The work of the past two years shows that the remains of the Warring States from Wangjiazui to Liujiazui are quite rich. In the past, It was believed that Meiyang County was in the area of Famen Town, and the new discovery provided a basis for confirming the location of Meiyang County. "Hanshu Geographical Chronicle": "Meiyang, Yugong Qishan in the northwest." Zhongshui Township, king of Zhou. There is Gaoquan Palace, and Empress Qin Xuan is also up." Building No. 2 is not only a rare example of a grass-roots official warehouse in the Warring States, which enriches the connotation of the Zhouyuan site, but also conforms to the documentary records and enhances our confidence in determining the nature of the site.
Figure 24 The "Meiyang" pottery text was unearthed in M59, the Liu family cemetery
This article is from the WeChat public account of "School of Archaeology and Archaeology of Peking University"