Plate 43
Three-layer green glazed pottery water pavilion
Late Eastern Han Dynasty
The height of the pass is 66 cm and the diameter of the pool is 38 cm
Unearthed in Sanmenxia City
"The Nature of Several Longshan Cultural City Sites in the Middle and Lower Reaches of the Yellow River: On the Origin and Formation of Ancient Civilizations"
Zhang Zhiheng, Proceedings of the International Symposium to Commemorate the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Excavation of the Chengziya Ruins, pp. 90-98, Qilu Book Club, 1993
In this paper, the nature and characteristics of several Longshan cultural city sites found in the Yellow River Basin are discussed, and the origin and formation of ancient Chinese civilization are discussed. It is believed that the sites of these Longshan Cultural Cities are different in nature due to their cultural relics, geographical location, size and age of construction. The site of Wangchenggang City is very small, and the area of the well-preserved Xicheng is only 7,000 square meters. According to the analysis of several round pits buried with "human animals" found in the west city of Wangchenggang, Wangchenggang should be the remains of the Zongmiao Temple of "Xia". The scale of the Pingliangtai city site is large, with an area of 40,000 to 50,000 square meters; There are wide walls; There is a gate in the middle of the south and north walls, and the south gate has a guard room, and there is a pottery drainage pipe under it; There are rows of foundations in the city, and some of the foundations have rammed pedestals at the bottom; There are copper smelting remains in the city. These characteristics show that Pingliangtai Castle already has the prototype of an early city, which may be the city of the first shang, that is, the capital of the "Fang Kingdom" of the first Shang Dynasty that was contemporaneous with the Xia Dynasty and submitted to the Xia Dynasty. The era of the border king city site is later than the Pingliangtai city site, and its city wall base trough has "human animals" and pigs and dogs "sacrifice" used for laying the foundation. This shows that the social development stage of the Border King Castle is later than that of Pingliangtai, which is roughly equivalent to the era of Wangchenggang. As a Fangguo capital in Ludong in the early Xia Dynasty, the Border King Castle should be more realistic. The area excavated at the Chengziya site is still relatively small, the city has not yet been excavated in a large area, and the overall layout of the castle is not understood, so the nature of the castle cannot be correctly judged.
These city sites are relatively small in scale, and only small rammed houses with simple structures have been found in the castle, and this small castle without palace architecture in the city is a feature of the early prototype city of the early Chinese civilization era. Most of the early castles had the nature of Jongmyo temples, such as WangchengGang. The emergence of the city is one of the signs of the emergence of class society, and the "human animals" used by wangchenggang and the border king for sacrifice and foundation laying fully reflect the class and oppression that accompanied the emergence of the city. On the whole, the castles of the late Longshan culture in the Yellow River Basin have obvious political and defensive nature, and do not yet have the nature of "cities" for commodity exchange.
According to archaeological data, it can be seen that the origin of ancient Chinese civilization is diverse. The origin of ancient Chinese civilization is in at least four regions: the Yellow River Basin, the Taihu Lake Basin, the Pearl River Basin and the Xiliao River Basin, of which the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River are the earliest birthplaces of ancient Chinese civilization. The formation period of ancient Chinese civilization can be divided into two periods. The early stage is the middle and late Longshan culture to the first phase of the Erlitou culture, and the later period is the second to fourth phase of the Erlitou culture. In the early stages, several large tribal groups were formed in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, and castles such as Wangchenggang, Pingliangtai, and Chengziya were the activity centers of these tribal groups. In the later stages, large palace buildings had emerged, and the state apparatus as an instrument of class rule had developed.
"The Legend of the Ancient Flood and the Castle of the Yongsan Era in the Central Plains"
He Hongbo--Journal of Zhengzhou University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), No. 1, 1994, pp. 10-17
At the beginning of the article, the author of this article proposed that in the process of human civilization, the myths and cultures of the peoples of the world often have unimaginable similarities, and the legend of the "Great Flood" is one of them. From the perspective of the world, the Nile Delta, the Two Rivers Valley, the Indus River Basin and other ancient civilizations have legends of floods, and China's Yellow River Basin is no exception. Although the occurrence of floods has brought disasters to people's lives, the ravages of nature have also provoked people's struggles, which often give birth to the first elements of civilization.
The 3000s BC was an important era in ancient Chinese history, during which the social productive forces developed greatly, and people gradually migrated to the Plains of the Central Plains. And this migration will inevitably lead to wars between tribal alliances, mainly the war between the two major cultures of the East and the West, and it is in this war that the Central Plains region first showed the dawn of civilization. If there is a flood, a way must be found to deal with it, and the initial failure of their respective governance has led the various tribes to unite to manage a river. In order to prevent the impact of the flood, the castle was created, and the long tribal war made the role of the castle as a war defense. Later, when the human rights were strengthened, palaces appeared in the city, and their role also underwent a fundamental change. In conclusion, the author believes that in China, an agricultural region that has long been based on water conservancy agriculture, the large-scale colonial activities and joint water control projects carried out by the two major tribes of the east and west to the lowland plains of the Central Plains in the prehistoric Longshan era have maintained the various cultures of the Central Plains, bred a splendid Chinese civilization, and greatly promoted the transition from a "datong" society of "equality for all" to a class oppressive class society. The castle produced in this process, as the crystallization of the factors of civilization, played the strongest sound of the times.
The source of the text is "Research Outline of the Origin of Chinese Civilization", published by Cultural Relics Publishing House in December 2003
Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Research Center for Ancient Civilizations, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, ed
The pictures and descriptions are from "Han Dynasty Architectural Ming Ware Unearthed in Henan", edited by Henan Museum, 2002