The reporter learned from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage that the final evaluation of the "Top Ten New Archaeological Discoveries in The Country in 2021" began on March 28, and the final results are expected to be announced on March 30.
Shanxi Yuanqu North White Goose Cemetery: Archaeology Confirms the Latest "Wang Qing Caiyi" in the Zhou Dynasty
20 archaeological projects participated in the competition, covering prehistory to the Tang, Song, Yuanming and Ming dynasties, of which the Xia Shang Zhou archaeology had 6 entries, including the Shanxi Yuanqubei White Goose Cemetery, which unearthed Zhou Dynasty women's makeup boxes, bronze pots containing "fruit wine" and gold jewelry shaped like cat's feet, which once caused a boom in attention.
Beibaige Cemetery is located in Beibaie Village, Yuanqu County, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province, and since April 2020, the Shaanxi Archaeological Research Institute and other units have carried out comprehensive archaeological work on the cemetery. It has now been determined that the area of the cemetery is 200,000 square meters, and the main body of the cemetery is the remains of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.
Archaeological excavations in the past two years have revealed 39 tombs, 42 ash pits, 2 carriage and horse pits, 1 horse pit and 2 pottery kilns, which are concentrated in the early Spring and Autumn Period. A total of about 3,500 artifacts in 550 groups of various cultural relics have been unearthed, including the earliest fruit wine and cosmetic residues in East Asia, as well as gold jewelry shaped like cat's feet. Copper tiger pattern jars, copper Yong bells, etc., reflect the cultural exchanges between the Central Plains and the Rong ethnic group in the northwest and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
Among the excavated cultural relics, more than 140 bronze ceremonial vessels have attracted the attention of archaeologists, among which the combination of 7 Ding 6 Gui and 6 Ding 6 Gui shows that the owner of the tomb has reached the level of the princes; 59 sets with 17 inscriptions, the content involves the names of officials, people, national names and other contents, the number and richness of the excavated inscriptions are relatively rare in the same period, and it is also the most important discovery of this archaeology.
Yang Jiyun, head of the project of the White Goose Cemetery in Yuanqubei, Shanxi: According to the bronze inscription, it is the family cemetery of the "Taibao Zhongshi" in Chengzhou Caiyi, which is another "Wang Qing Caiyi" found in Wang Qi in addition to Yu and Rui.
Caiyi was a hereditary territory given to Qing Dafu by the rulers of the Zhou Dynasty as a reward for Feng Lu. As a large-scale cemetery with rich connotations and relatively complete preservation, the archaeological excavations of the White Goose Cemetery in yuanqu north provide valuable historical materials for the study of the caiyi system, cultural exchanges and the evolution of the political pattern in the two-week period.
Shaanxi Baoji Zhouyuan site Archaeology found a number of Zhou Dynasty "city" and "site"
The time goes back to the pre-Zhou and Western Zhou dynasties, competing for the "2021 National Top Ten Archaeology" of the Baoji Zhouyuan site in Shaanxi, through nearly two years of archaeological excavations, finally found and confirmed the pre-Zhou large-scale buildings and Western Zhou city sites.
According to reports, the Site of Zhou Yuan is the largest site of the Pre-Zhou and Western Zhou Dynasties, however, for a long time, no high-grade buildings of the Pre-Zhou culture have been found, and no city site has been determined in the Western Zhou Period, resulting in the nature of the site cannot be finally determined.
From 2020 to 2021, the archaeological team jointly formed by the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, the College of Archaeology and Literature of Peking University, and the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, after two years of excavation, found for the first time a large rammed earth building site in the pre-Zhou period, with a width of 38 meters from east to west, a length of about 58 meters from north to south, and a total area of more than 2200 square meters. This discovery provided important information for the search for The Zhou Dynasty's former Father-in-Law Zhou Wen, and for the center of the reign of the Pre-Zhou Dynasty.
Archaeological excavations in the past two years have also found a small city in the early Western Zhou Dynasty, as well as a large city and a city gate in the late Western Zhou Dynasty, with an area of about 5.2 million square meters, which is the largest known site of the Western Zhou City. According to the literature, the father of the ancient Gonggong migrated to "Qi" to change the name of the country to Zhou, to King Wen of Zhou, three generations of Zhou people lived here, and after the destruction of the Shang, Zhou Yuan was still the seat of the Zhou people's ancestral temple. Archaeology suggests that Zhou yuan was probably the most important capital city in western Zhou, and is expected to change the traditional view of the Zhou people "scattered" here for two thousand years.
According to reports, as early as 1976, the first large-scale archaeological excavation was opened at the Site of Zhouyuan, and since then, thousands of bronzes have been excavated, which is considered to be an important birthplace of Chinese Lile civilization.
Zhejiang Qujiang West Zhou high-grade mound tomb group: or confirm the real existence of the ancient Gu contempt state
Through excavations and investigations in recent years, the high-grade mound tombs in Qujiang, Zhejiang, which entered the final evaluation link of the "Ten Major Archaeologies", have gradually shown that the "Gu Contempt Country", which is only sporadically recorded in the history books, is very likely to exist.
According to reports, the high-grade mound tomb group in QujiangXi Zhou, Zhejiang Province, has now explored 10 large mound tombs in the area. With the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, from 2018 to 2021, the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology excavated four of them. The tombs have been stolen to varying degrees, and a large number of cultural relics have been excavated, and the shape of the tombs has gradually become clear. The more complete mounds are all because of the beetle-shaped wooden rafter tombs, and the burial chambers are about 12.7 to 14.3 meters long and about 6.2 to 8 meters wide. In particular, the wooden rafter has a "herringbone-shaped" slope on both sides, which has become the earliest example in China. Experts said that the qujiangxi zhou high-grade mound tomb group, with complex construction technology and bright local colors, is the largest and highest-grade mound tomb group in the Western Zhou period in the Jiangnan region, indicating that there should be an ancient political entity in the area.
At the same time as the excavation of cultural relics, archaeologists also carried out investigation and exploration around the tomb group, and found 1 western Zhou Dynasty city site and 13 sites, covering city sites, high-grade tombs, and general settlements.
According to experts, during the Shang and Zhou Dynasties more than 3,000 years ago, a mysterious ancient state of Gu Contempt was born in the central and western parts of Zhejiang, but the Gu Contempt State was only sporadically recorded in historical documents.
Based on the indications of large sites, excavated cultural relics and documentary records, experts have preliminarily judged that the Gu Contempt State is very likely to exist, and the qujiang West Zhou High-grade Mound Tomb Group is most likely to be the tomb of the Gu Contempt State. These archaeological discoveries provide new historical clues for the study of the formation of a unified multi-ethnic state during the Shang and Zhou dynasties.
Editor: Xing Zhibin
Source: CCTV News