"The major discovery of the Yin Ruins Oracle is of epoch-making significance in the history of the development of Chinese civilization and even human civilization. Oracle bone is the earliest mature writing system discovered in China so far, the source of Chinese characters and the root of China's excellent traditional culture, which is worth cherishing and better inheriting and developing. General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed in 2019 when congratulating Oracle on the 120th anniversary of its discovery and research.
▲ Yin Ruins, lying quietly on the shore of the Huan River, waiting for people to read and listen. Courtesy of Tang Jigen
Yin Ruins, confirming the existence of the Shang Dynasty, gave birth to the development of modern archaeology in China. The Yin Ruins Oracle preserves for us the 3,000-year-old text, from which we can see the social life of the Yin merchants 3,000 years ago; the bronzes, jades, architectural sites and rich sacrificial relics excavated from the Yin Ruins show the material achievements and spiritual features of the Bronze Age in Chinese history.
Looking back at the century-old history of Chinese archaeology, Yin Ruins is the cornerstone of the traceability of Chinese civilization. Nowadays, as a world cultural heritage, its archaeology, research and protection have attracted the attention of the whole world, not only becoming an important window to show Chinese civilization, but also shining a brilliant light in the progress of human civilization and the process of world civilization.
One
"A piece of oracle bone shocked the world" from the oracle bone to the discovery of Yin Ruins
According to the Chronicle of History, the earliest dynasty in Chinese history was the Xia, followed by the Shang. The founder of the Shang Dynasty, known as "Tang", inherited 17 generations and 31 kings after the founding of the country, from 1600 BC to 1046 BC, with a calendar of more than 550 years.
The territory controlled by the Shang Dynasty was roughly centered on present-day Henan Province, and included the surrounding areas. The Shang Dynasty moved the capital several times. Around 1290 BC, the Shang king Pan Geng moved the capital to the vicinity of Xiaotun in Anyang, Henan. Since then, it has not migrated for more than 270 years. This capital is known today as Yin Ruins, and the Shang Dynasty people of that year called it "Dayi Shang" or "Tianyi Shang".
The discovery of Yin Ruins is inseparable from the long-standing story: in 1899, Wang Yirong, the "sacrificial wine" of the GuoziJian, sent someone to grab the medicine, and when inspecting the medicinal materials, he accidentally found fragments of tortoise shells inscribed with words. The text on the oracle bone fragment is the later oracle bone.
In 1903, Liu Hu (Zi Tieyun), who was famous for his "Old Remnant Travels", published the oracle bones in his collection in the form of rubbings, and launched his important work in life, "Tieyun Hidden Turtle". In 1904, based on the "Iron Cloud Hidden Turtle", the chinese scholar Sun Yirang wrote the "Qiwen Example", which first interpreted more than ten oracle bone scripts. The pioneering works of Liu Yan and Sun Yirang paved the way for the birth of oracle osteology.
The real foundation of oracle osteology was laid by the paleographer Luo Zhenyu and the master of traditional Chinese studies, Wang Guowei. In 1910, Luo Zhenyu published the "Yin Shang Zhenbu Script Examination", which clearly pointed out that the oracle bone was a Shang royal script. In 1917, Wang Guowei wrote two articles, "Yin Bu Ci Seeing the Examination of the First Gong and The First King" and "Yin Bu Ci Seeing the Continuation Examination of the First Duke and the First King", according to the title in the oracle bone, compiled the shang king lineage table, and found that this lineage was basically the same as the shang king lineage recorded in the "History of Yin Benji". The relationship between the oracle and the Shang Dynasty was thus confirmed.
▲ Bu Jia. Courtesy of Tang Jigen
Unfortunately, in the 10 years since Oracle was discovered, people do not know where the words came from. Until 1908, the academic Fang knew that Anyang was the hometown of oracle bones, and Xiaotun on the shore of Huanshui was the old Yi of Yin Shang, which was the "Yin Ruins" mentioned in the "History of Xiang Yu Benji". The study of oracle bones and oracle bones excavated from the Yin Ruins proves the existence of the Shang Dynasty and the succession of the Shang Dynasty's throne.
The excavation of Yin Ruins waited for another 20 years. From 1928 to 1937, the first generation of Chinese archaeologists, Such as Dong Zuobin, Li Ji and Liang Siyong, carried out 15 excavations at Yin Ruins, which were temporarily suspended due to the Japanese invasion of China. In 1950, the newly established Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences resumed the excavation of Yin Ruins and continues to this day. By some measure, the Yin Ruins are the sites with the longest excavation time in the history of Chinese archaeology.
Two
Reveal the thick and splendid Shang Dynasty Duyi civilization
More than 90 years of fieldwork revealed the scale and connotation of the "Dayi Shang": when the Shang Dynasty royal family moved in, the palace and temple were first built on the south bank of the Huan River. Other clans who moved with the royal family built their own points on the periphery, and quickly formed a settlement framework of "Dayi Shang". Settlements continued to grow, roads and water networks were gradually built, and various handicraft workshops were scattered among them. The "Dayi Merchants" gradually developed into a "star cluster-like" Yi gathering center with the royal gathering place as the core and gradually expanding outward. Road networks, water networks, settlements, and workshops are intertwined to form a cityless capital with a total area of tens of square kilometers.
The main road network in the hinterland of YinXu is distributed in "two vertical and three horizontal", with a trunk road width of about 30 meters, of which two north-south trunk roads lead parallel to the Gongzongmiao district; three horizontal trunk roads are developed from northwest to southeast, intersecting with the north-south trunk road in the southern part of the Gongzongmiao area. The water canal is also divided into main canals and branch canals, and the main canal flows from northwest to southeast along the terrain after the water is divided from the upper reaches of the Huan River, and a number of tributaries are divided into southeastern directions in the hinterland of "Dayi Shang".
The Gongzongmiao Area is located on the south bank of the Huan River, surrounded by the head of the river on the east and north sides, and there is a water area adjacent to the river that connects with the Huan River, which is where the royal pool garden is located. On the east side of the pond garden is the royal palace and temple, mainly a courtyard. The outskirts of the temple area are dotted with settlements of different sizes, and the buildings are also dominated by courtyards, with auxiliary facilities such as wells, ponds, and internal roads. Because it is a "group of people living", the houses are "three or five groups", and multiple settlements will be relatively concentrated. In essence, the capital of the Shang Dynasty was a reflection of the "clan structure" of society.
Workshop types include copper casting, bone making, pottery, jade making, etc., and the layout shows a strong "cluster" distribution characteristic. At present, the largest workshop group found is the Nursery Northland Workshop Group, which includes three major handmade categories of Nursery Northland Copper Casting Workshop, Tiesan Road Bone Making Workshop, and Tongle Garden Pottery Workshop, and has unearthed sites or houses for molding, model making, casting, furnace relics and various pottery models. The newly discovered Xindian workshop complex is far from the hinterland of Yin Ruins, close to the Zhanghe River.
Wangling District is located on the north bank of the Huan River, across the river from the Gongzongmiao District, with an east-west length of more than 500 meters, a north-south width of about 300 meters, divided into east and west, all of which are walled. Four tombs, two tombs and one single tombs were found in the Wangling Area. The Four Tombs Road Tomb should be a royal tomb, and the Double Tomb Road Tomb and the Single Tomb Road Tomb may be the tomb of the spouse of the Shang King. All the tombs were stolen and excavated, but the loot was exquisite and luxurious.
The movable artifacts unearthed from Yin Ruins include a large number of bronzes, jades, boneware, pottery, toothware, mussels, bamboo and wood ware, lacquerware, leather goods, and textiles. Among the bronzes, Simu Pengfangding, Simu Xinding, Women's Good Triptych, Owl Zun, and carriage accessories driven by two horses are particularly interesting. Jade includes a variety of ceremonial objects, ornaments, tools and play items, with a wide variety of colors and colors. In addition to ordinary clay pottery, white pottery, hard pottery and glazed pottery (original porcelain) have also been unearthed.
▲ Simu Xinding. Courtesy of Tang Jigen
There have been three major discoveries in the Yin Ruins Oracle, namely the H127 Oracle Bone Storage Pit in 1936, the Xiaotun Nandi Oracle Bone in 1973, and the Huayuanzhuang Dongdi Oracle Bone in 1991. A considerable number of bronze inscriptions and pottery inscriptions have also been unearthed from the Yin Ruins, and the "Shu Si Zi Ding" inscription unearthed from the Hougang Sacrifice Round Pit is 30 characters long.
There is much debate about the definition of civilization, and archaeologists mostly agree that as an ancient remnant of civilization, there should be four major elements: city site, metallurgy, developed etiquette and writing. These elements are reflected in the Yin Ruins site. The overall layout of the Yin Ruins reflects the existence of the city site, a large number of bronzes unearthed are enough to prove the development of metallurgy at that time, all kinds of jade with clear functions and exquisite production indicate that the Shang Dynasty had a complete ceremonial system, and the oracle bones prove the existence of written writing. Therefore, the ruins of Yin Ruins are the embodiment of the civilization of the Shang Dynasty.
Three
Explore the source of an important cornerstone of Chinese civilization
In 2001, Yin Ruins ranked first in the selection of "100 Archaeological Discoveries of the 20th Century in China"; in 2006, Yin Ruins was included in the World Heritage List; in 2021, on the occasion of the centenary of modern Chinese archaeology, Yin Ruins was once again uncontroversially included in the selection of "Top 100 Archaeological Discoveries in 100 Years". All this is due to the unique value and influence of Yin Ruins, which is undoubtedly an important cornerstone for exploring the source of Chinese civilization.
Chinese history has developed from the prehistoric period. About 10,000 years ago, people came out of the cave and came to the riverside terrace to start agricultural settlement life, gradually forming the earliest villages. The cemetery found at the Jiahu site bears witness to the social landscape of the Yellow River Basin about 8,000 years ago. Sites such as Xi'an Banpo, Lintong Jiangzhai and Gongyi Shuanghuashu are vivid summaries of the level of human social development in the Yellow River Basin during the Yangshao culture period. From 5,000 to 4,000 years ago, the social development accelerated, the Yangtze River Basin ushered in the rise of Liangzhu culture, and Chinese society entered a new stage that archaeologists call "state" or "ancient country". More than 100 prehistoric ancient cities that have been discovered, such as Liangzhu Ancient City, Baodun Ancient City, and Pingliangtai Ancient City, record this era. After the "ancient kingdom", the "kingdom" rose. The major archaeological discoveries of this stage are represented by the ancient city of Wangchenggang in Dengfeng, Henan, the ruins of Yanshi Erlitou, Zhengzhou Shangcheng, Andyang Yin Ruins, etc., and the corresponding period is the Xia Shang Zhou recorded in Sima Qian's "Records of History".
Looking at the ancient ruins of the Xia and Shang Zhou dynasties, the Erlitou site as the last capital of the Xia Dynasty, the Zhengzhou Shangcheng as the founding city of the Shang Dynasty, its importance is self-evident, and the reason why the Yin Ruins are valued by archaeologists and historians around the world is that it reflects all the elements of Chinese society in the "kingdom" era.
The Gangwang Mausoleum Area northwest of Yin Ruins is the earliest king's mausoleum area found in the mainland. The tombs of the kings, the palace temple buildings, and the "Trinity" of the king's words in the oracle bones confirm that China 3,000 years ago was at the height of the "kingdom" era.
▲ The inscription on the inner wall of the "'good' conjoined copper urn" excavated from the tomb of The Lady Good. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Ang Lee
China at the "Kingdom" stage is also known as the Chinese Bronze Age, and the Yin Ruins unquestionably represent the heyday of the Bronze Age. With a space of more than 100 square meters, the tomb of Women's Good buried bronzes weighing 1.6 tons. If it had not been stolen, how many bronzes would have been buried with the tomb of King Yin? Weighing more than 800 kilograms, Simu Pengding has made contemporary people breathtaking. However, the copper basin (or copper ding) inner fan excavated from the Yin Ruins is 1.52 meters in diameter and the size of the vessel is larger than that of Simu Pengding.
The importance of bronze is not only in its size, but also in how it is used. The types and use methods of Yin Xu bronze ware contain rich contents on the basis of inheriting traditions. In the early stage of the Shang Dynasty, a large number of dings, zuns, axes, manes, and knights were cast, and after the development of the middle Shang Dynasty, by the Yin Ruins period, the ceremonial system with bronze containers as the core was completed, which was prominently manifested in the appearance of yao and jue as wine vessel pairings. In the tombs found in Yin Ruins, the higher the rank of the deceased, the more sets of Yao and Jue were formed, forming a combination of food utensils, musical instruments and ceremonial instruments with Yao and Jue as the core, and it was not until the Western Zhou Dynasty that it evolved into a combination with Ding, Gui and other food utensils as the center of gravity.
The Tomb of the Lady is the best-preserved noble tomb ever found. She was the consort of King Wuding, and her affairs are recorded in more than 200 records in the Oracle. Her tomb and the oracle bone text recording her deeds make her the earliest real person with a name and surname that Chinese archaeologists have "known" through archaeological excavations. From 1990 to 1991, archaeologists found a courtyard-style building in the northeast of Xiaotun. In front of the main hall of the building, a bronze cup with the inscription "Wu Father B" and several pieces of pottery from the early Yin Ruins were excavated. This courtyard is most likely the remains of a house where the woman and the Shang king Wu Ding lived. This mode of living, based on the "pole of the four sides", has been influential today.
The importance of the yin ruins archaeology is particularly reflected in the discovery of a large number of oracle bones. So far, the total number of animal bones and tortoise shells inscribed with writing from the Yin Ruins is about 160,000 pieces, including hundreds of complete pieces of bu armor or bones. The content of the oracle bone text involves ancestral temple numbers, sacrifice activities, hunting and logging, astronomical calendar, meteorological and lunar phases, agricultural affairs, birth, old age, illness and death, etc. Although there are many fragments of the Yin Ruins oracle bones, from an archaeological point of view, these carved oracle bones were actually buried in the whole pit consciously by the Shang Dynasty people. This also indicates that they were archives of the time, and their written content was authentic "written documents".
In the course of China's five-thousand-year civilization, how to emphasize the importance of the Chinese character system represented by the oracle bone script cannot be overstated. The Chinese characters represented by the oracle bone are the carrier of the inheritance of Chinese civilization, although the font has changed, but it has always been in the same vein, and it is a "living script" that is still used by more than one billion Chinese sons and daughters, and has become the gene and link of the Chinese sons and daughters who are connected by blood and life.
Four
A vivid example of the pluralistic unity of Chinese civilization
Looking back at China's prehistory, the Central Plains has undergone three major transformations in the past 10,000 years: from hunter-gatherer to agricultural settlement; from the coexistence of states to the rise of kingdoms; from the invention of writing to the emergence of written documents. Yin Xu recreates the historical achievements of three major transformations, and confirms with physical data that Chinese society has completely ended the "prehistoric era" and developed to an unprecedented peak. However, the significance of Yin Ruins is not only in its collection of history, but also in the influence of the Central Plains civilization on the civilizations of other surrounding regions, and in its radiation power to the civilizations of the same period.
The Shang Dynasty Tombs and Sanxingdui Eight Sacrificial Pits in Oceania, Xingan County, Jiangxi, are important discoveries in contemporary Chinese archaeology. Both represent a developed regional civilization based on the indigenous culture of the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and are roughly the same age as Yin Ruins. Studying the bronze culture of the two, we can clearly observe the powerful influence from the Shang civilization in the Central Plains.
The Ding, Yong, Gui, Bean, And Zhen excavated from the Xingan Shang Tomb were originally representative instruments of the Central Plains ceremonial ware system. The shape, ornamentation and casting method of a piece of copper excavated from the tomb can be traced back to the Central Plains Shang Civilization. The Sanxingdui sacrifice pits that best reflect the influence of Shang culture are the No. 1, No. 2, No. 3, and No. 8 sacrificial pits, all of which have found bronze statues. The three strings on the neck of the bronze statue are clear cultural memories of the Central Plains. The casting techniques used in the Xingan Shang Tomb and the Sanxingdui Sacrificial Pit Bronzes, including the block model method and the casting and welding process, are inherited from the Shang. The thunder patterns and flowing cloud patterns on the costumes of the large and small bronze figures in Sanxingdui also make people feel the strong influence of the Central Plains culture. This phenomenon is also reflected in other ceremonial vessels such as the jade zhang.
▲ Animal face pattern deer ear four-legged bronze ware. Courtesy of Tang Jigen
Cultural influences have always been two-way street. More than 70 divinations related to the Shu kingdom in the oracle bones, hard pottery urns from the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, primitive porcelain from the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and sheep's head knives, pipe axes, and bow-shaped instruments that are closely related to the grassland culture, all reflect the Broad Mind of the Shang Dynasty in absorbing surrounding cultures. Behind the outward radiation of Shang culture is the output of social system, etiquette ideas and production technology. At the same time, the Shang civilization is also improving itself in absorbing the surrounding culture. The Central Plains and the surrounding areas have merged in mutual learning, opening a new stage of cultural development. This is a vivid example of the formation of a diversified and integrated pattern of Chinese civilization.
The "Dayi Merchants" flourished in East Asia, when northern Africa was in the period of the New Kingdom of Egypt, and the two river basins entered the post-Babylonian era, and several major civilizations shone on the earth three thousand years ago. The information we read from Yin Xu was that the Shang Dynasty successfully consolidated the achievements of the kingdom's society, improved the state management system, developed a ceremonial system with bronze ceremonial vessels as the core, and built an oriental script system featuring oracle bones. All this injected strong vitality into the East Asian civilization represented by the Shang Dynasty. When the Egyptian civilization and the two river basin civilization were interrupted in the long river of history, the Shang civilization with oracle bones as the core has continued life to this day.
Yin Ruins, unearthing the earliest written documents, witnessed the Chinese society entering the "kingdom" stage, recorded the bronze culture of the heyday, and interpreted the new height of human civilization three thousand years ago. To this day, the archaeological excavation activities in the Yin Ruins Conservation Area are still continuing, and the cultural genetic codes buried in history are still waiting to be excavated and explored by later generations.
(The author is a chair professor at Southern University of Science and Technology, former leader of the Yin Ruins Archaeological Team, and chief researcher of the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.) ）
Source: China Nationalities Daily