Source: Xinhua News Agency
Xinhua News Agency reporter Cai Xinyi Wang Yifei
In the northern part of the Loess Plateau and on the southern edge of the Maowusu Sandy Land, stands the site of a stone castle about 4,000 years ago - the Shiji Ruins. With the progress of archaeological research, the Shiji site continues to provide new evidence for exploring the origin of Chinese civilization.
This is the Imperial City Terrace of the Shiji site taken on August 6, 2022 (drone photo). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Bowen
At the 4th Chinese Archaeology Conference, the latest archaeological results of the Shiji site were announced: since the excavation in 2022, more than 40 tombs have been found in the Imperial City Platform of the Shiji site, and the tombs are distributed in rows, and the stone wall is used to divide the garden, with obvious hierarchical distinction. This is the highest-grade Shiji culture cemetery found so far, and it is an important empirical evidence that the Shiji civilization has entered the early state form.
From October 23rd to 25th, the 4th Chinese Archaeology Congress was held in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, and more than 800 Chinese and foreign archaeologists conducted in-depth exchanges on the theme of "the formation and development of a unified multi-ethnic country".
Chinese civilization is as bright as a river of stars, stretching and shining. Researcher Chen Xingcan, member of the Faculty of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and director of the Institute of Archaeology, said that after more than 100 years of hard work and practice by several generations of archaeologists, it has empirically proved China's million-year human history, 10,000-year cultural history, and 5,000-year civilization history.
In recent years, from the important achievements of the major project of "Archaeological China" to the continuous deepening of the "Chinese Civilization Source Exploration Project", from the gradual implementation of the topics related to the formation and development of a unified multi-ethnic state to the rapid development of scientific and technological archaeology and underwater archaeology, new measures and achievements in the field of archaeology have continuously deepened people's understanding of Chinese civilization.
Attaching importance to ritual music and storing rituals in instruments is a Chinese cultural tradition. As early as prehistory, the ancestors created a system of jade ritual vessels. Liu Guoxiang, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that field archaeological investigations have found that the number of burial jade species and the change of combination relationship in the Hongshan culture distributed in the Xiliao River Basin can reflect the burial hierarchy and form a system. Similar "jade ritual systems" have been found in the Lingjiatan culture in Anhui and the Liangzhu culture in Zhejiang. Jade has witnessed the formation and development of the integration and pluralism of Chinese civilization, showing the continuity of Chinese civilization.
This is the opening ceremony of the 4th Chinese Archaeology Congress (photographed on October 23). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Li Yibo
The "steppe style" gold ware of the southern tomb of Empress Dowager Bo in Shaanxi, the "Baikal ornamentation" of the site of Shangyi Sitai in Hebei, and the "Romanesque bath" of the ruins of the ancient city of the Tang Dynasty in Xinjiang... In recent years, the imprint of multicultural integration in China's new archaeological discoveries has unveiled the mystery of East-West and cross-regional civilization exchanges. Gong Guoqiang, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that inclusiveness is a characteristic of Chinese civilization. Among the precious relics found in the ruins of Tang Chang'an City, physical materials such as epitaphs, tomb murals, three-colored terracotta figurines, gold and silver devices, and glassware confirm the grandeur, prosperity and openness of Tang Chang'an City.
Cultural heritage is not only on land, but also in vast seas. Thanks to scientific and technological innovation and equipment improvement, China's underwater archaeology has entered a new stage of the deep sea. "We apply the short baseline positioning system to underwater archaeology, which can determine the specific location of diving archaeologists underwater and maintain communication, improving safety and efficiency." Feng Lei, deputy research librarian of the Liaoning Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and deputy leader of the "Jingyuan Ship" underwater investigation project, said that China's continuous improvement in the level of underwater archaeological excavations under low visibility is of great significance for excavating marine cultural heritage and interpreting Chinese civilization.
Not long ago, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage held a press conference to report on three important underwater archaeological achievements, namely the shipwreck site No. 1 and No. 2 in the northwest slope of the South China Sea, the shipwreck site of the Yuan Dynasty in Zhangzhou, and the Jiawu shipwreck site in Weihai, which concentrated on the progress made in deep-sea archaeology, ancient shipwreck archaeology and modern shipwreck archaeology in recent years, which is conducive to promoting the research and development and breakthrough of underwater archaeological technology, the research of the Sino-Japanese naval battle, the research of the ancient maritime Silk Road, and the exchange and mutual learning of civilizations.
Archaeology has no long day, and as archaeological work polishes the "starry sky" of Chinese civilization, the civilization code of "why China" is being unraveled.