On the north bank of the Balwei River, a first-class tributary of the Yellow River, on the loess Liang Shan (mǎo), in Gaojiabao Town, Shenmu City, Shaanxi Province, stands a large-scale stone town about 4,000 years ago.
Before the official archaeological excavation of Shiyuan, there was a local theory that the jade of Shiyuan was sandwiched between the cracks of the city wall. Many people who have only seen the jade artifacts unearthed in Shiyuan are skeptical, because the jade there is only one or two millimeters thin, and if such a thin jade is sandwiched in the wall, will it not be crushed?
Why hide jade in the wall?
However, there is no doubt about the facts. Archaeologists excavated a jade shovel that was "inserted" in the middle of the stone crack in parallel in the wall of the outer urn city of the stone pass, and there was grass mixed mud between it and the stone walls on both sides, that is, this jade was deliberately pressed into the wall during the construction of the outer urn wall. Moreover, this jade shovel is not an isolated case, as confirmed by a large number of jade artifacts found in the city walls in subsequent archaeological excavations.
Source: Shiyuan Museum
Archaeologists have named this phenomenon "hidden jade in the wall". You can witness this phenomenon in the newly opened Shiyuan National Archaeological Site Park, and there is also a special section in the Shiyuan Museum to introduce this phenomenon in Shiyuan culture.
In the eyes of experts, the phenomenon of "hiding jade in the wall" is extremely special.
First of all, the concept and practice of using jade in Shiyuan are very different from those in other regions. Due to the rarity of high-quality jade, jade has always been a top luxury item in ancient times. For example, in the Liangzhu culture, which was earlier than Shiyuan, jade occupies a unique and prominent historical position, integrating divine power, royal power, and military power. Focusing on the worship of gods, the ancestors of Liangzhu designed a jade ritual system centered on Cong, Bi, and Yue to distinguish classes, identify identities, and reflect ranks.
After the outer city wall of Shiyuan was washed away by the rain, a very complete jade was exposed
In such a contrast, it is very rare for the stone ridge to be interspersed with jade objects in the city wall. Jade is mostly found in the tombs of sacrificial and high-ranking nobles, and jade is not necessarily found in the tombs of many ordinary people in later generations, but it was used in a large number of urban construction by the Shiyuan people 4,000 years ago.
Secondly, the Shiyuan people will repeatedly change the jade. From the jade artifacts excavated from the stone ridge wall, archaeologists also found that the modified jade is a common phenomenon here, which leads to the complex style of the stone ridge jade system. A typical example is a jade shovel in the collection of the Shaanxi History Museum, which is flat and long, with multiple inscribed lines on both sides, which is very similar to the multi-knotted jade cong of the Liangzhu culture, and is obviously restructured from the jade cong.
Stone Ridge Culture Jade Shovel
The jade cong is a typical artifact of the Liangzhu culture in the prehistoric Taihu Lake area, and was regarded as a belief by the Liangzhu people, and was used to worship the heavens and the earth—such a heavy weapon was actually cut into thin slices in the stone pass. The people of Shiyuan only took the outer side of the jade cong, removed the curved part of the inner side, changed it into a sheet, and pressed it into the wall.
If these transformed jade congs are really from Liangzhu, it will be very interesting. There are also many excavations of jade cong in locations outside the Liangzhu cultural center area, but only a handful of jade congs have been found in Shiyuan. The Liangzhu culture and the Shiyuan culture are two civilizations, and in doing so, are the Shiyuan people violently destroying the beliefs of other peoples, or are they just out of a preference for flake jade?
Third, the source and processing technology of these jades are also quite interesting. At present, the archaeological excavation area of Shiyuan is only the tip of the iceberg of the entire Shiyuan City, and thousands of jade artifacts have been unearthed. You must know that the bulk production of jade is either made locally or imported from other places. However, so far, no local jade resources have been found in northern Shaanxi.
Liangzhu culture jade cong tube. Source: Shiyuan Museum
If it is imported from other places, a series of matters such as the production of luxury goods, the extraction of materials, trade, transportation, and processing will be a huge project in prehistoric times. Behind the "hidden jade on the wall" not only shows the strong strength of the Shiyuan Kingdom, but also hints at the frequent and smooth communication network of prehistoric cultural exchanges.
In addition, the processing technology of the jade artifacts of the Shiyuan site is far beyond the imagination of modern people. The thinnest point of the recut jade is only 0.03 cm, and from the cross-section, it is assumed that the ancients used the technique of slice cutting, a process that is still time-consuming and laborious even today. The body of many large-scale artifacts in Shiyuan is also very thin, which is not only related to the lack of jade materials, but also closely related to the advanced jade processing technology at that time.
Yumen Yaotai, holy relics piled up?
The phenomenon of "hiding jade on the wall" is puzzling, what is the meaning of the Shiyuan people doing this?
Speaking of which, it is necessary to mention two other major features of the Shiyuan Kingdom: one is the recognizable large stone carvings on the city walls, and the other is the discovery of human heads laying foundations at the base of the walls and under the city gates. Taken together, these three situations, coupled with the layers of arched and unattainable royal city patterns, express that the people of Shiyuan have a spiritual expectation of their city walls.
Head pit
Some ancient Chinese tribes worshipped jade as a sacred object, and the Shiyuan people may have been one of them. In ancient Chinese mythology, "Yaotai" is the abode of the gods, and the "Jade Gate" is the gate for the gods to enter and exit, both of which are built with beautiful jade.
It is recorded in the historical book "Bamboo Chronicle" that Xia Wei, the last ruler of the Xia Dynasty, once imitated the treatment of the gods and goddesses, "building a tilting palace, decorating the Yaotai, making a Qiong room, and erecting a jade gate", and the so-called jade buildings in the real world are not completely made of jade materials, but can only be built into the building like Shiyuan, in order to ward off evil spirits and ward off enemies.
In addition to the jade fragments, there are also a large number of broken sheep bones in the walls of the stone wall, and they are just a carrier of witchcraft to protect the wall?
Stone carvings
Another possibility is influenced by the culture of the northern nomads, who had a Xi of putting the sacred relics of small tribes inside the walls as spiritual sustenance.
Some scholars have conducted a physical anthropological analysis of 104 excavated skulls from the sacrificial pit at the east gate site of the outer city and the site of Houyang Bay, and the skulls in the sacrificial pit at the east gate site of the outer city are mostly in the prime of life, and the ethnic characteristics are highly consistent with the aboriginal people in the area of the Great Wall of Inner Mongolia. These skull wounds indicate that the people of Shiyuan and the people in the area may have fought frequently for resources, and this is only a small window into the "wolf pack" of the Shiyuan Kingdom, and the Shiyuan may have completed cultural exchanges and integration in frequent wars.
A long-standing jade culture
The Chinese jade culture has a long history, and the Shiyuan culture occupies a unique historical position. We can't look at jade in prehistoric times with today's concept of "jade jade". At that time, jade was the material carrier and symbol of Chinese spiritual civilization and even institutional civilization, playing a variety of roles such as beautifying the body, communicating heaven and earth, constructing order, sacrificing to people and gods, symbolizing power, showing status, representing wealth, and containing thoughts.
"Fu Yu is also a divine object, and it is made by the Holy Lord", which is to the effect that jade, which is regarded as a divine object, is used by a sacred person like the Yellow Emperor to show his dominance. In the Liangzhu culture, jade was a symbol reflecting divine power, royal power and military power, and this meaning was widely spread for a long time; in Shiyu culture, "hiding jade on the wall" added a spiritual barrier or other more different cultural connotations to jade; in later generations, jade walked down the altar, walked out of the royal family, and entered the people's homes, becoming the spiritual symbol of the Chinese.
Imperial City
With the continuous efforts of archaeologists, the meaning represented by jade has also shown more and more vivid and real appearance. Just as Fei Xiaotong, a well-known sociologist in mainland China, said: Our archaeological community is taking the study of jade as a starting point, expounding the significance of jade in Chinese culture from a more profound level, and profoundly combining the study of archaeology with the study of spiritual civilization.
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Planning and production
This article is a work of popular science China-Star Project
Produced by丨Science Popularization Department of China Association for Science and Technology
Producer丨China Science and Technology Press Co., Ltd., Beijing Zhongke Xinghe Culture Media Co., Ltd
Author丨Yongqian, Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology (Shaanxi Archaeological Museum)
Review丨Wang Hongzhi is an associate professor at the School of Humanities, Shanghai Normal University
Planning丨Xu Lai
Editor-in-charge丨Cao Rui Yinuo