The archaeological story of Yinxu and Zheng Zhenxiang's good relationship with his wife
Tang Jigen
3,200 years ago, Chinese history entered the late Shang Dynasty. A woman known as a "good woman" who is active in politics. She inspected the harvest, presided over sacrifices, received dignitaries, and led the army to conscript. Courage and wisdom are vividly reflected in her. She is the earliest real person "recognized" by Chinese archaeology with a clear title and clear deeds. We can describe this ancient figure in such detail today because of a modern female scholar - Zheng Zhenxiang.
Zheng Zhenxiang, born in 1929, is a native of Dongguang County, Hebei Province. In 1950, he entered the museum department of Peking University. Two years later, the department of Peking University was adjusted, and she transferred to the archaeology major. In 1955, he became a graduate student at this famous Chinese university, studying Shang and Zhou archaeology. Zheng Zhenxiang graduated in 1959 and entered the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. After entering the institute, she first participated in field excavations in Luoyang, Zhengzhou and other places in Henan, and then transferred to the Anyang archaeological workstation of the institute, and never left the Yinxu business.
In 1989, Zheng Zhenxiang, then the director of the Anyang Workstation of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a famous female archaeological expert, worked at the foundation site of the Yinxu Palace building. (Xinhua News Agency Footage)
Anyang, one of the seven ancient capitals of China. It used to be the capital of the late Shang Dynasty, and the academic community called it Yinxu. From 1928 to 1937, the first generation of Chinese archaeologists Dong Zuobin, Li Ji, Liang Siyong and others carried out excavations here for ten years. A large number of Shang Dynasty carved oracle bones, bronzes, jade, pottery, and bone tools were cleaned up.
Zheng Zhenxiang, who came to Yinxu, immediately threw himself into field work. She chose the excavation site in Dasikong Village, east of the Yinxu site. Years of experience have made Zheng Zhenxiang develop the habit of solving academic problems through exploration. This time, she was thinking about the staging of Yinxu. For sites like Yinxu, staging is the basis for almost all research. If the staging cannot be solved, the accumulation of hundreds of years of Yin Ruins will be "squeezed" together, and it is impossible to describe the process of its formation. From 1962 to 1964, Zheng Zhenxiang excavated in Dasikong Village and observed the phenomenon of stacking and accumulation of Shang relics in different periods, and accordingly divided the Shang Dynasty strata here into four phases. Moreover, the stratigraphic relationship observed by Zheng Zhenxiang in Dasikong Village is universal in the Yinxu site, which can almost represent the entire accumulation history of Yinxu. In other words, the staging system based on Dasikong Village is applicable to the entire Yinxu. In Zheng Zhenxiang's staging theory, the first period is earlier than the second period, the second period is earlier than the third period, and the third period is earlier than the fourth period. Each issue has its own typical specimens, which generally correspond to the history of more than 200 years after Pangeng moved to Yin. Earlier, Zou Heng, another scholar at Peking University, based on archaeological data from the 30s of the 20th century, put forward a similar conclusion about the staging of Yinxu. The work of the two scholars corroborates each other, and to this day, the four-phase staging system remains the cornerstone of the study of Yin Ruins and Shang Dynasty archaeology.
The staging results of Dasikong Village are related to Zheng Zhenxiang's next major archaeological discovery.
In 1975, Zheng Zhenxiang arranged his fieldwork in Xiaotun, across the river from Dasikong Village. She first excavated two Yin Dynasty house foundations in the north of Xiaotun, and then found a well-preserved tomb. Exploration has shown that this is a noble tomb with abundant burial goods and a very high rank. So she decided to call it a halt and come back to clean the tomb the following year when she was fully prepared. In the spring of 1976, Zheng Zhenxiang came to Xiaotun again. When the tomb opened, she was shocked. There were 210 bronze containers buried in the tomb, plus a large number of weapons and tools, and the total weight of the bronzes reached 1.6 tons. In addition, there are more than 750 pieces of jade tools and hundreds of bone tools.
Whose tomb will this be? Zheng Zhenxiang focused his attention on the inscription of the word "women's good" or "good" on the 109 bronzes in the tomb. Could the owner of the tomb be the queen "good woman" frequently mentioned in the oracle bone inscriptions?
In order to determine the identity of the tomb owner, the age of the burial must be confirmed, and it must be accurate to the king. Because there are two "good women" in the oracle bone inscription, the age difference is more than 100 years. Coincidentally, a batch of pottery was unearthed from this noble tomb. Although the number is small, it has obvious characteristics. Pottery is the most "sensitive" dating artifact in the tomb. Zheng Zhenxiang observed these pottery and immediately remembered the excavations in Dasikong Village. In the Yinxu periodization system she established, the pottery in the tomb obviously belongs to the second period of Yinxu culture. Since it is the second phase of Yinxu, the era of the owner of the tomb must be the middle age of the Shang king of Yinxu not far from the Shang king Pangeng. Pangeng is the 20th king of the Shang Dynasty, and Yinxu is the relics left by the eight generations and twelve kings after "Pangeng moved to Yin". After calculation, the owner of the tomb should be the next generation living in Pangeng, that is, the 23rd Shang King Wuding era of the woman.
In order to "test" his judgment, Zheng Zhenxiang held a symposium with scholars from the Institute of Archaeology and the Institute of History of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as well as the Department of History of Peking University. Scholars have argued about the identity of the tomb's owner. The discussion was very lively, but everyone came to a surprisingly unanimous conclusion: the owner of the tomb was the queen of the Shang king Wuding. This is the first time in the history of Yinxu excavation that the queen's tomb has not been stolen and excavated. Based on various evidence, Zheng Zhenxiang believes that "good woman" is the "special reference" of the owner of the tomb, "woman" is his identity, and "good" (or "son") is his surname. In the genealogy of the Shang king, the woman is called Yan Xin, and "Xin" is his "temple number" in the ritual lineage.
A great woman who has been sleeping for 3,200 years is awakened by another woman in this way!
The archaeological story of the woman is not over.
In 1989, Zheng Zhenxiang, who was in the year of the sixtieth year, still stuck to the front line of the field. Fate allowed her to continue to bond with the woman. In this year, Anyang Yinxu Museum acquired land about 300 meters east of the women's tomb in order to expand the office space. Zheng Zhenxiang excavated within the scope of land acquisition in accordance with the usual practice. The excavations lasted two years and resulted in the clearing of a courtyard house, which Zheng Zhenxiang numbered as Site 54. When Zheng Zhenxiang excavated the foundation site of the main hall of this courtyard, he cleaned up a bronze cup under a step, and then found a number of sacrificial pits with burial pottery. These pottery are actually the products of the second phase of Yinxu culture. Looking at the bronze cup again, there are three words on it: "Martial Father B". In the oracle bone inscription, Wu Ding's father was nicknamed "Xiao Yi" after his death. The sacrificial pit is the second phase of Yinxu, and there is the title of "Father B" on the bronze vessel, which is enough to prove that the courtyard excavated by Zheng Zhenxiang was built in the Wuding period. This building is most likely the palace where the woman and Wu Ding walked side by side.
Zheng Zhenxiang's academic contributions are of course not limited to the excavation and research of the tomb of the woman, but her main excavation work does revolve around the woman's tomb. The two women spanned more than 3,000 years and forged a 30-year field archaeological relationship in Yinxu. Zheng Zhenxiang contributed extremely important materials to the archaeology of China in this era. Through the excavation of the tomb of Nuhao, our understanding of the Shang Dynasty has become flesh and blood, vivid and full of details.
As I write this article, it is the third day after the death of Mr. Cheng Chun Heung. In four hours, I'll be flying from Shenzhen to Beijing. This is a special trip to attend the farewell ceremony of Mr. Cheng Chun Heung. The mood is heavy and indescribable.
Mr. Zheng Zhenxiang is my supervisor for master's students. Her guidance to me was never a rambling talk, but a careful guidance at key points. Mr. Zheng originally planned for me to find a site to excavate in Yuyang Village on the outskirts of Yinxu, and then compile the materials to write a thesis. I understand that Mr. Cheng meant that he wanted me to go through the whole process of organizing the materials independently. But in the end, Mr. Zheng decided to let me study the relationship between Yinxu and Zhengzhou Mall, so I had "Yinxu Culture and Related Issues" published in the journal "Archaeology" in 1993, and later "Research on Chinese Business Culture" in the Journal of Archaeology. It can be said that without the paper supervised by Mr. Zheng Zhenxiang, there would be no concept of "Chinese business" that I later proposed, and there may not even be the discovery of Huanbei Mall.
To this day, I still remember asking Mr. Zheng Zhenxiang for details of the problem in Anyang. I remember walking into Mr. Zheng's dormitory in Anyang archaeological team in the winter, and seeing the slightly dry quilt stacked on the simple wooden bed. The heavy and mottled desk, the peeling vermilion lacquer, and the remnants of candles sticking to the tabletop all told my teacher that he had read with candles the night before. Looking at the thin brick walls, I could even feel the biting cold wind howling through the cracks when night came......
(Source: Xinhua Daily Telegraph)