The Paper's comprehensive report
Yao Shun Yu Tang refers to the general name of the emperor in ancient Chinese history, referring to Tang Yao, Yu Shun, Xia Yu, and Shang Tang respectively.
The ruins of the capital of the Shang Dynasty have been archaeologically confirmed, so where is the capital city of Yao Shunyu?
In the process of searching for the capital cities of Tang Yao and Xia Yu, the ruins of Tao Temple and the site of Erlitou gradually entered the field of vision of archaeologists, combined with the archaeology of the site and a large number of discoveries, which were considered by some experts and scholars to be Yaodu and Xiadu, respectively, and also directly related to the "earliest China". The Surging News learned that after half a year of preparation, the "Majestic As the Sky - Exhibition of Archaeological Achievements of the Tao Temple Site", which witnessed the meeting of the cultural relics of the two major sites, will be opened to the public on November 3 at the Erlitou Xiadu Site Museum in Luoyang City, Henan Province.
Located in Yanshi City in the eastern Luoyang Basin of Henan, the Erlitou site is about 3800 to 3500 years old, corresponding to the Xia and Shang Dynasties in ancient texts. The Erlitou site has important reference value for the study of major issues such as the origin of Chinese civilization, the rise of the state, the origin of the city, the construction of the royal capital, and the customization of the royal palace, and is recognized by the academic community as one of the most eye-catching ancient cultural sites in China. Erlitou Xiadu Site Museum is the research and exhibition center of early state formation and development in China, as well as the research and display base of the Xia-Shang-Zhou Dynasty Project and the Chinese Civilization Exploration Project.
Erlitou Xiadu Ruins Museum, photographed by Surging News reporter Li Mei
According to the information provided by the organizers, the "Majestic as the Sky - The Essence of archaeological achievements of the Tao Temple Site Exhibition" is set up in the special exhibition hall on the southwest side of the 2nd floor of the Erlitou Xiadu Site Museum, with an exhibition area of 950 square meters. The exhibition will take the archaeological excavation results of the Tao Temple site in the past few decades as the main line, and comprehensively introduce the important discoveries and cultural values such as the geographical location, the layout of the city site, the development of handicraft industry, astronomical observation, the prototype of the script, the initial rise of the ceremonial system, and the positioning of Yaodu through the four parts of "Table Li Shan River, Huanghuang Duyi, Ritual System Fucheng, and Heritage Inheritance".
Located in the south of Taosi Village, Xiangfen County, Shanxi Province, about 2,000 meters from east to west and about 1,500 meters from north to south, with an area of 2.8 million square meters, the Tao Temple site is one of the largest longshan cultural sites in the Central Plains. After research, the type of Tao Temple of Longshan Culture in the Central Plains was established, and in recent years, in the excavation of Tao Temple sites, combined with magnetometer and ground exploration radar geophysical exploration, environmental archaeology, animal archaeology, plant archaeology (pollen, flotation, species selection), human bone analysis, DNA analysis, astronomy and other scientific and technological archaeological means, including chronological discussions including carbon fourteen dating technology, further judging the absolute age of Tao Temple culture is between 2300 and 1900 BC. More than 70 similar sites have been found in the lower reaches of the Fenhe River and the XunHe River basin in southwestErn Jinxi. The ruins of Tao Temple are of great academic value for restoring the social nature of the late Neolithic period in China, the history of the emergence of the state, and the exploration of Xia culture.
He Nu, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the leader of the Shanxi team who has been engaged in the archaeological excavation and research of the Tao Temple site in Shanxi, previously wrote that the Tao Temple culture is divided into three phases: early, middle and late. The early period is 4300 to 4100 years ago, the middle period is 4100 to 4000 years ago, and the late period is 4000 to 3900 years ago, the division of these three periods is not only reflected in pottery, but also the rise and fall of the tao temple capital.
"The city wall is above the head of a man" in the ruins of the Tao Temple
The Zhushu flat pot excavated from the tao temple site has the character "Wen" written in cinnabar on it. Photo of the surging press profile
He said that the early ruins of the tao temple were not large, and there was a miyagi castle. The miyagi castle did not initially build a city wall, but dug a rectangular ring trench to enclose 130,000 square meters of space and play a role in protecting the rulers. Later, the city wall was built in the location of the lower noble residential area, and the lower noble residential area was also protected, which can be called "lower city", with an area of nearly 100,000 square meters. At this time, the ring trench of Miyagi Castle was filled in and the city wall was built. On both sides of Miyagi are ordinary residential areas. There is also a large storage area directly controlled by the ruler. The early royal cemetery was in the southeast corner of the site, and it was already in use in the early days of the Tao Temple. An important structure was also found on the north side of the site, which was built in the early days of the Tao Temple and continued until the middle and late period, but unfortunately the damage was very serious.
Although the early capital of Tao Temple is not very large, with a total area of about 200,000 square meters, the total area of the ruins is 1.6 million square meters, which was also a super large central settlement more than 4,300 years ago. Through the functional division at that time, it can be seen that Tao Temple already had a certain eyebrow as a capital city at that time. Another commendable place in the early days of the temple is the Great South Ditch, which was originally a road, which was later washed by rain and turned into a ditch, which led from the early royal cemetery to the northwest to the direction of the Temple of Earth, passing in front of Miyagi Castle. In terms of function, it is equivalent to a memorial avenue in the early days of the Tao Temple.
"In the middle of the Tao Temple, as the settlement form of the capital city, there was a huge change, this change was completed from 4100 to 4000 years ago, mainly because the early lower castle in the south was abandoned, and the miyagi continued to be used, and the north and west walls of miyagi were repaired or expanded, forming a huge outer city, which formed a twin-city system, which was the mainstream form of a capital city in later dynasties in China, that is, miyagi and outer miyagi (sometimes adding an imperial city), miyagi is equivalent to the Forbidden City in later generations. The outer circle wall is equivalent to the outer GuoCheng of Beijing. During this period, the area of the Tao Temple City site reached 2.8 million square meters, which is still the most conservative estimate. ”
According to previous data, during the excavation process, the archaeologists found an unprecedented scale of the city site, a matching king's tomb, the world's earliest observatory, a magnificent palace, an independent storage area, and a handicraft area under official management. Many experts and scholars have proposed that the ruins of Tao Temple are the capital of Diyao and are the earliest "China". According to the results of the excavations, the Tao Temple society was very different from the rich and the poor, and a small number of nobles amassed a large amount of wealth, forming a privileged class, and walked to the edge of the bangguo era and the Fangguo era.
In addition to the remains of the Tao Temple type, the site also includes the Miaodigou Phase II culture and a small number of relics from the Warring States, Han Dynasty, jin and Yuan dynasties. The discovery of the Tao Temple site is of great significance for exploring the origin of ancient Chinese civilization and the social history of the Yao Shun era.
Copper gear shaped vessel excavated from the site of the Tao Temple. Photo of the surging press profile
Wang Wei, former director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, once said that a series of archaeological evidence chains show that the Tao Temple site is quite consistent with Yaodu in terms of age, geographical location, connotation, scale and rank of the Tao Temple site, and the degree of civilization it reflects. In the academic community, more and more scholars believe that the ruins of Tao Temple are likely to be the capital of Yao.
Exterior view of the Erlitou Xiadu Ruins Museum
It is reported that the exhibition of the essence of archaeological achievements, with the theme of "majestic as the sky", is from four units: The Mountain and River, Huanghuang Duyi, Lizhi Fucheng, and Heritage Inheritance, comprehensively displaying the Tao Temple culture and Diyao culture, the exhibition is sponsored by the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the Shanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, the Linfen Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism, the Luoyang Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics, and the Linfen City Museum and the Erlitou Xiadu Site Museum.
Exhibition site
According to the Shanxi Evening News, the first unit "Table Li Shan He" is divided into two parts, "Archaeological Pottery Temple" and "Dragon Pan In the Present World", which will focus on displaying precious cultural relics and painted pottery dragon disks. According to Zhao Tengyu, the curator of this exhibition, as the beginning of the entire exhibition, the first unit starts from the basic geographical environment of Shanxi and Linfen areas, and takes the national treasure-level cultural relics of the Tao Temple site as the clue, which leads to the background reason and rationality of the birth of the Tao Temple site here.
The second unit, "Huanghuang Duyi", will tell the story of the ancient capital city found in the ruins of Tao Temple through a large map sandbox. The total area of the Tao Temple site is about 4 million square meters, of which the city site alone covers an area of 2.8 million square meters, which is grand in scale and spectacular. This unit starts from the perspective of urban planning, palace system, tombs, and settlement distribution of Tao Temple, and strives to tell the story of the city site of Tao Temple in popular terms. This unit is mainly divided into four parts: "Duyi City Site", "Palace System", "King-level Tomb", and "Cultural Distribution". Among them, the "King's Tomb" is a highlight, which will reflect the royal state of more than 4,000 years ago through the tomb.
The third unit, "Ceremonial System", is the most informative area of the exhibition. In terms of design, different types of ceremonial utensils, including written pottery, faience pottery, jade, musical instruments, bronzes, astronomical instruments, lacquered wood, etc., were extracted, and through the display and analysis of these excavated relics, the cultural outlook of the early rise of the ritual system in the Tao Temple cultural period was reflected.
This unit is mainly divided into "the first appearance of characters", "instruments to carry rituals", "visual time-giving" and other parts, of which the "first appearance of characters" part mentions that in the ruins of tao temple, archaeologists found characters with the prototype of Chinese characters, which is extremely important for exploring the origin of Chinese characters. The "Observation and Timing" section uses multimedia means to introduce the Tao Temple Observatory in detail. The Tao Temple Observatory is the earliest precision astronomical observation relic found in China so far, representing the highest level of scientific and technological development in the Tao Temple period.
The exhibition hall of "Ceremonial System"
The fourth unit, "Heritage Inheritance", is mainly divided into four parts: "Documentary Yao History", "Archaeological Evidence", "Folklore Legend", "Posthumous Commemoration" and "Archaeology Language", which presents the tao temple culture in three dimensions in front of the audience. In this unit, the curator extensively collected a large number of materials related to DiYao in the Linfen area, while comparing them with the archaeological findings of the Tao Temple site. Its purpose is to prove in space and time that the Linfen area was the capital and main activity area of Di Yao thousands of years ago. In addition, some cultural heritage closely related to Yao in provinces and cities outside Shanxi has been collected.
Zhu Shu character flat pot Linfen City Museum collection
Panlong pattern pottery plate M2001:74 Linfen Museum Collection
Stone Stone M3002:6 Shanxi Team Collection, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Copper Toad Collection of Linfen City Museum
Tugu M3032:1 Linfen Museum Collection
Shrew Drum M3015:15 Linfen Museum Collection
Located in Zhai Zhen Town, Yanshi City, Luoyang, Henan Province, the Erlitou Xiadu Site Museum is a major cultural project of the national "13th Five-Year Plan". Tao Temple and Erlitou, whether in the "Chinese Civilization Exploration Project" or in the "Xia Culture" project of "Archaeological China", are two key sites with supporting properties.
(The text of this article is based on the comprehensive collation of Linfen City Museum, Shanxi Evening News, Wenbo Shanxi, and The Paper's previous materials on the Tao Temple.) ）
Editor-in-Charge: Li Mei
Proofreader: Shi Gong