Erlitou site in Yanshi

Erlitou village, Yanshi City, Henan Province, is located between Yi River and Luo river. It is about 18 km away from Luoyang City, 2.5 km long from east to west and 1.5 km wide from south to north. It is the capital site of Xia Dynasty. In 1959, a large number of stone tools, pottery, jade and so on were unearthed here. Among them, small pieces of bronze, such as knives, barons, bells and so on, are the earliest bronzes ever seen in China. Two rammed earth foundations of large palaces were found in the third cultural layer. In the west, there is an area of about 10000 square meters. In the middle and north of the platform base, there is a palace base with a width of 8 rooms and a depth of 3 rooms, surrounded by veranda. In the southeast of the site, a large area of copper casting and Pottery Workshop sites were also found. It has been listed as a national key cultural relic protection unit. Erlitou site includes three natural villages, Erlitou, gebatou and sijiaolou, with a total area of 4 million square meters and four cultural layers. According to archaeological findings, Erlitou cultural site has a large scale, complete facilities and rich contents. Palaces, mausoleums, houses, roads and water wells have been found, and bronze casting sites at that time have also been found, and primitive bronze tools have been found, including weapons and wine vessels. This shows that the history of bronze culture in China has been quite mature in the Xia Dynasty, and that Luoyang is the first place in China to enter the bronze age. In the late Erlitou period, a large number of jade products were unearthed, including Cong, GUI, Zhang and other ritual vessels, and more ceramic products, such as tortoise, pig, sheep's head, dragon and snake patterns, turtle patterns and figures carved on the pottery. These archaeological discoveries reflect the development of culture and art in Xia Dynasty, and also reflect the wisdom of ancient Luoyang people.

Erlitou site

synonym

Erlitou site in Yanshi generally refers to Erlitou site

Erlitou site is a national key cultural relic protection unit. It is one of the first batch of six major cities in the project of exploring the origin of Chinese civilization

. The site is located in Yanshi City in the east of Luoyang basin. The most abundant cultural remains on the site belong to Erlitou culture. Its age is about 3800-3500 years ago, which is equivalent to the Xia and Shang Dynasties in ancient literature. The site is adjacent to the Guluo River in the south, Mang Mountain in the north and the Yellow River in the back. It covers three natural villages, Erlitou, gelongtou and sijiaolou, with an area of no less than 3 square kilometers. As a national key cultural relic protection unit, Erlitou site has important reference value for the study of the origin of Chinese civilization, the rise of the country, the origin of the city, the construction of the king's capital, the customization of the palace and other major issues, and is recognized as one of the most eye-catching ancient cultural sites in China.

According to the dating results, the Erlitou site dates from 1750 BC to 1500 BC (1730 BC to 1520 BC). The excavation began in 1959, and the remains can be divided into four periods. Palace, residential area, pottery making workshop, copper casting workshop, pits, tombs and other remains were found in the site. There are a large number of stone tools, pottery, jade, bronze, bone horn and clam artifacts unearthed. Among them, bronze Jue is the earliest known bronze container in China. Erlitou site is the naming place of Erlitou culture, and has been initially confirmed as the capital site of the middle and late Xia Dynasty.

Explore history

The discovery of Oracle Bone Inscriptions in 1899 and the excavation of Yin Ruins in Anyang in 1928 confirmed the existence of Yin Shang. The affirmation of "Shiji · yinbenji" will inevitably lead to the recognition that "Shiji · xiabenji" is also a faith in history. Therefore, in the 1950s, the archaeologists put forward the subject of Xia culture exploration.

In the summer of 1959, Xu Xusheng, a famous Chinese archaeologist, led a team to investigate the "Xia ruins" in western Henan, and found the Erlitou site, which opened the prelude to the exploration of Xia culture.

In 1977, according to the new archaeological results, Xia Nai named this kind of cultural relics "Erlitou culture".

Erlitou site covers an area of about 2 km from east to west and 1.5 km from north to south. The cultural relics include Yangshao culture and Longshan culture about 5000 years ago, and the Eastern Zhou Dynasty and the Eastern Han Dynasty. The prosperous period of this site is the Xia culture period from the 21st century BC to the 16th century BC. The archaeological circles call its main stage "Erlitou culture".

Since 1960, the Luoyang excavation team of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (now Erlitou team of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) has gone through three stages: the first stage: from the early 1960s to the late 1970s The archaeologists established the cultural framework sequence of the first to fourth periods, revealed the base sites of the first and second palaces, discovered the bronze smelting and casting sites, cleaned up the tombs of different levels, and determined the capital nature of the sites. The second stage: from the 1980s to the 1990s, archaeologists carried out a series of rescue excavations, including the site of copper casting workshop; found a number of architectural sites and tombs, unearthed a large number of pottery, bronze, jade, lacquerware, turquoise and so on. The third stage: since 1990s Since 2001, the team has carried out systematic drilling and key excavation in the palace area, found and cleared several large-scale building sites; explored the roads in the palace area and its vicinity, and found crisscross roads outside the palace area; in the spring of 2003, dissected and excavated the discovered roads, and found the palace city wall; in 2004, another road was found in the south of the palace city A large rammed earth wall built in the fourth period of Erlitou culture and a manufacturing workshop of green pine stone tools are important relics. In 2011, after more than a year of archaeological excavation, another well preserved large rammed earth foundation site was excavated. The base of the site faces south, with a total area of more than 2100 square meters. It is composed of at least three courtyards, east wall and East veranda. It has been built or added for at least three times. Archaeologists infer that its age is the second period of Erlitou culture, 3600-3700 years ago, which is the earliest multi courtyard large-scale palace building site discovered so far. A huge pit with a total area of about 2200 square meters was found in the northeast of the palace city and north of the palace buildings. According to experts, this site provides an important clue for exploring the source of the relevant sacrificial system of Yanshi mall.

Documentation

According to many historical records, the location of the capital of Xia is roughly in the Yiluo plain area, which is basically confirmed by the archaeological excavation of the Erlitou site in Luoyang. According to carbon 14 measurement, the absolute age of Erlitou site is about 1900 BC, which is equivalent to the Xia Dynasty. It has a history of more than 4000 years, with a total area of 3.75 square kilometers. There are large palace sites in it. Many archaeologists believe that Erlitou cultural site is the capital site of Xia Dynasty, that is, the location of Xia Zhenhe.

According to the ancient bamboo annals, "Taikang lived in the village of Zhenyi, Yi lived in it, Jie also lived in it.

This "bamboo annals" also contains: "Zhongkang is the emperor, according to the Qing Dynasty."

"Kuo Di Zhi" says: "the city is 58 Li southwest of Gong county in Luozhou, where Gai Jie lived."

According to Xia Benji in historical records, Taikang lived in the same place as Zhen, Yi and Jie. Yi was Houyi, a leader of the eastern Yi nationality. He took advantage of Taikang's lack of Tao and the resentment of the Xia people, and entered the state of Zhenyi. He refused Taikang. Taikang's death, Fu Zhongkang is the throne, still living in the Zhen.

According to the biography of Wuqi, the Great Sun Tzu in historical records, the residence of Xia Jie is located in the south of zuohe and Taihua on the right, with yique in the South and Yangchang in the north

"Guoyu · zhouyushang" contains: "Xiyi, Luojie, and xiawu."

From a rigorous point of view, the Xia Dynasty and its capital did not find any systematic writing to prove itself. However, according to the scope of Erlitou site and the scale of its capital, the area where Erlitou site is located is the ruling center of the three dynasties of the Central Plains in ancient times. If the Dynasty represented by Erlitou is not the Xia dynasty recorded in historical records, it is unlikely that it will be any other Dynasty.

Site evolution

The results of drilling and excavation since the new century show that Erlitou site is distributed in northwest southeast direction along the North Bank of the ancient Yiluo River, with the longest from east to West about 2400 meters and the widest from north to south about 1900 meters. In the north, it was destroyed by the current Luohe River, with an existing area of about 3 million square meters. It is estimated that the original settlement area should be about 4 million square meters. The central area of the site is located in the southeast of the micro highland, where there are important remains such as palace area and palace city (late period), sacrificial area, waiyuan workshop area and some aristocratic areas; the west is slightly lower, which is a general residential area, with small ground type and semi crypt type house foundations and small tombs with pottery as the main burial objects

.

Phase I

The first stage of Erlitou culture remains are widely distributed in the eastern part of the site, with a cultural accumulation area of more than 1 million square meters. Because of the serious damage, it is not known whether it belongs to a large settlement or a large site group composed of several settlements. The remains of this period have shown different scale and distribution density from the general settlements around Songshan Mountain in the same period. Among the remains, bronze tools, ivory implements, turquoise tools and other high-level artifacts and carved symbols have been found

. The Erlitou site of this period is probably the central settlement in a larger area. From the perspective of space-time evolution of settlements, Erlitou, as the cultural center of Erlitou, appeared abruptly in Yiluo plain, without the basis of local settlement development

. Such rapid population concentration

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