Liangzhu in the Eyes of an Archaeological Journalist: One Dig for Five Millennia (Liangzhu Civilization) 9811937915, 9789811937910

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Liangzhu Civilization

Li Ma

Liangzhu in the Eyes of an Archaeological Journalist One Dig for Five Millennia

Liangzhu Civilization Series Editor Bin Liu, Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Hangzhou, China

The Liangzhu Civilization series consists of 11 volumes, namely: Realm of King and God: Liangzhu City; Fanshan Royal Cemetery: Pyramid of the East; Liangzhu Jade Artifacts: Legal Instrument and Royalty; Liangzhu Pottery: Introversion and Resplendence; Engineering and Tools: The Stone Story of Liangzhu; Painting and Symbol: Primitive Characters of Liangzhu; The Paleoenvironment, Plants and Animals of Liangzhu: ; China and the World in the Liangzhu Era; Eighty Years of Archaeology at Liangzhu; What Liangzhu Was Like; and One Dig for Five Millennia: Liangzhu in the Eyes of an Archaeological Journalist. Representing the combined efforts of archaeologists from the Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Zhejiang Province who have been exploring Liangzhu for over 30 years, the series boasts a wealth of significant findings made at Liangzhu, shares the archaeologists’ valuable experience, and includes abundant pictures of the excavation site. Accordingly, it will help readers develop a deeper understanding of Liangzhu Civilization and reveal the evolutionary course of Chinese civilization, characterized by ‘unity in diversity.’ Both the publication of the Liangzhu Civilization Series and the ‘Liangzhu Civilization Towards the World’ exhibition are expected to serve as a bridge to the public, thereby further disseminating Liangzhu Civilization and promoting an interest in traditional Chinese culture.

Li Ma

Liangzhu in the Eyes of an Archaeological Journalist One Dig for Five Millennia

Li Ma Qianjiang Evening News Hangzhou, China Translated by Jun Zhou China Global Television Network Beijing, China

ISSN 2730-6097 ISSN 2730-6100 (electronic) Liangzhu Civilization ISBN 978-981-19-3791-0 ISBN 978-981-19-3792-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3792-7 Jointly published with Zhejiang University Press The print edition is not for sale in China Mainland. Customers from China Mainland please order the print book from Zhejiang University Press. © Zhejiang University Press 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publishers, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publishers nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publishers remain neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Foreword

Liangzhu and Five Thousand Years of Chinese Civilization The combination of time and space is marvellous. When we look up at the starry sky and see the immense universe, the twinkling stars seem to be permanently embedded in the canopy of the heavens. However, we know from modern science that a lightyear is a unit of distance, and the light of stars from the depths of the universe was emitted in the distant past—the travel across time and space happens in the mere blink of an eye. Archaeology is also a discipline about travel across time and space. Through the door of time opened by our own hands, we can go back to different moments in human history, and 5,000 years ago was a special one. Globally speaking, the period 5,000 years ago was a great era in which civilization was born. Coincidentally, early civilizations all grew up in the world’s major river basins, such as the ancient Egyptian civilization in the Nile River Basin, the Sumerian civilization in the Tigris–Euphrates River Basin and the Harappan civilization in the Indus River Basin. How about the Chinese civilization 5,000 years ago? This issue has baffled scholars for quite a long time. They have examined ancient China’s cities, characters, bronzeware, etc., according to the international standards of civilization and found that the ancient Chinese civilization could date back to no earlier than the Shang Dynasty when the oracle bone script appeared. The history before the emergence of characters was called “prehistory” in archaeology. During China’s prehistoric times, different geographical units in the vast territory have given birth to cultural sequences with various characteristics since 10,000 years ago, which is figuratively called “the sky dotted with stars” in archaeology. China’s prehistory, however, has long been underestimated. We always take the Xia and Shang Dynasties as the origin of the Chinese civilization and take the Yellow River civilization as its core, which unconsciously downplays the historic significance of high-level ruins and high-grade relics in surrounding areas, such as those from the Hongshan culture in western Liaoning, the Shijiahe culture around the Yangtze River and the Han River, the Liangzhu culture in the Taihu Basin, the Taosi

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culture in southern Shanxi and the Shimao site in northern Shaanxi. As we explore the origin of the Chinese culture, we come to realize that some cultures like “stars dotting the sky” sparkled the first sign of civilization, and the Liangzhu culture is a particular one among them. The Liangzhu culture, an archaeological culture of jade worship, suddenly came into existence in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River approximately 5,300 years ago. Despite the fact that jade had already been widely admired, it was not until that period that jade worship reached an unprecedented climax. Different from the ornamental jade ware that many people love, Liangzhu people’s jade ware was made not merely for aesthetic purposes. Represented by cong,1 which belonged to the ritual jade ware system besides yue,2 huang,3 bi,4 crown-shaped ornaments, threepronged jade artifacts, awl-shaped jade artifacts, tablets and tubes, Liangzhu people’s jade ware symbolized their status, power or wealth. Various jade ware buried in earth mounds alongside the people with supreme power showed the dignity of the deceased, and the divine emblem often engraved on the jade ware demonstrated the Liangzhu people’s unified belief. The owners of the jade ware were Liangzhu’s ruling class who believed they could exercise the god’s will as the embodiment of the god. The types and quantities of the jade ware buried with them imply their social status and responsibility. It seems that the Liangzhu culture was once divided into multiple centers and covered a great number of small states, because extremely high-level tomb groups were found at the sites of Fanshan and Yaoshan in Yuhang District, Hangzhou, the site of Sidun in Wujin District, Changzhou, the site of Gaochengdun in Jiangyin and the site of Fuquanshan in Shanghai. Fortunately, history gave Yuhang an opportunity: more and more sites of the Liangzhu culture were found around the site of Fanshan, and the good protection of these centrally distributed sites allowed archaeological work to be carried out smoothly in the area. In retrospect, it provided a foundation for the rediscovery of the Liangzhu culture. Otherwise, no one would have realized that the scattered sites are different parts of the ancient capital city Liangzhu. We now can see that the Liangzhu City, composed of the imperial city, the inner city and the outer city, covers 6.3 square kilometers, around eight times the size of the Forbidden City. It boasts palaces, royal tombs, city walls, moats, a water transportation system inside the city, and a water conservancy system outside the city. It was a proper capital city in terms of its scale and layout, and the Liangzhu culture could reach the standards of civilization except for characters and bronzeware. Nevertheless, with our minds open, we may find that the general standards of civilization should not be applied rigidly when determining whether a culture has entered a civilized society or not. The significance of etiquette manifested by bronzeware in other civilized societies is reflected in jade ware in the Liangzhu culture. Despite the lack of a character system through which languages can be recorded and thoughts and 1

Cong (琮): a straight tube with a circular bore and square outer section with convex sides. Yue (钺): axe. 3 Huang (璜): semi-circular jade artifact. 4 Bi (璧): flat jade disc with a circular hole in the centre. 2

Foreword

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cultures can be passed down, the symbols incised on ritual jade ware could unify people’s thoughts to a great extent, and the impressive organizational and managerial capabilities of Liangzhu society reflected in large construction projects also suggest that there must have been a certain method for information transmission similar to the character system. For these reasons, the discovery of the Liangzhu City established the existence of the Liangzhu civilization. The archaeological studies of Liangzhu have lasted for more than eight decades. In 1936, Shi Xingeng first discovered black-surfaced pottery and stone tools, and today we have defined the Liangzhu culture as the first regional culture in ancient China that formed an early kingdom; in 1959, Xia Nai put forward the designation of “the Liangzhu culture” and scholars came to know the characteristics of this culture, and today we carry out multi-field and all-dimensional archaeological research on the Liangzhu civilization and the state form of Liangzhu becomes clearer and clearer to us. This book series, written by young and middle-aged scholars who are devoted to the archaeological work of Liangzhu, focuses on recent archaeological findings and studies of the ruins of the Liangzhu City in Pingyao Town, Yuhang District, Hangzhou, and contains a huge amount of information, including different aspects of the site that people hope to know, the history of the archaeological studies of Liangzhu, the palaeoenvironment, plants and animals of Liangzhu, Fanshan royal cemetery which is the highest level of cemetery in the Liangzhu culture, high-grade jade ware of Liangzhu often discussed by people and a wide range of pottery used in Liangzhu people’s daily life. On top of that, Liangzhu is also compared with other ancient civilizations in the world, and an intriguing series of news reports on Liangzhu is commented on by media professionals. We hope this book series can arouse readers’ interest in the Liangzhu civilization, so that more people can be inspired to explore our history. Perhaps many people would ask about the relationship between the Liangzhu civilization and the Chinese civilization because Chinese people are called the descendants of Huaxia5 in modern history but few people have heard of Liangzhu. This is understandable: we believe the Chinese civilization is a unified civilization of a state with its political power in the Yellow River Basin; it has survived from the Xia, Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han and Tang Dynasties and is still thriving today. However, the archaeologists have launched the “In Search of the Origins of Chinese Civilization” project to gain some insights into the earliest cultural form of Chinese civilization, so we should not have too many presuppositions for the earliest civilized society. Since we have found a 5,000-year-old regional civilization, the Liangzhu civilization, we may also find the Hongshan civilization in northern Liaoning and the Shijiahe civilization in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, though we are not able to confirm the existence of these civilizations at this stage due to limited archaeological findings. While the Liangzhu civilization started declining gradually 4,300 years ago, the elements of the civilization have been well inherited because of Liangzhu’s jade,

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Huaxia refers to a confederation of tribes—living along the Yellow River—who were the ancestors of what later became the Han ethnic group in China (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huaxia).

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and its influence has spread all over the country—regional civilizations actually have a nationwide and even universal influence. Human migration and communication have never ceased since the Paleolithic era. Population movement of different scales, degrees and forms have facilitated collisions, exchanges and integration between cultures, and the development of regional civilization is also a dynamic process. The one thousand years following the Liangzhu civilization—the earliest Chinese civilization we can confirm as of today—witnessed the successive prosperity of Taosi, Shimao and Erlitou, and the center of regional civilization changed from time to time. In this process, the elements of civilization, such as etiquette, hierarchical society and city structures, were inherited and integrated till the beginning of the Xia and Shang Dynasties. In fact, the Xia and Shang cultures evolved in their respective regions, and the change of the dynasties reflects the dominance of Xia was replaced by the dominance of the other regional civilization—the regions were much larger this time and the civilizations fought against each other during that period for the control over the territory. It was not until the Qin Dynasty that a state unified by centralized political power appeared in China. In this regard, the period from Liangzhu to the Shang and Zhou Dynasties saw the Chinese civilization’s continued evolution from a regional civilization to a unified one, so this period can by no means be separated apart. Written in Liangzhu May 2019

Liu Bin

Contents

1 Those Amazing Discoveries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 The Village—Once Home of Liangzhu Ancestors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 We Understand Less Than 20% of Liangzhu Culture . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.1 Yujiashan Settlements Influenced by Liangzhu Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.2 Yujiashan Ruins—Sign of 5,000-Year-Old Chinese Civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Liangzhu Pictorial Symbols Stir Controversy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.1 Large Numbers of Liangzhu Symbols Unearthed in Recent Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.2 Was It a Character, Earlier Than Oracle Bone Inscriptions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.3 Does This Symbol Stand for “Bird” or “Singing”? . . . . . . 1.4 Six Mysterious Symbols Displayed Vertically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4.1 Archaeologists Obsessed with Mysterious Symbols on Stone Artefacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4.2 Mental Workers—Creators of Primitive Characters . . . . . 1.5 Reading Pictorial Symbols—A “Vogue” in Liangzhu . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6 Restoring a Working Day of Liangzhu Ancients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6.1 Base Rocks Moved from Suburban Dazhe Mountain . . . . 1.6.2 Immense Workload to Move Rocks to Construction Site . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.7 Life of Liangzhu Ancients in Water-Abundant Region . . . . . . . . . . 1.7.1 The Earliest Known Water Conservancy System in China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.7.2 Liangzhu Ancients Lived by Water and Traveled by Boat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.7.3 Setting the Style for Waterfront Towns South of Yangtze River . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 4 5 6 8 8 9 9 11 11 12 13 17 18 20 21 21 22 24

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1.8

1.9

1.10 1.11

1.12 1.13

1.14

1.15 1.16

1.17 1.18

1.19 1.20 1.21 1.22

Liangzhu Ruins Discovered in Downtown Hangzhou . . . . . . . . . . . 1.8.1 Jiru Ruins: New Evidence of Old Town Moving Toward South . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.8.2 Liangzhu Ancients Skillful in Building Houses . . . . . . . . . 1.8.3 What Else We Don’t Know About the Liangzhu Culture? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Pier—Exclusive Gateway for Liangzhu Palace Elites . . . . . . . 1.9.1 Making “Sand Bags” for Consolidating River Banks . . . . 1.9.2 There Might Be More Than One Pier that Led to the Palace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Wells of the Liangzhu People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Songze and Liangzhu: Linked Cultures with Varied Styles . . . . . . . 1.11.1 Comparison of Pottery Designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.11.2 Comparison in Carving Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.11.3 Competition in Jade Ornaments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Treasures from the Tomb of Liangzhu King . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Discovery of 11 Dams Rewrites China’s Water Conservancy History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.13.1 How Were the Dams Discovered? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.13.2 How to Build the Dams? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.13.3 Authenticating the Water Conservancy System . . . . . . . . . 1.13.4 The Dams Capable of Resisting Severe Floods . . . . . . . . . Major Archaeological Discovery in Hydraulic Science . . . . . . . . . . 1.14.1 Imitating Liangzhu for Flood Control, Yu the Great Succeeded and His Father Failed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.14.2 Water Management Linked to Birth of Civilization . . . . . 1.14.3 Liangzhu Set Settlement Patterns South of Yangtze River . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Liangzhu Selected as Top 10 New Discoveries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Leave Fame and Merits Behind, as Duties Are Fulfilled . . . . . . . . . 1.16.1 Liangzhu Prehistoric Society Brings Joy to Zhejiang . . . . 1.16.2 More Discoveries Expected for Liangzhu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Ancient City—Home to Royalty, Craftsmen and Northerners Eating Millet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mysterious Disappearance—Where Had the Liangzhu People Gone? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.18.1 Liangzhu Culture “DNA” Hidden on Jade Plaques . . . . . . 1.18.2 Three Criteria for Naming Haochuan Culture . . . . . . . . . . 1.18.3 Haochuan—Major Destination for Liangzhu People . . . . Brilliant Transformation of Liangzhu Museum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Six Keywords Explain Why Liangzhu is Sacred Place of Civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The First Visitor to Relaunched Liangzhu Museum . . . . . . . . . . . . . Identifying Needs for Jades by Ancient Customers . . . . . . . . . . . . .

25 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 33 34 35 36 37 40 41 42 44 44 45 46 47 48 49 51 51 52 53 57 58 59 60 61 69 73 77

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2 Those Enterprising Archaeologists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Shi Xingeng: Born in Liangzhu, Born for Liangzhu . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.1 Chang Shuhong Taught Him Painting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.2 One or Two Black Pottery Shards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1.3 An Archaeological Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Fifty-Seven Explorers and Guardians of Liangzhu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 Fifty-Seven Archaeologists Discovered 5,000-Year-Old Civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2 Moving Forward Step by Step in Recovering History . . . . 2.2.3 Marriage of Couples with Long-Time Separation . . . . . . . 2.3 Mou Yongkang: Persistent Practitioner of Field Archaeology . . . . 2.3.1 Archaeology Was More Than a Straightforward Job . . . . 2.3.2 Rescue Excavation on Hemudu Ruins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.3 Conducting Research with Global Perspective . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Like Grass in Desert, He Takes Root Deeply to Survive . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Wang Mingda: A Man Comparing Virtue to Jade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.1 Thermos Factory: Three Archaeology Magazines and One Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.2 Excavation of Fanshan Ruins: We’ve Got It . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.3 Liangzhu Jades: A Perfect Combination of Material and Fine Craftsmanship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Narrative of Liangzhu by A Cheng . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.7 Liu Bin: Keeping Eyes on Stars and Feet on the Ground . . . . . . . . 2.8 He Draws Sacred Motif with Pen Thinner Than Hair . . . . . . . . . . .

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3 Applying for World Heritage Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Liangzhu Discoveries Attest to 5,000-Year Chinese Civilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 No Imitations Could Excel Over the Motifs on Jade Cong . . . . . . . 3.2.1 The Logo of Liangzhu Ancients—Originality in Big Eyes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.2 “Cultural Creations” of Liangzhu Imitated by Later Generations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2.3 Ways of Restoring the Past: Innovation and Invention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Colin Renfrew Confident in Liangzhu Applying for World Heritage Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 Foreign Archaeologists Voice Support for Liangzhu . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.1 World Acknowledgment of Liangzhu as a Symbol of 5,000-Year History of Chinese Civilization . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.2 Research of Liangzhu Rewrites the World History . . . . . . 3.4.3 Liangzhu Ruins Are of World-Class Significance, Not Just for China . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Ancient City Nominated for World Heritage Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Designing Souvenirs for Modern Customers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7 Ten Years of Digging for Five Millennia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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106 106 107 108 110 112 113 114 118 120 122 123 125 131 136

145 147 148 150 151 152 154 155 156 157 158 162 168

Chapter 1

Those Amazing Discoveries

1.1 The Village—Once Home of Liangzhu Ancestors On the afternoon of Apr. 13, 2012, China unveiled a list of the top 10 new archeological discoveries for 2011 in Beijing. Four years after the Liangzhu Ancient City in East China’s Zhejiang Province was chosen as a major new discovery, the Yujiashan prehistoric human settlement ruins, located in the Yuhang District of Hangzhou City, gained the same national recognition. “Four years of absence from the list went along with four years of continuous exploration and excavation. It was worth waiting for,” said Liu Bin, deputy director of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. He could not hide his excitement behind calmness when talking to me1 on the phone. 1

“Me” refers to the author of the book- archaeological journalist Ma Li of Qianjiang Evening News. All the interviews compiled into this book have been done by Ma Li.

© Zhejiang University Press 2022 L. Ma, Liangzhu in the Eyes of an Archaeological Journalist, Liangzhu Civilization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3792-7_1

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The excavation of the Yujiashan ruins emerged as a winner from 25 candidate properties competing for a place on the top 10 list. “This has been by far the largest and the most complete record about the Liangzhu Culture,” said Liu Bin. He explained that the findings from the ruins site did not come all of a sudden, and they were accomplished by archaeologists with continuous and integrated endeavors to overcome all the difficulties and complexities. The Yujiashan ruins site, located at Wanchen Community in the Yuhang Economic Development Zone, is 20 km to the east of the Liangzhu Ancient City. Approved by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology started comprehensive drilling, surveying and excavation on the site in October 2008, in cooperation with the Chiangnan Watery Region Culture Museum. In the same year, Liu Bin recalled, they dug through the first ring-moat settlement (A human settlement surrounded by a waterway system, e.g., a moat) and then another code-named VI. However, at that time, they were still unable to figure out the links between the two complexes. Later, the archaeological team located four more ringmoat settlements in and around Yujiashan. They went on digging outwards along the VI ring moat for three more square kilometers, but could find no other settlements. The team then realized they were coming to a close in identifying the overall structure of the Yujiashan settlement ruins. And those were what they finally discovered: six gentes lived separately on the six neighboring ring-moat settlements, which formed a village. “We believe a village constituted the fundamental social unit of Liangzhu” (Fig. 1.1). To explain the nature of these settlements dating back over 5,000 years, Liu Bin compared them to the basic units under a modern city administrative system: A city has jurisdiction over counties, and the administrative structure continued going down from one level to another, finally reaching the village level. He explained the Yujiashan settlements, home to six gentes, formed a village, the basic administrative unit of the Liangzhu Ancient City. This kind of social structure persisted from the early period of the archaeologically defined Liangzhu Culture to its late period. During four years’ time, Liu Bin and his team indulged their passion almost around the clock for uncovering the secrets from these prehistoric burial plots, and numerous pottery and jade artefacts. Their efforts finally paid off. On Apr. 13, 2012, Fig. 1.1 Southeastern part of the ring-moat settlement code-named VI: ring-moat corner and earthen platform

1.1 The Village—Once Home of Liangzhu Ancestors

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their archaeological findings won the recognition from a panel of some 20 experts for the selection of the top 10 new archaeological discoveries in China (Fig. 1.2). Till then, however, Liu Bin could not feel relaxed at all. He was still much worried about the follow-up preservation and exploration on the Yujiashan ruins. Prior to their archaeological intervention four years ago, local construction of roads had already damaged parts of two ring-moat settlements. Only four settlements remained intact and well preserved. “We will consult with local authorities and try our best to well preserve the ruins,” Liu Bin pledged. He still felt somewhat regretful about what had happened unfortunately with the Yuhang Maoshan ruins of the Liangzhu Culture—residential compounds were built by local real estate developers on the site where archaeologists first discovered large tracts of ancient rice paddy fields in 2011 (Figs. 1.3 and 1.4). Having witnessed the devastating impact of real estate development on ancient sites, the Zhejiang archaeological team faced greater pressure to preserve the Yujiashan ruins. “There were also rice paddy fields surrounding the Yujiashan ruins. We must preserve these precious remains,” Liu Bin said. In the coming period, his team would do more research on the ancient rice fields, while working out plans to build a Liangzhu Culture ruins park and a field museum. Fig. 1.2 Tomb M200 surface and burial articles

Fig. 1.3 M326 surface and burial articles

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1 Those Amazing Discoveries

Fig. 1.4 Symbol similar to “ 五” or “五” in horizontal display, incised on a black pottery pot shard, unearthed at the Bianjiashan ruins

The excavation of the Yujiashan ruins would continue after the site secured a place on the top 10 list. Liu Bin revealed that excavation on the site was yet to be fully completed, “We found no more ring-moat settlement after digging outwards for three square kilometers. If we dig outwards for eight square kilometers, we may locate another cluster of settlements.” (Original Title: Six Gentes Lived in This Liangzhu Village: Zhejiang Yujiashan Human Settlement Ruins Hit the List of Top 10 New Archaeological Discoveries in China, Apr. 14, 2012).2

1.2 We Understand Less Than 20% of Liangzhu Culture “This is the tomb of a male. The remains in the tomb pit are burial articles. Among them, the pottery objects were quite different from those used (by the ancients) in daily life, which were bigger and sturdier.” Archaeological workers, standing high on a beam, slowly removed a piece of yellow, opaque plastic sheet and an oblong tomb revealed its actual state: Besides pottery ding-tripods, dou-pedestal plates and pots, we could see clearly several protruding veins, which were actually the remains of the skeleton of the tomb’s master. Code-named M236, the newly excavated tomb of the Yujiashan ruins dated at over 4,000 years B.P. On Apr. 13, 2012, the Yujiashan prehistoric settlement ruins secured a place on the list of China’s top 10 new archaeological discoveries for 2011, marking another big step forward in the study of the Liangzhu Culture. Hearing the good news, Lou Hang, who was in charge of excavating the Yujiashan ruins, had no time to celebrate and relax. The associate research fellow from the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology soon immersed himself again in the fieldwork. From clearing up the remains to photographing, drawing diagrams and numbering objects, to their final extraction from the site, detailed records were made for the remains from every tomb, house and ash pit. “We’ll try to restore this large, high-grade human habitation to its original integrity as much as possible,” said Lou Hang. 2

All articles selected for compiling the book come from Qianjiang Evening News.

1.2 We Understand Less Than 20% of Liangzhu Culture

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1.2.1 Yujiashan Settlements Influenced by Liangzhu Culture The six newly discovered ring-moat settlements formed a complete habitation of the Liangzhu Culture. As the excavation and research was far from over, some researchers had to work overtime. On the day of doing interviews, I met a researcher who was repairing pottery artefacts at home, conscientiously removing mud, matching shards and gluing them together. “What we did before was to make discoveries. Next, we will carefully repair and restore the cultural relics we have discovered.” As an archaeological journalist, I interviewed Lou Hang, asking him to explain more about the excavation of the Yujiashan ruins. Journalist Ma Li: What was the purpose of building ring-moat settlements by ancient inhabitants? Lou Hang: Severe flooding occurred here several times. In order to avert the damage caused by floods, Liangzhu inhabitants had to build their living structures on highlands near mountains. In addition, they erected high earthen platforms to keep their houses from being inundated by flooding water. The ring-moat settlement complexes, which almost faced due south, had a rectangular layout with slightly rounded corners. Moats were dug around elevated earthen platforms on which houses and cemeteries were built up. The system of moats not only provided protection to people living inside the settlements, but also served as waterways to facilitate transportation as well as water sources for daily consumption. Residents were also buried here after death, as evidenced by over 400 tombs discovered inside the settlements. Journalist Ma Li: A large tomb for a female with the highest status in the settlements was excavated from the ruins. I heard police officers were deployed for its excavation. Lou Hang: That was true. The excavation took place at the end of May 2010. The whole process, from finding suspected remains and doing research to its discovery and final clear-up, lasted a month. At the outset of the excavation, we always felt something unusual buried there, but could not work out clear and complete lines for excavating the tomb pit. We dug through the earth back and forth, and that did waste lots of time. Finally, on one day, we drew up the digging lines for the inner and outer coffins and the tomb pit, and made up our mind to move ahead with the excavation. By the end of that morning, we had discovered some pottery objects. After a careful clear-up, we found exquisite burial articles including jade cong3 -style bracelets and 3 Cong was a form of ancient Chinese jade artefact. The shape of cong was characterized by the circular hollow section in the center and the square outer contour with four sets of identical patterns symmetrically carved in four corners and longitudinal grooves on four walls. The earliest cong came

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a flat-topped jade comb-head ornament with openwork carvings. An analysis of all the unearthed burials led to a conclusion that the tomb master was a female member of the Liangzhu nobility. Journalist Ma Li: How could the discovery of the Yujiashan ruins help with the study of the Liangzhu Culture? Lou Hang: The Liangzhu Ancient City was the capital of a regional state polity at that time. However, having acquired the knowledge about the city might not be adequate for understanding the social structure of the Liangzhu Culture. It is just like the research of a modern urban–rural structure: we need to know not only the city itself, but also the distribution of suburbs and townships. We need to have a holistic grasp of information about social organization and composition as well as their inter-relationships. The discovery of the Yujiashan ruins has provided strong support for research toward this end, as it portrays the social structures from the early to late periods of the Liangzhu Culture. If we say the Liangzhu Ancient City was the then political, economic and cultural center, then Yujiashan was part of its affiliated territory, belonging to the sub-center category of settlements at lower levels. The Liangzhu Culture lasted 1,000 years, so did the Yujiashan settlements, which developed under the prevailing influence of the Culture, from beginning to end.

1.2.2 Yujiashan Ruins—Sign of 5,000-Year-Old Chinese Civilization The Yujiashan ruins site is 20 km to the east of the Liangzhu Ancient City. The Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology started comprehensive drilling, surveying and excavation on the site in October 2008. Journalist Ma Li: Are there any specific plans for the protection of the ruins? Lou Hang: To build a ruins park and a field museum…both of them are possible. We’ll protect all the tombs we have known. There may be ancient cemeteries lying underground in some other areas, and we may leave them alone temporarily. Our mission for the future will concentrate on making academic breakthroughs.

from the Liangzhu Culture (3400–2250 BC). It was a major carrier of the Liangzhu sacred humananimal motif.

1.2 We Understand Less Than 20% of Liangzhu Culture

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Journalist Ma Li: Before the Yujiashan ruins site was selected as one of the top 10 discoveries, the Liangzhu Ancient City had already secured a place on the list. What is the current status of preservation out there? Are there any new findings? Lou Hang: After high walls around the Liangzhu Ancient City were found in 2007, we discovered its entrance gates and an outer city, where two sites were excavated later on: one was Meirendi and the other, Lishan. At Meirendi, we located an ancient network of river channels. At the center of the city, there was an artificial mound called Mojiaoshan, on which palace foundations were recovered. We made some drillings on it. Journalist Ma Li: The study of the Liangzhu Culture has lasted over 70 years. What have we got the most from it? Lou Hang: In an area of about 20 square kilometers around Yujiashan, we surveyed and excavated over 20 sites of Liangzhu Culture remains, indicating a relatively dense distribution of sites in the area. The Liangzhu Ancient City represented the highest grade of settlements discovered at that time. In the past, the international academic community generally recognized that the Chinese Civilization originated only at the Shang Dynasty,4 dated at 3,700 years B.P. The Liangzhu Ancient City has been one of the major symbols that prove the Chinese Civilization has a history of 5,000 years. However, after over 70 years of excavation, we are still not sure that we have known 20% of the Liangzhu Culture. There are still many unknown areas for us to explore. In archaeology, there are always countless unknown cases for us to crack and solve. (Original title: Why Has the Yujiashan Ruins Site Caught the Experts’ Attention? What is the Value of the Site being Selected as One of the Top 10 New Archaeological Discoveries? Excavation Project Manager Lou Hang: We Understand Less Than 20% of the Liangzhu Culture. Apr. 19, 2012).

4

The Shang Dynasty was the earliest ruling dynasty of China to be established in recorded history, though other dynasties predated it. The Shang ruled from 1600 B.C. to 1046 B.C. and heralded the Bronze Age in China. The dynasty was known for advances in mathmatics, astronomy, artwork and military technology.

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1.3 Liangzhu Pictorial Symbols Stir Controversy On Sept. 27, 2012, a symposium focusing on the “Research of the Liangzhu Culture Incised and Drawn Symbols”5 was held in the Yuhang District, Hangzhou City. The event was sponsored by the Liangzhu Archaeological Site Administrative District Management Committee and the Yuhang Branch of the Hangzhou Urbanology Research Council. Archaeologists and experts on ancient Chinese characters discussed the Liangzhu pictorial or simple geometric symbols, incised or drawn on unearthed artefacts. Some of these marks, like “王” “土” “五”, looked very similar to the earliest known Chinese written characters—the oracle bone inscriptions of the late Shang Dynasty, while others were totally different. Most importantly, some of these symbols emerged earlier than the oracle bone inscriptions. Were they the origins of Chinese characters? With this question, I had an exclusive interview with experts from the research group dedicated to the study of these pictorial symbols.

1.3.1 Large Numbers of Liangzhu Symbols Unearthed in Recent Years In the 1960s, only a limited number of objects with incised and drawn symbols were unearthed from the Liangzhu Culture ruins. After the 1990s, however, numerous pottery bearing similar symbols were unearthed in many large cemeteries and settlement ruins at Pingyao, Anxi and Liangzhu in and around the Liangzhu Ancient City. At the Zhuangqiaofen cemetery alone in Pinghu, Jiaxing City, the number of such newly found symbols exceeded 200. According to Xia Yong from the Liangzhu Museum, also a member of the Liangzhu symbols research group, they had collected 534 objects with 608 incised and drawn symbols since August 2012. At the symposium held on Sept. 27, researchers displayed large numbers of interesting symbols, some of them easily recognizable, resembling flowers, birds, lobsters, crocodiles and caterpillars. I took notice of a symbol which looked amazingly like an apple with a bite on it. Some of these symbols looked really similar to the ancient oracle bone inscriptions. In 1935, archaeologist He Tianhang found at Liangzhu a black pottery plate carrying over a dozen symbols. After comparing them with symbols from inscriptions on oracle bones and bronze objects, he discovered that seven of them had 5

The research project was originally named “Research of Liangzhu Culture Incised Symbols,” but later it was changed to “Research of Liangzhu Culture Incised and Drawn Symbols”. Archaeologists and experts on ancient Chinese characters realized that the Chinese character “画” refers to not only colorful drawing, but also to carving on the surface of objects, hence came the change of the project’s name description.

1.3 Liangzhu Pictorial Symbols Stir Controversy

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homographs in the oracle bone inscriptions, and three had homographs in those on bronze objects. Among the incised and drawn symbols displayed on Sept. 27, one on a black pottery ware unearthed at Bianjiashan resembled “五” or “五” of the oracle bone inscriptions.

1.3.2 Was It a Character, Earlier Than Oracle Bone Inscriptions? Written characters have been viewed as important symbols marking the origination of human civilizations. They evolved from ideographic symbols expressing single and simple meanings, and developed further to form a mature writing system. Undoubtedly, the oracle bone inscriptions, dated at over 3,000 years B.P., signified a mature stage for the development of a formal writing system. But before that happened, there must have existed relevant origination and transitional periods. Here comes the question: Had these incised and drawn symbols from the Liangzhu Culture, older than the oracle bone inscriptions, formed the origin of Chinese characters and the Chinese writing system? Lin Liugen, director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Nanjing Museum and a research fellow, said that although these symbols had yielded some influence on the culture of Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, it was still hard to tell whether they formed the origin of the Chinese characters system. In fact, incised and drawn symbols were also found at the ruins of the Yangshao Culture and Dawenkou Culture, older than those of the Liangzhu Culture. “They were more closely related to the origin of the Central Plains Civilization. It is not so significant to link them with the oracle bone inscriptions,” said Xia Yong. As to the question about who had created these symbols, many people believed they were the works of craftsmen. Lin Liugen could not agree to jump to conclusions, “These symbols might have been written by the users or inheritors of the objects, not just the craftsmen. They might include senior intellectuals with high workmanship, like ‘Steve Jobs of Apple’.”

1.3.3 Does This Symbol Stand for “Bird” or “Singing”? As the topic of “incised and drawn symbols” from the Liangzhu Culture was hotly discussed at the Yuhang symposium, I found many experts had different opinions on the correctness of such a term. The differences centered on whether such symbols represented characters or merely non-writing marks or signs for other purposes like individual identification. According to Liu Bin, deputy director of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, some of the Liangzhu symbols depicted images of

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birds, turtles and beasts, etc., some aimed to keep simple records, while others were ideographic characters. They should not be uniformly categorized as symbols. Liu suggested that they could be referred to as “Liangzhu imagery symbols.” “Characters are used for recording a language. The Liangzhu people used symbols to record their language. Once the system of symbols matured, they became characters,” said Cao Jinyan, director of the Institute of Cultural Heritage Research of Zhejiang University. He explained symbols could work as certain signs for identification, but they were not characters. The use of such individual signs should not be easily equated with the writing of characters. And Cao Jinyan gave an example: “x” was not a character, but a symbol. When a bird (鸟) was drawn on an object, we called it a character meaning “鸟”, but we could also say it represented characters which meant “歌唱” (singing). Cao Jinyan said that among the incised symbols found in recent years, some were symbols, while others might be characters. For instance, the four symbols on the black pottery hu-pot with pierced handles, unearthed at the Chenghu ruins in Suzhou City, could be viewed as the characters used by the Liangzhu ancients. He suggested researchers should describe a symbol objectively, saying it resembled a plant or an animal, but he also warned they should “never jump to a conclusion about which character it represents definitely. The earlier you rush to a conclusion, the greater probability you’ll make a stupid mistake” (Figs. 1.5 and 1.6). (Original title: Incised and Drawn Symbols Left on Pottery by Our Ancestors— What Do They Mean on Earth? 608 Liangzhu Incised Symbols Spark Controversy among Archaeologists, Sept. 28, 2012). Fig. 1.5 (Left) Argillaceous black pottery hu-pot with pierced handles (flank), unearthed at Chenghu ruins in Suzhou City

Fig. 1.6 (Right) Argillaceous black pottery hu-pot with pierced handles (front), unearthed at Chenghu ruins in Suzhou City

1.4 Six Mysterious Symbols Displayed Vertically

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1.4 Six Mysterious Symbols Displayed Vertically In July 2013, Xu Xinmin, a research fellow from the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, was compiling a research report, following the discovery of numerous incised and drawn symbols on over 240 artefacts unearthed at the Zhuangqiaofen ruins in Pinghu. More pleasant surprises came up later, when he found what he called “sentences” consisting of multiple symbols on two broken stone yue6 —battle axes. What was the meaning of these “secret codes” created by our ancestors? Were they in an intentionally arranged order consistent with the representation of the Chinese writing or simply random and unorganized markings? How to solve the puzzle caused a headache among the experts, though they understood that decoding these symbols would be a matter of special significance. The symbols might be considered the origin of Chinese characters, if proven to have some kind of “blood ties” with the oracle bone inscriptions emerging over 1,000 years later. In 2013, Liu Bin spelled out his own judgment on the identity of this group of symbols, “It might not belong to the Chinese character system and we should not compare it simply with the oracle bone inscriptions. It could be only regarded as a primitive writing system.”

1.4.1 Archaeologists Obsessed with Mysterious Symbols on Stone Artefacts In 2012, while attending the symposium themed on the “Research of Liangzhu Culture Incised and Drawn Symbols,” I took notice of various symbols in different shapes like flowers, birds, lobsters and crocodiles, etc. The participating experts demonstrated a great interest in the Zhuangqiaofen ruins in Pinghu City, where over 240 artefacts carrying a large variety of symbols were surprisingly unearthed during two phases of excavation—one was between June 2003 and October 2004, and the other, May and September 2006. Nine of the symbols were inscribed on stone objects, a rare discovery in the past archaeological excavations. “In the past, most of the incised and drawn symbols were discovered on pottery, and they were rarely seen on stone objects. This (new discovery) has pointed to the existence of a large variety of carriers of these symbols,” said Gao Menghe, professor from the Department of Cultural Relics and Museology at Fudan University in Shanghai. The excavation of large numbers of incised symbols has turned the Zhuangqiaofen ruins into an ideal site in China for the research of such symbols as well as primitive characters. 6 Yue evolves from stone axe, and the jade yue-ceremonial axe symbolizes power and authority in the Liangzhu kingdom. The deluxe version of jade yue was on a king’s scepter, the handle of which was coated with lacquer and inlaid with jade pieces.

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Among them, the symbols arranged in orderly repetition on two broken stone yue (battle axes) have attracted a great deal of interest from experts, who pointed out that they were markedly different from those signs incised on artefacts in an isolated or scattered way. More strangely, on one stone yue (battle axe), I saw six vertically arranged symbols in the shapes of “卜” and “日”, lining up in two-by-two repetition—“日卜日卜日卜” to form “a sentence”. “In general, symbols normally appeared singly and they were also drawn very casually. In contrast, the six symbols were written in a much better way, as reflected by normativity in strokes and sequences as well as configurations. Most importantly, they were arranged with repetition on a vessel to form ‘a sentence,’ which demonstrated the most important function of primitive characters,” Xu Xinmin explained. Obviously, these symbols had possessed certain functions in recording a language, much more mature than individually used signs like “勾” or “叉”. It is for this reason that the experts have called them primitive characters, but still, they could not tell what the “sentence” was all about. “They might have certain functions in recording a spoken language, such as expressing meanings and keeping records, similar to the oracle bone inscriptions, which could express the meanings linked with practicing divination, animal hunting and crops harvesting. At present, however, we are still unable to figure out what the characters are, not to mention deciphering their meanings,” said Gao Menghe.

1.4.2 Mental Workers—Creators of Primitive Characters Gao Menghe reckoned that symbols incised and drawn on objects were very likely the “signatures” of craftsmen, but those who inscribed primitive characters should have received some education. They must have been “mental workers from a social hierarchy higher than ordinary craftsmen who incised symbols onto objects. This had differentiated mental workers from physical laborers, which in turn demonstrated the existence of social division of labor at that time,” Gao Menghe said. As these Liangzhu symbols, which emerged over 1,000 years earlier than the oracle bone inscriptions, have been labeled as “primitive characters,” many people easily associate them with the latter, thinking they were the earlier forms of characters. Indeed, whether these symbols are primitive characters or merely simple scratch marks remains a highly controversial issue, which needs to be explored further by archaeologists. In the words of many experts, it’s still doubtful whether the Zhuangqiaofen symbols and the oracle bone inscriptions are from the same family. “We must not compare the symbols simply with the oracle bone script characters, as the latter is a coherent part of the Chinese character system,” said Cao Jinyan, a specialist on ancient characters. “Some symbols, though they looked like the oracle bone inscriptions, were only the primitive characters for the Liangzhu period. They should not be easily equated with the Chinese characters.”

1.5 Reading Pictorial Symbols—A “Vogue” in Liangzhu

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Some people hold the belief that these Neolithic symbols had evolved, step by step, to become primitive characters, which might have eventually led to the development of the earliest known Chinese writing—the oracle bone script characters. But Gao Menghe sounded a note of caution, saying the two might have come from separate family strains with different origins and evolution paths. For instance, primitive characters, almost as old as those from the Liangzhu Culture, were also found at the Dingong ruins of the Longshan Culture in Shandong Province and the Longqiuzhuang ruins in Jiangsu Province, in addition to those from the Zhuangqiaofen ruins in Pinghu. However, Gao Menghe believed that these primitive characters obviously did not have direct connections with the origin of the oracle bone script characters. “The oracle bone inscriptions were characters drawn by straight lines, with rectilinear forms. In contrast, many primitive characters found at the Dinggong ruins and other sites were drawn by curved lines, with round forms. It was unlikely that these primitive characters would have evolved into the oracle bone inscriptions, whatever happened.” There was another proof which showed the two did not have a sequential relationship in terms of their origination time. Gao Menghe pointed to the fact that craftsmen still incised and drew symbols or signs on objects during the later Warring States period. He questioned why the craftsmen did so, even as the Chinese characters had already been in use at that time. The triangular relationship among incised symbols, primitive characters and oracle bone inscriptions was so complex that it bore some similarities to “the evolution of the apes—some of them had evolved into human beings, while some remain unchanged,” Gao Menghe said. On the issue of whether primitive symbols formed the origin of the Chinese characters, Gao Menghe cautioned that people should not draw conclusions blindly. “The Chinese characters might have originated from multiple strains in different areas. The primitive symbols merged into one system, bit by bit, in a long process, during which some disappeared, some ceased to develop and some evolved further into the oracle bone script characters.” On the basis of the existing archaeological findings, Gao suggested researchers should not rely on the single-source theory to trace the origination of the Chinese writing system; instead, they should turn their eyes to multiple sources, in order to decipher the “secret codes” on the stone artefacts unearthed at Zhuangqiaofen. (Original title: What Did They Mean on Earth? Six Symbols Displayed Vertically in 2-by-2 Repetition—a Key Finding from the Pinghu Zhuangqiaofen Ruins—Led to New Discussions about the Origin of Chinese Characters, Jul. 9, 2013).

1.5 Reading Pictorial Symbols—A “Vogue” in Liangzhu On May 28, 2015, the publication of a book had attracted the attention of the archaeological community in China. Large numbers of experts from the Palace Museum, Fudan University, East China Normal University, and archaeologists in Zhejiang

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Fig. 1.7 A black clay pottery pot with a broken opening and mostly eroded black coating. Its grayish yellow carcass indicated high quality of pottery clay and high firing heat. Five pictorial animal symbols, incised before firing, spread around the pot’s belly

Province gathered in Hangzhou to show their support for the book’s release. They also attended a seminar to discuss the subjects covered by the book. Why had the book aroused such great interest from the participants? The book, titled “Pictographs of Liangzhu Culture,” highlighted 656 incised and drawn symbols in over 340 categories, unearthed from the Liangzhu Culture period, filling the void in the research of Liangzhu symbols. Did these Liangzhu symbols, over 1,000 years earlier than the oracle bone inscriptions, form the origin of the Chinese characters? “I am afraid not,” Zhang Zhongpei, the head of the Society of the Chinese Archaeology commented on the issue. As this remains a mystery, let’s brainstorm to find out what the Liangzhu inhabitants did with these symbols incised on pottery, stone and jade objects over 5,000 years ago. Assume they used these symbols as carriers of messages sent to the WeChat Circles of Friends, just like what we do today, then what did they want to proclaim or imply? The first pictorial symbol had big eyes, a short beard and a nose like that of a pig. It looked very cute. What kind of small creature was it? (Fig. 1.7). This pottery pot with a broken opening was collected in 1972 at Chenghu, Jiangsu Province. Amazingly, altogether five pictorial symbols were incised on the pot. If you observe them carefully, you may find they all seem to be images of different animals. With regard to the animal symbol displayed above, some scholars think it was a cat. Do you agree? Was it a pet kept by the owner of the pot? These symbols were carved on the pot before it was sent into a furnace for firing. Craftsmen used bamboo pipes or broken reed tubes to create pictures with smooth incising lines. The five symbols had about the same size, with a reasonable blank space left between them. Obviously, craftsmen carved the symbols on the basis of designing beforehand, instead of improvisation. The worship of birds was a very common practice during the Neolithic Age and it reached a new height in the Liangzhu Culture period—birds incised on objects “sing” everywhere. Of course, the birds did not perch randomly on any ordinary object to “sing”, but on high-end jades like bi7 -discs and cong-cylinders, which could show off the high status of their owners. 7

Jade bi from the Liangzhu Culture period was a flat disc with a circular hole at the center. Later traditions associated the bi-disc with heaven, and the cong-cylinder with the earth.

1.5 Reading Pictorial Symbols—A “Vogue” in Liangzhu

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Fig. 1.8 (Left) Pictorial symbol: A bird perching on a high platform

Fig. 1.9 (Right) Sketch of the symbol: a bird perching on a high platform

The second pictorial symbol in the Circles of Friends featured a bird perching on a high platform, incised on a jade bi-disc, which also carried images resembling a turtle and scorpion (Figs. 1.8 and 1.9). The jade might be related to ritual ceremonies offering sacrifices to heavenly gods. It might have been used as a carrier of “secret codes” to facilitate communication between wizards and heavenly gods appearing in the form of birds. It’s also interesting to find the Liangzhu symbol resembled the pictographic name of Djet, the pharaoh or king of the First Dynasty of ancient Egypt. His name “logo” featured an eagle perching on a high platform to symbolize power and authority. If you visit the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, you will see a similar sign incised on a pottery shard. Wow! What an amazing ancient world! People living in almost the same periods, but different parts of the world, generated similar creative ideas to serve different purposes of life. After seeing the third pictorial symbol, you may blurt out a Chinese character without any hesitation: That was “郑”—Zheng, representing a Chinese family name! (Fig. 1.10). The “character” was carved on the upper right corner of a stone yuebattle-axe unearthed at the Zhuangqiaofen ruins. On one side of the symbol, some lines were drawn in a seemingly random manner, but if you examine them carefully, you may also see a pictorial representation of a bird. Though you might have recognized “郑” with some imagination only, it was the sole “character” from the Liangzhu symbols which could be linked with the contemporary Chinese writing system. Among the 656 symbols, slightly over 30 of them were presumed to have links with the oracle bone inscriptions. The two parts of the symbol which resembled “郑” were actually separated by a relatively large

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Fig. 1.10 Stone yue-battle-axe unearthed at the Zhuangqiaofen ruins in Pinghu City, Zhejiang Province (On the upper right corner, there is a symbol similar to the Chinese character “郑”—Zheng.)

blank space between them. Hence, they could also be viewed as two independent symbols. The ring-foot jar collected from the Nanhu ruins in Yuhang, Zhejiang Province carried 12 “characters”. Did they form a “sentence”, representing a message that the ancient Liangzhu resident wanted to send to his Circles of Friends? (Figs. 1.11 and 1.12). One of the symbols on the jar obviously resembled a small four-legged animal. Guess what was it? (Fig. 1.13). Fig. 1.11 (Left) Ring-foot jar collected from the Nanhu ruins in Yuhang, Zhejiang Province

Fig. 1.12 (Right) Sketch of the 12 pictorial symbols incised on the ring-foot jar, collected from the Nanhu ruins in Yuhang, Zhejiang Province

Fig. 1.13 Pictorial symbol from the jar with round foot, incised after firing

1.6 Restoring a Working Day of Liangzhu Ancients

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Historian Li Xueqin thought the animal depicted in the symbol was a tiger, but slightly thinner and weaker than a real live tiger. He also deciphered eight of these characters: 朱(the color “vermilion”) 旗(flag) 践(trample, tread or act on) 石(stone) 网(net) 虎(tiger) 石(stone) 封(seal). What message did the creator of this string of symbols want to convey? Some experts thought the eight characters, reading from the left to the right, probably meant “people carry stone axes to catch a tiger.” However, the ancient Liangzhu residents did not have to write from the left to right as we do today. Though the eight characters could not make up a complete sentence, the emergence of strings of characters indicated that people in the late Neolithic Age had developed a preliminary capability of creating sentences, marking an advanced stage in the evolution of primitive writing. (Original title: Reading Pictures for Messages—a “Vogue” in the Circle of Friends of Liangzhu People; 656 Pictorial Symbols Create New Puzzles for Archaeologists— What does the New Book Tell about the Liangzhu Culture? Have a Guess. May 29, 2015).

1.6 Restoring a Working Day of Liangzhu Ancients Four to five thousand years ago, the Liangzhu people led a pastoral life, eating water caltrop, walnut, sweet melon and other organic foods, and rowing canoes to move around. Of course, they had to work during daytime, building the Liangzhu Ancient City for the royal family and the elites. Six years had passed since the discovery of the ancient city ruins in 2013. The most important evidence authenticating the discovery was a layer of paving stones forming the foundation of the circular city walls. The stonework had puzzled archaeologists for a quite long time: Where did they come from, and how many man-hours did it take to collect and stack up the rocks? To crack the puzzles, they started identifying the quantity and source of these building materials in 2011. On Mar. 24, 2013, I joined a group of archaeological workers to simulate the transport of rocks, in an attempt to restore a working day of an ancient Liangzhu inhabitant (Figs. 1.14, 1.15 and 1.16). Fig. 1.14 (Top left) Archaeological workers simulating transportation of rocks by an ancient Liangzhu laborer

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Fig. 1.15 (Top right) Simulating transportation of rocks by an ancient laborer

Fig. 1.16 (Bottom) Simulating transportation of rocks by an ancient laborer

1.6.1 Base Rocks Moved from Suburban Dazhe Mountain It takes two hours to finish a six-kilometer-long walk along the circular walls of the Liangzhu Ancient City. To build the gigantic structure, the Liangzhu inhabitants laid massive amounts of rocks under the ground to pave the foundation, over 6,000 m long and 40–60 m wide. “The Liangzhu people were very smart. They chose nearby locations to quarry rocks and transport them to the construction site, instead of moving rocks from far away,” explained Wang Ningyuan, a research fellow of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. He took me to the suburban Dazhe Mountain, about three-four kilometers away from the northern part of the ancient city. In 2011, archaeologists kicked off the project to identify the location of the quarries, and finally, they locked in the Dazhe Mountain. The mountain is divided into the eastern and western sides by the Kangmen reservoir in between. Which side was the most favorite place of the ancients to quarry rocks? Wearing white gloves, engineer Xu Honggen picked up a rock. He enthused, “Look! The stone contains something shining like transparent glass with a little greasy luster. It’s quartz!” Hearing his words, I moved closer to have a look—a few small bright substances embedded in the stone glittered like crystals under the sunlight. In fact, after several years of study, geologists had already ascertained the features of over 10,000 rocks unearthed from the ancient city ruins. They numbered each rock for conducting petrological analysis and finally determined that the rocks used

1.6 Restoring a Working Day of Liangzhu Ancients

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for paving the city wall base did not contain quartz, a geological feature that fully matched the rocks collected from the eastern side of the Dazhe Mountain. “We can conclude that the excavated northern city wall base was built with rocks collected from the eastern part of the mountain,” said Dong Chuanwan from the Earth Sciences Department of Zhejiang University. However, it was not easy to quarry hard rocks. How did the ancient laborers, who did not have metal tools, manage to perform this difficult task? Wang Ningyuan analyzed that if the ancients hit hard bedrocks directly to quarry rocks, the impact would cause sharp edges on the rocks… so sharp it could cut human hands. However, most of the rocks recovered from the foundation did not have sharp edges, indicating the quarrymen did not pry up the rocks, and instead they simply picked up the rocks rolling down from a slope (Fig. 1.17). But there were also exceptions. Some rocks with very sharp edges were found at the base of the northern city wall. Were these rocks knocked down by ancient quarrymen, using great physical forces? To verify our speculations, archaeological workers climbed up the mountain from a low ground in the east, preparing to imitate the Liangzhu people to pry up rocks with sticks. Unexpectedly, one of them easily pulled down a rock as big as a watermelon by hand and let it roll all the way down the slope. The rock had edges and corners, making everyone on the scene excited (Fig. 1.18). Fig. 1.17 Rocks discovered at the northern wall base of the Liangzhu Ancient City

Fig. 1.18 Archaeological worker imitating Liangzhu quarrymen to pry up a rock

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“It’s now easy to explain why the rocks for building the northern walls had edges and corners, but no traces from stresses exerted by any physical force from humans,” Dong Chuanwan commented on the simulation, while touching the crisscrossed cracks on the surface of the fractured stone. “Under the tectonic stress, the entire rock broke apart into pieces with different sizes. Based on this analysis, we can conclude that the work of the Liangzhu ancients was not as complex as we had assumed. What they needed to do was to pull up a rock along its cracks and let it roll down the slopes. It did not take too much hard labor.”

1.6.2 Immense Workload to Move Rocks to Construction Site After solving the puzzle about quarrying rocks from the Dazhe Mountain, archaeologists launched another attempt to find out how the rocks were transported to the construction site of the Liangzhu Ancient City. It could be basically confirmed the Liangzhu ancients used bamboo rafts to transport rocks, Wang Ningyuan said. “Bamboo rafts had wide bodies, and hence, were stable for transporting goods. They were also easy to repair. In contrast, the canoes had smaller loading capacity and poorer stability. It was also not easy to make and repair them.” Wang Ningyuan said that in reference to modern raft-building techniques, about 20 bamboo sticks could be staked together for making a raft, capable of carrying about 10 people, or an equivalent of 1,200 kg of goods. Rafting on a river with a full load of rocks to the construction site, unloading them and paving them to build the wall base… all required immense amounts of hard labor to complete the whole process. It was a four-to-five kilometer trip from the foot of the Daze Mountain to the city walls, taking account of the actual water transport conditions in ancient times. For the convenience of calculation, archaeological workers simulated the workload of moving rocks for a distance of 100 m and paving a wall base of two square meters, to see how long it took a laborer to complete. They then converted the result into a full workload of a laborer for a whole working day. “In an ideal state, it took an ancient laborer about nine hours, without taking a short break, to quarry stones and load them onto a boat, transport them to the construction site and pave them into the wall base. This work time was longer than the daily average of modern people. In total, 80,000 boat trips of rocks were needed for building the entire city wall foundation,” Wang Ningyuan estimated. In addition to building the city wall base, the Liangzhu laborers also needed to execute more gargantuan tasks, such as piling up soil for constructing large mounds. All these indicated the Liangzhu ancients had to endure huge amounts of workload every day, as working overtime was a routine for them. (Original title: Was the Life Hard for Liangzhu Ancients Living in Rural Areas and Working at Construction Sites? Qianjiang Evening News Reporter Works with Archaeologists to Restore a Working Day of Liangzhu Ancients, Mar. 25, 2013).

1.7 Life of Liangzhu Ancients in Water-Abundant Region

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1.7 Life of Liangzhu Ancients in Water-Abundant Region On Aug. 24, 2013, the inaugural Shanghai Archaeology Forum entered its speech session at the China Art Palace. As the Liangzhu Ancient City was selected as one of the world’s top 10 archaeological field discoveries, Liu Bin, deputy director of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, was invited to deliver a speech. With the theme of “Looking for the Lost Civilization: New Archaeological Discovery of the Liangzhu Ancient City,” Liu Bin presented the latest research results concerning the Liangzhu water conservancy system to the experts attending the forum. The Liangzhu Ancient City, excavated in 2007, was the remains of a large-scale human settlement 5,000 years ago. As the earliest inhabitants in the waterfront towns south of the Yangtze River, they learned how to make the most of water resources and managed to live, work and play in an environment crisscrossed by river networks. In his speech, Liu Bin narrated the importance of water to the ancients living in Liangzhu: they traveled on rafts, dug wells to get drinkable water, grew rice as staple food and built dams for irrigation. To summarize, everything of the Liangzhu people had been linked with water. “The Liangzhu elites were notably obsessed with jades. Was the jade transported in large amounts to Liangzhu by water?” A councilor from the U.S. University of Denver asked this question, out of curiosity about the water-borne traffic in Liangzhu. To answer this question, let’s first take a look at the life of the ancient Liangzhu residents.

1.7.1 The Earliest Known Water Conservancy System in China Rice cultivation had always been the economic base for the development of the Liangzhu Culture. Located on a plain crisscrossed by river networks, Liangzhu was then the most ideal place to grow rice, the staple food in local diet. In 2012, archaeologists found massive amounts of charred rice—about 10,000—15,000 kg—on the eastern slope of the Mojiaoshan palace zone. The rice was perhaps burnt in a granary near the palace and subsequently discarded. Despite the abundant supply of rice, Liangzhu, however, was not environmentally fit for human habitation. According to Wang Ningyuan, the ancient city, located on the Taihu Lake plain, was only two meters above sea level, and not far away from the Tianmu Mountains in the northwest—the center of rainstorms in Zhejiang Province. When the floods came, local houses could be inundated easily. Initially, the Liangzhu people tackled the challenge by building houses on high terrains or artificial mounds. This was what they did at the Yujiashan settlements in Yuhang, 25 km away from the Liangzhu Ancient City. But “this only transformed

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the landscape in one small village. For settling the problem in the long run, it was more important to build a regional flood control system,” said Liu Bin. To guarantee safety and ensure an abundant supply of food and clothing, some smart people in Liangzhu started looking for more effective solutions. In the 1990s, archaeologists discovered the Tangshan ruins, a long strip of land in the northwest of the Liangzhu site cluster. At Tangshan, a six-kilometer-long levee was constructed to prevent flooding torrents in the Dazhe Mountain from directly hitting the back of the ancient city, and divert them to the west. In recent years, archaeologists had found 10 artificial dams in the northwestern Dazhe Mountain, forming the so-called Penggong dam system. The four earthen basal slopes, known among the locals nowadays as Ganggongling, Qiuwu, Shiwu and Laohuling, were the ruins of these dams built 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. The longest dam extended 300 m, while the shorter ones, dozens of meters. They were built in the low ground between two hilly formations, and parts of them were connected with the levee in Tangshan. “The dams and the levee formed a complete flood control and water conservancy system outside the Liangzhu Ancient City, and they were the essential parts of the city,” Liu Bin said. The history about water conservancy projects in China all started with the legendary Dayu or Yu the Great,8 famed for his flood control efforts dated at 4,100— 4,000 years B.P. Unfortunately, no remains were found about his legacy. Before the discovery of the Liangzhu hydraulic works, the earliest known large water conservancy system in China only dated back to the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods, such as the Dujiangyan flood control and irrigation facility still functional in southwest China’s Sichuan Province. Now, the history has been refreshed by the Liangzhu hydraulic system, dated 1,000 years earlier than Dayu’s legendary flood control endeavors.

1.7.2 Liangzhu Ancients Lived by Water and Traveled by Boat The Liangzhu people lived on the Circum-Taihu Lake area with numerous extensive networks of waterways. What has been described by a Chinese idiom meaning “a fire on the city gate brings disaster to the fish in a pool,” would have never happened in the Liangzhu Ancient City due to the abundant supply of water. The Liangzhu Ancient City was a fortified town, protected by a system of moats and rammed-earth walls. In the words of renowned British archaeologist and professor of Cambridge University, Colin Renfrew and Liu Bin, “this was a town of canals as much as of roads.”

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Yu the Great (大禹) (c. 2123–2025 BC) was a legendary king in ancient China who was famed for his introduction of flood control and his upright moral character. The dates which have been proposed for Yu’s reign predate the oldest-known written records in China, the oracle bones of the late Shang Dynasty, by nearly a millennium.

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Archaeologists found two gates or gaps on each side of the city walls. The eight gates were all used as waterway passages. “Because there was no stone but silt under the gaps, they must have been waterway passages, which connected the river systems in the inner and outer cities,” Wang Ningyuan said. Though the two gates on the western wall are still unavailable for excavation today, satellite remote sensing images prove they used to be waterway passages. The two gates in the southeast are still used as waterways leading to the Liangzhu port, indicating that the port had taken shape in the late Liangzhu Culture period. Over 5,000 years have passed, and we are still utilizing the river channels built by the ancient inhabitants of Liangzhu, though rowing a boat to move slowly on a river has no longer been part of our mainstream daily life. For the Liangzhu ancients, boats were their dominant means of transport. Canoes were the popular vessels sailing on the rivers. In 2010, a canoe from the Liangzhu Culture period was unearthed for the first time at the Maoshan ruins at Linping, Yuhang. It looked similar to the canoes we’ve seen today. Besides canoes, bamboo rafts were also used for transport in Liangzhu. Identical to those in service today for drifting tours at Shuangxi in the outskirts of Hangzhou, the raft was made of 20 bamboo poles and could carry 10 passengers to sail on rivers, lakes and coastal sea waters. “The rafts (from the Liangzhu Culture period) had a very wide body, thus boasting quite good stability when drifting on rivers. It could be used for transporting stones and mud,” Wang Ningyuan said. It was in these ancient waterways that the Liangzhu residents took baths, did the laundry and swam with friends occasionally. Wang Ningyuan said wells provided an alternative source of drinkable water for local inhabitants. A typical well in ancient Liangzhu was carefully designed and built this way: Square wood frames were placed inside in a well to support the entire structure; sand and pottery shards were used as filtering materials to keep the water clean. In some places, wells with a stone supporting structure were found. Sometimes, an auxiliary pond was dug nearby for the storage of water. Well, where there were the Liangzhu people, there were the wells. The ancients in some ways led a comfortable life. The youths from ordinary families wore ramie clothes, and boys hanged out with girls in canoes to enjoy beautiful scenery. Youths from elite families dressed up for parties, wearing silk to keep cool in summer and animal fur coats for warmth in winter. Women traveled by boats with a gorgeous make-up of jade huang-pendants and tube beads necklaces, and even their belt buckles were made of jades.

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1.7.3 Setting the Style for Waterfront Towns South of Yangtze River “Under a small bridge near a cottage, a quiet stream flows.” This line of a poem from ancient China pretty much sums up the living environment and atmosphere prevailing today in small waterfront towns on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Over 5,000 years ago, the inhabitants in the Liangzhu Ancient City set up a template for the modern people to create such a beautiful and enjoyable living environment. In the first half of 2012, at the Meirendi ruins in the east of the ancient city, archaeologists discovered the remains of river channels and riverbank sediment from the late Liangzhu Culture period. With the building of several artificial mounds going in an east–west direction, the Liangzhu people transformed the swampy lowlands into an inhabitable landscape and built up an extensive network of waterways. During the continuous development process, these mounds in long strips were elevated and widened incrementally several times. The riverbanks were protected by vertically installed wooden revetments (Fig. 1.19). “In this way, boats could directly berth on the riverbank, which resembled the scenes in waterfront towns today on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, where people live on the riverside,” said Liu Bin. He pointed out further that the earliest town landscape in the region had taken shape during the time of the Liangzhu Ancient City. With this, we return to the question of the American councilor: Was jade—the Liangzhu people’s favorite treasure—transported by water? In other words, had they utilized the waterways to facilitate trade? “It remains unclear about the channels and models of goods circulation during the Liangzhu period,” Wang Ningyuan acknowledged the absence of conclusive evidence about trade in ancient Liangzhu. “The ancient China put lots of emphasis on agriculture while restraining commerce; hence, goods trade in the Liangzhu period might not be as developed as that in the Western society.” (Original title: Liangzhu Ancient City Selected as One of the Top 10 Field Archaeological Discoveries; Living by Water: the Liangzhu People Travelled by Rafts, Drank Water from Wells, Grew Rice for Food and Built Dams for Irrigation, Aug. 25, 2013). Fig. 1.19 Wooden revetments

1.8 Liangzhu Ruins Discovered in Downtown Hangzhou

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1.8 Liangzhu Ruins Discovered in Downtown Hangzhou In 2013, a Liangzhu Culture ruins site was discovered for the first time near the Gongchen Bridge in Hangzhou. The Jiru ruins site, named after a village where it was excavated, was located in the Xiangfu Town, Gongshu District,Hangzhou City. The town’s name sounds like a suburb, but in fact it is part of the downtown area, near the Shangtang flyover on the Tongyi Road and a residential compound called Jiru Homeland (Fig. 1.20). In May 2013, a retired teacher found pottery shards near a site where a river channel was being widened. Acting upon notice, the Hangzhou Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology excavated the ruins to uncover the secrets lying beneath: it was the settlement ruins in the mid-to-late periods of the Liangzhu Culture, dated at 5,000–4,500 years B.P. On Nov. 20, 2013, when the archaeological excavation of the site was completed, earth backfill was carried out to protect the landscape.

1.8.1 Jiru Ruins: New Evidence of Old Town Moving Toward South Although the Jiru ruins site was not so large—only about 800 square meters in size, its discovery, however, came beyond the expectations of archaeologists. The distribution of the Liangzhu site cluster centered on Liangzhu and Pingyao in the Yuhang District, and the discovery of the Liangzhu Ancient City, in particular, gave people a chance to know the location of the oldest urban parts of Hangzhou. In contrast to most of the ancient settlements spreading in the north and east of Liangzhu, the Jiru site was over 10 km away in the south, almost reaching the downtown areas of modern Hangzhou. In fact, this was not the only Liangzhu Culture site ever found in the urban areas of Hangzhou. Since the 1930s, signs of life by Liangzhu ancients were discovered at Gudang Laohe hill (now the Yuquan campus of Zhejiang University) and Shuitianfan Fig. 1.20 Panorama view of the Jiru ruins in downtown Hangzhou

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at Banshan town. By drawing a map to track the trajectory of the discoveries, we could see the geographical areas of Hangzhou started moving slowly toward the south 5,000 years ago, in response to the gradual rise of land and the retreat of sea water. From the Liangzhu Ancient City, the origin of the Chinese Civilization, to Yuhang county in the Qin and Han dynasties, and then to Lin’an, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, these archaeological sites have presented a greater picture about how our ancestors improved their life step by step and pushed forward the development of their civilization. In the summer of 2013, the Liangzhu Ancient City was selected as one of the world’s top 10 archaeological field discoveries. It is now applying for an inscription on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list. All these have marked that the remarkable contribution to the world civilization by the Liangzhu Culture—an important example of early urban civilization of mankind—had been recognized by both the international and the Chinese archaeological communities. Now, let’s revisit the Jiru site and recall the life of the commoners at the Liangzhu period.

1.8.2 Liangzhu Ancients Skillful in Building Houses The treasures excavated at the Jiru ruins were not unusual, quite the same with those unearthed from many other Liangzhu Culture sites. They included jars, pots, pen-basins and ding-tripods, household garbage and some animal bones, like deer jawbones and antlers, etc. The houses were not big, each with a floor area of about 10 square meters. Only one kind of jade ornaments—the zhui-awl—was excavated from the site, despite a large variety of jades went popular among the then Liangzhu nobility. The Jiru site was about a dozen kilometers away from the Liangzhu Ancient City, the principal high-end settlements where the ruling elites lived. It took local residents a quite long time to reach the ancient city by boat. An isolated location, a few jades, small houses and limited amounts of household garbage…all these led archaeologists to conclude that the Jiru settlement was not inhabited by the nobility, but the commoners at that time. “The Liangzhu Ancient City was the center of the Liangzhu ruins, and the Jiru site belonged to its peripheral areas,” said Lang Xufeng, deputy director of the Hangzhou Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. He drew an analogy about the similarities and differences between Jiru and the ancient city, “What the Jiru residents used was slightly different from those living in the ancient city, but they shared the same culture. It is like modern urbanites driving cars and eating McDonald’s a lot, while rural dwellers doing the same but only less frequently.” Although the Jiru site could be viewed as a rural area in the Liangzhu period, its discovery, however, pointed to the potential for more discoveries in its surrounding areas. According to “Shiji”, known as “Records of the Grand Historian,” the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty once led a flotilla to navigate through the turbulent waters in the Qiantang River. Seeing the danger of sailing in high waves, the emperor

1.8 Liangzhu Ruins Discovered in Downtown Hangzhou

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ordered his flotilla to head to the river’s southern bank at the Baoshi Mountain to seek shelter. There, the sailors tied the emperor’s vessel to a huge rock. “Where was the shoreline of the Qiantang River? No one knows that. The discovery of the (Jiru) ruins in the north of Hangzhou City indicates that this area had a distance away from the shoreline of the Qiantang River, meaning the area was then inhabitable for the humans. Before that, our archaeological work focused on the city’s west and north. As we now have come to the south, we know that the future archaeological work can be expanded toward this area,” said Lang Xufeng. The Jiru ruins revealed another very valuable discovery—archaeologists found the remains of three wall foundations, each with stake pocket holes on both sides. The technique was rarely seen in the past excavations. “This showed that the housebuilding skills of the Liangzhu people had reached a level of relative standardization and maturity. They dug small pocket holes first and then inserted wood stakes or pillars into them to support the body of a wall. This technique had enhanced the wall’s bearing capacity,” explained Yang Xi, the team leader for excavating the Jiru ruins and a research associate of the Hangzhou Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.

1.8.3 What Else We Don’t Know About the Liangzhu Culture? The Liangzhu Culture sites spread mainly in the Taihu Lake area in the Yangtze River Delta, with a dense distribution of groups of settlement ruins in Pingyao and Liangzhu, the Yuhang District, Hangzhou. The artefacts unearthed from the ruins indicated the high status of their inhabitants, reaching the capital level of an early state. Altogether, 135 sites had been discovered as of November 2013. Overall, the Liangzhu Culture represented the apex of early economic and social development predating the historically recorded Chinese dynasties. “Liangzhu has been the best example for archaeologists to explore the transition from a primitive society to a civilized one in China’s early periods. Having evolved from a primitive society to an early regional state, Liangzhu could tell us more about what had driven the emergence of the urban state,” said Wang Ningyuan. Excavations of the Liangzhu Culture sites have been carried on ever since it was first discovered in 1936. Archaeologists have unearthed a series of high-grade ritual jade objects including cong-cylinder, bi-disc and yue-ceremonial axe. We have learned that ordinary youths in ancient Liangzhu wore ramie clothes; youths from elite families wore silk in summer and animal fur coats in winter; people traveled by rafts, drank water from wells, ate rice as staple food and irrigated farmland with water diverted by dams. So, what else we still don’t know about the Liangzhu Culture? “Our exploration of the Liangzhu Culture is at an initial stage, as far as our knowledge about the ancient city is concerned. What we don’t know is certainly far more than what we do,” Wang Ningyuan said that by far, they had only figured

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out the general structure of the Liangzhu Ancient City, including its ritual center and inner city walls; they had also found clues about the outer city walls and the peripheral water conservancy and flood control system. However, little has been known about the ancient city’s functional layout and architectural designs, and how the city managed its transport system. For example, there were a lot of unsolved puzzles regarding the locations of government offices, workshops and storage warehouses as well as the architectural designs and styles of palaces, houses, streets and city gates. “Furthermore, we know next to nothing about the social organization structure and management models in the Liangzhu period, the economic and political relationship between urban and rural areas, including the occupational divisions among urban residents, the tribute system for ordinary settlements, family patterns, and so on,” Wang Ningyuan said. (Original title: Pottery Shards Found by Retired Teacher Led to Discovery of 4,500year-old Jiru Ruins near Gongchen Bridge in downtown Hangzhou; The Liangzhu Culture Site Provides Evidence to Testify Hangzhou Moving to the South. Nov. 21, 2013).

1.9 The Pier—Exclusive Gateway for Liangzhu Palace Elites Liangzhu 5,000 years ago was located in a naturally watery setting of low-elevation marshlands in the Yangtze River Delta, where people had to rely on boats for outbound transportation, a sight a bit like what we have seen in Venice of Italy today. Did the elites living in the palace travel by a luxurious means of transport? A discovery revealed by the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology on Dec. 13, 2013 shed light on the major means of transport taken by the then Liangzhu elites. Archaeological workers found and cleared up a suspected ancient pier in the southwest of Mojiaoshan, near the palace zone of the Liangzhu Ancient City (Figs. 1.21 and 1.22). This was the first pier ever found in the ancient city, which might lead the way to the palace and connect it with the inner city river network. Fig. 1.21 Archaeological workers clearing up the remains of wooden stakes and scaffolds on the western slope of Mojiaoshan

1.9 The Pier—Exclusive Gateway for Liangzhu Palace Elites

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Fig. 1.22 Remains of the wooden structure and scaffolds on the western slope of Mojiaoshan

Imagine the life of the people living in the palace 5,000 years ago—they had to rely on small boats or rafts for traveling and transporting grains and woods, slow and inefficient in the eyes of modern people. But their creative skills, such as building the pier with scaffolds and consolidating river banks with bundles of clay wrapped by grass leaves, are still commonly employed by people some 5,000 years later.

1.9.1 Making “Sand Bags” for Consolidating River Banks The Liangzhu Ancient City was located in an area crisscrossed by waterways. In the first half of 2012, archaeologists discovered an ancient river course and its fluvial deposits at Meirendi in the city’s east. The findings revealed a sight dating back to the late Liangzhu Culture period: Boats docking directly at riverbanks, similar to what we may see today in the waterfront towns south of the Yangtze River. In November 2012, on the western slope of the Mojiaoshan palace zone, another ancient riverbank came to the light. Archaeologists found large amounts of bundles of clay wrapped by grass leaves resembling “sand bags,” used by ancient laborers to consolidate river embankments. The Liangzhu Ancient City was built on low-lying marshlands, on which laborers transformed them into an inhabitable landscape consisting of artificial mounds, walls and other man-made features. Silt could be found everywhere, but it was soft and wet, thus easy to break apart. To better utilize the natural construction material, workers tried to mix grass with silt to strengthen the structure of the blocks. “Grass blades were tenacious and intertwined. When they were mixed with silt, the two materials could form solid blocks which would not break apart easily,” explained Wang Ningyuan. He added that the grass used in the mixture was popularly known as Chinese silvergrass, and it looked like wild reeds, tenacious and resilient. Surprisingly, these slender leaves had not rotten away when they were recovered. “The riverbank lay about five-six meters deep underground. It might have something to do with the humidity here,” Wang said.

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Chinese poet Xi Murong once mentioned the Chinese silvergrass in her poem: “How I wish that someone could accompany me to the mountain slopes full of Chinese silvergrass.” The densely bunched plant, growing as tall as a man, spread on the marshlands of the Liangzhu Ancient City. The laborers cut each grass blade into two parts and mixed them with silt to form “sandbags” for consolidating river embankments. The technique of using grass leaves to wrap bundles of clay was initiated in the late period of the archaeologically defined Songze Culture, and was widely introduced 200–300 years later in the Liangzhu Culture period. Even after 5,000 years, we are still benefitting from this technique. Today, in some rural areas, rice straws are often added to enhance the adhesive power of wall mud for building houses. Interestingly, this technique might have even helped improve the quality of inkpad produced by the Xiling Seal Art Society. When the society was established in Hangzhou in the Qing Dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China, its founders, namely Ding Fuzhi, Wang Fuan and Ye Weiming, tried every means possible to procure high-quality wormwood from central China’s Hubei Province. When they added the material into their inkpad, they saw an immediate improvement in its solidification ability. With this advantage, the product gained a market reputation of “one gram of (Xiling) inkpad for one gram of gold.”

1.9.2 There Might Be More Than One Pier that Led to the Palace Under the ancient riverbanks built with bundles of clay wrapped by grass, we found a more familiar construction technique. Several thick wooden stakes, with sharpened points at the bottom, were driven into the alluvial soil of the ancient river course, and a beam was placed horizontally atop the stakes to fix them. Lying beneath the frame was a large scaffold pad—two meters long and over one meter wide—knitted closely together with bamboo stripes. It was almost identical to the bamboo pads that we use today to erect scaffolding when building houses. For knitting the unearthed pad with slender bamboo stripes, ancient scaffolders employed the same material and techniques that we still use today (Fig. 1.23). Wang Ningyuan explained the ancients needed to drive wooden stakes into the alluvial soil for building the pier, but they could easily be trapped in the soil. To avoid this trouble, the workers erected a scaffolding frame to connect the riverbank with the palace so that they could walk on it easily. In fact, the bamboo pads formed a trestle bridge. It is not yet known how long the “bridge” was as archaeological workers only dug one section extending over 11 m on the riverside. They reckoned the whole structure would have been longer than that. “It is estimated that the scale of the structure was small and hence, it was relatively ordinary,” said Wang Ningyuan.

1.10 The Wells of the Liangzhu People

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Fig. 1.23 Remains of a pier on the western slope of Mojiaoshan, where archaeological workers tried to preserve the scaffold pads

The pier offered a convenient gateway for the Liangzhu palace elites to travel around by boats. However, it was abandoned later due to the expansion of the palace compound coupled with changes in the river course. As a result, this large scaffolding pad was discarded under the water. It was till today that it came to light again. The pier was not the first excavated in the Liangzhu Ancient City. Another one for the populace was unearthed in the outer city at Bianjiashan. Archaeologists believe that there must have been more than one pier that led to the palace. “This was the way that the Liangzhu elites went up to and down from the palace. Where there were the people in Liangzhu, there were the piers,” Wang Ningyuan reckoned. (Original title: New Discovery in the Liangzhu Ancient City: 5,000-year old Pier Served as an Exclusive Gateway for Liangzhu Palace Elites. Dec. 14, 2013).

1.10 The Wells of the Liangzhu People Every year, two lists of new major discoveries attract the attention from the archaeological community in China. One is the “Top Six New Archaeological Discoveries” selected by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the other, the “Top 10 New Archaeological Discoveries in China” sponsored by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. On Mar. 13, 2014, China unveiled a preliminary list of 25 candidate properties for the selection of the top 10 new discoveries in 2013. Two properties from Zhejiang Province, namely the early Neolithic ruins at the Lotus Mountain of Longyou City and the Guanjingtou Neolithic ruins in Liangzhu, Yuhang emerged from the 47 candidate properties to enter the preliminary list. The 25 properties came from 17 provinces and municipalities. Among them, archaeological findings dating back to the Shang, Zhou, Qin and Han dynasties, accounted for almost half of the total. The tombs of Emperor Yang of the shortlived Sui Dynasty (581—618AD) and Shangguan Wan’er, an imperial consort to two emperors of the Tang Dynasty (618—907AD), each secured a place on the list.

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As one of the candidate properties from Zhejiang Province, the Lotus Mountain ruins in Longyou, dated at 10,000–9,000 years B.P., had been the earliest Neolithic ruins sites discovered in Zhejiang Province as of March 2014. It had also been the third early Neolithic ruins officially excavated following the Shangshan and the Xiaohuangshan sites. The Lotus Mountain ruins offered a glimpse to the life of inhabitants in Zhejiang 10,000 years ago. In 2013, archaeologists unearthed lots of pottery and stone objects from the ruins, which still carried the signs of ancient life. Rice husks were found on stone objects, indicating rice was a source of food for the inhabitants. “We cannot say that rice was the staple food of the people at that time. It was only one of their food sources. As they just started growing rice, it accounted for only a small portion of their food supply. People relied more on hunting and gathering for foods,” said Jiang Leping, head of the excavation team and also a research fellow of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. Another property on the top 25 list—the Guanjingtou Neolithic ruins in Yuhang District, was located near the Liangzhu Cultural Village, relatively closer to downtown Hangzhou. Excavation of the 5,000-year-old ruins, which lasted from March 2012 to July 2013, led to the discovery of a large group of tombs, totaling 106. The earliest tombs dated back to the late Songze Culture period, while the latest to the final period of the Liangzhu Culture. Most of the artefacts found in the tombs were jades, according to Zhao Ye, head of the excavation team and a research fellow of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. Among the 1,100 plus burial articles, nearly 700 were jades. A maximum of over 50 jades were from one single tomb, including bi-discs, huang-pendants, hair combs, zhuo-bracelets and other classy ornaments, owned by the Liangzhu ancients. Another interesting discovery was the remains of a living facility built with stones, related to the utilization of water by the Liangzhu inhabitants. Two meters away from a stone well with a square opening, there was a sink which as the center of the water usage system had an opening connected with a drainage ditch. “The well, the sink and the drainage ditch spread over a descending terrain. As the water flew from high to low places, its quality decreased, too. The Liangzhu inhabitants fetched water from the well, washed stuffs in the sink and discharged the sewage into the drainage ditch. The structure of the water system was laid out very scientifically.” In his archaeological briefing, Zhao Ye described it as “the first finding of its kind in the history of the Liangzhu Culture archaeological research.” The discovery of these properties inspired archaeologists to rethink about the origin of the Liangzhu Culture. Traditionally, the ancient city was viewed as the center of the Liangzhu Culture ruins, and the Guanjingtou site, separated by a range of hills from Liangzhu, had never been viewed as the origin of the culture. “We used to dig along the northern side of the hills. This time, as we dug on the southern side, we discovered earlier ruins which could be viewed as the origin nurturing the later development of the Liangzhu Culture ruins. They also indicated the area where the ancient city was built later might be unfit for human habitation initially,” Zhao Ye explained. He also revealed that near the Guanjingtou site,

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Fig. 1.24 (Left) Pottery turtle unearthed at tomb M27:14, Nanhebang ruins

Fig. 1.25 (Right) Pottery turtle unearthed at tomb M27:15, Nanhebang ruins

they found the 6,000-year-old Majiabang ruins, which had some links with the later prosperity of the Liangzhu ruins site cluster. The two sites would participate in the final “top 10” competition, and its final result would be announced in Beijing in early April 2014. (Original Title: Two Ruins Sites from Longyou and Liangzhu in Zhejiang Province Shortlisted on Top 25, Aiming for Top 10 New Archaeological Discoveries in 2013; Two Major Findings Last Year- the Tombs of Emperor Yang of Sui Dynasty and Shangguan Wan’er, also Appeared on the Top 25 List, Mar. 14, 2014).

1.11 Songze and Liangzhu: Linked Cultures with Varied Styles “These two pottery turtles were so cute. Why did they hold each other?”9 “They loved each other. I guess the big one was a female, and beneath her was a male…” (Figs. 1.24, 1.25 and 1.26). This conversation went on between two visitors, when they marveled at the artefacts at an exhibition which opened on Sept. 20, 2014 in the Liangzhu Museum. The event focused on archaeological findings from the Songze Culture period, dated at 6,000 to 5,300 years B.P., as well as its people, believed to be the ancestors of the Liangzhu inhabitants.

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The two pottery turtles were displayed next to each other during the exhibition.

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Fig. 1.26 Line drawings of two pottery turtles unearthed from tomb M27, Nanhebang ruins (Drawn by Fang Xiangming)

On display were over 230 treasures, unearthed from the ruins on the Hangzhou– Jiaxing–Huzhou Plain. The interested audience invited Liu Bin, deputy director of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, to guide through the exhibition and answer various questions, after he finished a presentation on the daily life of the Songze people. The Songze Culture (6,000–5,300 years B.P.) and Liangzhu Culture (5,300– 4,300 years B.P.) were two seamlessly connected cultures in the Neolithic Age in the Taihu Lake area. As the latter prospered for a further 1000 years, the two cultures were clearly distinguishable with a sharp difference in pottery and jade designs. Experts explained the Songze Culture was in a transition from a matriarchal society to a paternal one in the Neolithic Age. In other words, this short period of more than 600 years marked the final glorious page of female dominance in family affairs. On the other hand, the Songze Culture demonstrated a greater creativity than the Liangzhu Culture, as the latter was relatively stable and conservative. With a big age gap of 1,000 years between the two cultures, which one was superior in terms of art taste? Let’s make a comparison.

1.11.1 Comparison of Pottery Designs The best design award obviously went to the Songze pottery, should the two objects join a competition for the first place (Figs. 1.27 and 1.28). Fig. 1.27 (Above) Bird-shaped he-drinking vessel (Songze Culture) in the Jiaxing Museum

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Fig. 1.28 (Below) Finely carved pottery jug with flat handle (Liangzhu Culture)

First of all, the styles of design were different. The he-drinking vessel was modeled into a stubby-necked bird with a slightly open mouth, looking rather cute. The pottery was not designed specifically for storing water. Guess what was it for? It might contain special liquid. Some he-drinking vessels had filter holes, which meant the filtered liquid was not pure water. In contrast, the craftsmanship for the cup from the Liangzhu period was obviously too simple. The Songze people had a playful young heart. Many of their pottery were shaped into animals. Even their grave goods looked cute, not to mention their daily necessities. For example, a steamer cauldron, with a pattern of two unknown animals entangling together on the lid button, had a mini-rack in the middle, only big enough to steam one small dumpling at a time.

1.11.2 Comparison in Carving Patterns This bird-shaped he-drinking vessel was carved in a way like using the retro thickstick knitting method popular in today’s fashion world. Its carving pattern was similar to that of knitting bamboo stripes in the Songze Culture period. Look at the tower-shaped hu-pot from Songze. It even had a hollow-out pattern on the neck. In contrast, the pottery hu-pot from Liangzhu looked clumsy and boringly formal. Had it implied the workmanship turned rough after Liangzhu entered the patriarchal society? (Figs. 1.29 and 1.30). In fact, it was rare to find pottery with a hollowed-out style in Liangzhu. The over 600-year Songze Culture period saw fierce competition among pottery designers. The Fig. 1.29 (Above) Tower-shaped hu-pot, Nanhebang tomb M29:8 (Songze Culture)

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Fig. 1.30 (Below) Pottery hu-pot (Liangzhu Culture)

pottery in the north, painted with red, white, black and a lick of yellow were clearly superior with bright colors. No wonder that their southern counterparts, lagging behind in paint pottery, were unable to compete for style dominance. The Songze people used delicate carving lines, especially the artistic hollow-out style to create beauty and depth. The sharp contrast between northern and southern styles might be compared to beauties with heavy make-up vs natural look. From this point of view, the Songze Culture definitely represented the peak of cultural development in the matriarchal clan society which had evolved to its coda stage.

1.11.3 Competition in Jade Ornaments The Liangzhu people were obviously on the back foot in the first two rounds of competition. The third and final round focused on jade ornaments (Figs. 1.31 and 1.32). The Liangzhu people gained some confidence, as living in the lap of jade luxury was one of the best descriptions about their life. However, this sense of pride did not extend beyond men. The archaeological findings from the Liangzhu ruins in recent decades have indicated a large number of hefty jades were used by men. For example, the jade yueceremonial axe combined the authority of theocracy and kingship; the jade congcylinder was a magic tool of wizards and the three-pronged object was worn as a Fig. 1.31 (Left) Jade huang-pendant from tomb M24:2, Shimadou ruins (Songze Culture)

1.12 Treasures from the Tomb of Liangzhu King

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Fig. 1.32 (Right): Jade huang-pendant (Liangzhu Culture)

headwear by powerful male leaders. Even the number of cemeteries for women was fewer—approximately 3 out of 10 tombs might have belonged to women. For the Songze people, the most important jade was the huang-pendant, which symbolized the status of female leaders and could be worn around the neck. Although we found that both men and women in some places could wear huang-pendants, the identification of human bones unearthed from the ruins indicated that this particular jade was mostly worn by women. However, fewer huang-pendants were discovered in the Liangzhu Culture period, along with the decline of women’s social status. The same trend could also be seen in the grave goods for females. Some objects were buried in the female tombs at the beginning, but their numbers dropped sharply later on. The Majiabang ruins, dated at 7,000–8,000 years B.P., appeared earlier than the Songze Culture period. Women from Majiabang wore jade jue-slit rings as earrings and the tradition continued into the Songze period. However, the jade jue-slit rings almost disappeared in the Liangzhu Culture period. Why did that happen? Probably because when the new went popular, the old might be abandoned. Then which culture won the final round of competition? No one won. The game drew one–one. (Original title: Exhibition Opened on the Songze Culture, a Matriarchal Society Earlier than the Liangzhu Culture; Two Connected Cultures, Different Styles. Sept. 21, 2014).

1.12 Treasures from the Tomb of Liangzhu King In April 2015, an exhibition themed “Power and Belief: Archaeological Findings from the Liangzhu Site Cluster” was held at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology at Peking University. Nearly 500 pieces (sets) of cultural relics unearthed from the Liangzhu ruins were put on display.

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Why were the cultural relics moved for such a long distance to Beijing? In fact, this had not been the first exhibition on Liangzhu ever held in the Chinese capital. Ten years ago, the National Museum held an exhibition featuring the selected articles from the Liangzhu Culture to mark the 70th anniversary of its discovery. Someone might ask: What are the differences between the treasures displayed this time in Beijing and those often seen at the Liangzhu Museum and the Zhejiang Provincial Museum? What we see in Hangzhou are basically the selected artefacts. It was the first time that a whole set of burial articles from a tomb of the Liangzhu elites were displayed in Beijing. The artefacts, transported to Peking University for exhibition, belonged to a king’s tomb from the Fanshan royal mausoleum, excavated in 1986. What did the burial ceremony for a Liangzhu king look like? Fang Xiangming, the exhibition’s curator and also research fellow from the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and director Liu Bin would give some explanations. But first, let’s take a brief look at the historical background. The theme of “power and belief” naturally suggested that the Liangzhu elites, especially the kings, possessed extravagant wealth and tremendous power. The elites living at the center of the ancient city enjoyed better life, transport and urban environment than those living in the surrounding areas like Jiaxing, nearly 100 km from Liangzhu. More importantly, the Liangzhu society integrated its unified belief system with a high-end handicraft industry, a unique phenomenon among all the archaeologically defined Neolithic cultures. The handicraft industry referred to the jade workshops which thrived in the ancient city. The Fanshan royal mausoleum yielded over 3,700 premium jades with good luster and little impurity, made from the high-grade jade known as nephrite. In contrast, the commoners, mainly buried in the Wenjiashan cemetery, were found to use low-grade jade vulnerable to breakage and erosion. Some of the poor were even buried with fake jades. For example, many of the three-pronged jade objects unearthed in Jiaxing were made of pyrophyllite. Among the 140 Liangzhu tombs excavated in Xindili, Tongxiang City, only one tomb, code-named M108, was buried with the three-pronged jade objects. But again, they were made of inferior pyrophyllite (Fig. 1.33).

Fig. 1.33 Jades unearthed from the Fanshan and Yaoshan ruins

1.12 Treasures from the Tomb of Liangzhu King

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Fig. 1.34 Set of jade round plaques carved with dragon head motifs unearthed from tomb M22 at the Fanshan ruins (Strings of plaques were used as hanging ornaments by female nobles.)

What was the status for women then? The Yaoshan ruins site, dated slightly earlier than the Fanshan ruins, was home to tombs for the great nobility. Both sites came from the Liangzhu Culture period. At Yaoshan, the tombs were arranged in two rows, with those of the males in the south and females in the north, as evidenced by jade spinning wheels and jade huangpendants dedicated to women, unearthed in the northern tombs. However, in terms of variety and quantity, jades unearthed from the tombs for females were obviously inferior to those for males. A bit more burial articles were unearthed from tomb M11, in which a noble woman—probably a great grandmother—was buried with high esteem. The tomb’s scale seemed to defend the last trace of female dignity. At the Fanshan site, only two of the nine tombs belonged to females. By the midlate periods of the Liangzhu Culture, males dominated the society completely, and high-grade cemeteries no longer had room for women. What a difference from the matriarchal society in the Songze Culture period! Times had changed! (Fig. 1.34). With the end of the background story, let’s introduce the protagonist. Two tombs at the Fanshan royal mausoleum—code-named M12 and M20, respectively—were well known in the archaeological community. Both the king of cong and the king of yue as well as a luxurious scepter with decorative patterns were unearthed from tomb M12. The findings caused a sensation throughout the world. The whole set of artefacts on display in Beijing was from tomb M20, whose master was a high ranking elite, second only after the one of tomb M12. In the tombs for average elites, the number of jades for yue-ceremonial axe, a token of military command; bi-disc, a symbol of wealth and cong-cylinder, the embodiment of theocracy, were normally no more than one piece for each. For a king, different sets of jades piled up in his tomb, making a splendid assemblage of burial treasuries. First, let’s take a look at the three-pronged jade ornament. Shaping like a bird, the headwear was exclusively reserved for men. For wearing the ornament, a jade tube could be inserted into the bottom end of the ornament to extend its length (Fig. 1.35) Large numbers of such jades were unearthed in places where the kings resided, but that number decreased in tombs in Jiaxing and Tongxiang, which were far away from

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Fig. 1.35 Headwear consisting of a three-pronged jade object and a jade tube, from the master of Tomb M20, unearthed at the Fanshan ruins

the center of power. Further away from Jiaxing, no such jades could be found at all. The ancient people in Jiangsu Province and Shanghai simply did not use them. Then it came with sets of jade zhui-awl ornament, which looked like an arrow. The “arrow” was used to decorate the head of the tomb’s master. It was not inserted into human hair directly, but installed on a certain carrier. Archaeologist Wang Mingda, who excavated the Fanshan site, thought this carrier was likely to be a fu-quiver, a bag containing bows and arrows. The jade zhui-awl was the carrier of ritual expression of arrow. One tomb at the Fanshan ruins yielded a set of nine zhui-awl ornaments—the bigger the number of components per set, the higher the status of the tomb’s master. No wonder those at the bottom of the Liangzhu social hierarchy did not even have one piece of it. Another set of jades—four semi-circle ornaments sewn on the king’s top hat— were unearthed from tomb M20. Only five sets of such jades have been unearthed by far, all from the high-status cemeteries of the Fanshan and Yaoshan ruins in Liangzhu. Finally, the jade yue-ceremonial axe, which symbolized power and authority, could be found only in the tombs of Liangzhu’s male elites. The yue for the kings was the “limited edition,” with the two ends of its handle decorated with jade ornaments. After reading all these, some people might complain that the jades from the Liangzhu Culture period “do not look pretty,” and the pure white jade is not gorgeous enough. But sometimes in our life, few people are able to look classy and stylish in a white shirt. And in this regard, it seemed that the Liangzhu kings had made great efforts. (Original title: Burial Articles of Liangzhu Elites on Display at Peking University; Burial Jades of Liangzhu Kings were all “Limited Editions,” Apr. 19, 2015).

1.13 Discovery of 11 Dams Rewrites China’s Water Conservancy History China’s top archaeologists and water conservancy experts gathered in Hangzhou on Mar. 13, 2016, to authenticate the water conservancy system built around the Liangzhu Ancient City.

1.13 Discovery of 11 Dams Rewrites China’s Water Conservancy History

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Fig. 1.36 Layout of the Liangzhu Ancient City and its peripheral water conservancy system

They concluded unanimously that the Liangzhu Peripheral Water Conservancy System was the earliest example of large-scale water management ever known in China and the oldest dam system in the world, with a designed coverage area of over 100 square kilometers. The findings also proved that the ancient city had a complete capital structure, which encompassed the palace zone, the royal inner city, the outer circle and the peripheral water conservancy system (Fig. 1.36). The Liangzhu inhabitants once again rewrote the history of water conservancy in China as well as the world. Before that, China’s water conservancy history was said to have started with the renowned legend about flood control efforts by Yu the Great, dated at about 4,000 years B.P. A legend as it was, no material evidence had been found to authenticate it. Now archaeological surveys and excavations can provide solid evidence about the enormous structure of a remarkable network of monumental earthen dams, amounting to an extensive system of hydraulic works in the Liangzhu Ancient City.

1.13.1 How Were the Dams Discovered? Following the official discovery of the Liangzhu Ancient City in 2007, archaeologists found 10 dams and one levee in the northwest of the city site. The discoveries were not accomplished through one archaeological project. As a matter of fact, archaeologists excavated the Tangshan levee in the northwest in the 1990s. The six-kilometer-long

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Fig. 1.37 At the Laohuling dam ruins, experts studied the strata super-imposition relationship

levee functioned to prevent the torrential floods in the Dazhe Mountain from hitting the back of the ancient city, and divert them to elsewhere in the west. At that time, although some scholars believed the levee was a water conservancy facility from the Liangzhu period, they treated it only as an independent hydraulic engineering facility. They did not come to realize that the levee was part of a gigantic flood control system yet to be discovered. More excavations were needed to find out more about the enormous collective undertaking. But before that, it was critical to locate the ruins sites in order to avoid inefficient excavation. A long period of exploration and investigation was then carried out between 2007 and 2015. Assisted by Google Earth images and other remote sensing technologies, experts found that the western side of Tangshan Mountain, after joining Maoyuanling, extended further toward the southwest, instead of the south as speculated earlier, to connect with several dams including Shizishan, Liyushan and Wutongnong. With further analysis, experts finally figured out the exact locations and distribution of the 10 dams and the levee near the northwestern side of the Liangzhu Ancient City. It was not until July 2015 that the official excavation of Laohuling, Liyushan and Shizishan dams was initiated (Fig. 1.37).

1.13.2 How to Build the Dams? The Liangzhu people built the ancient city and the dams almost simultaneously, in order to control flooding water. The ancient city was built on swampy lowland only two meters above sea level. During the monsoon seasons, torrential flooding from the Tianmu Mountains could easily submerge the houses of the Liangzhu inhabitants. So they had to build dams to prevent flooding. Now we stop at the basal slope of the Laohuling dam. After some excavations, the dam ruins exposed a layer of loess, with water still seeping from the mud.

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Fig. 1.38 (Above) Layer formed by bundles of clay-grass mixture in the body of the Lanhuling dam (The slender white lines were rotten grass leaves)

Fig. 1.39 (Below) Exposed remains of the bundles of clay-grass mixture at the Ganggongling dam

How could we prove that this was a dam? The head of the archaeological team, Wang Ningyuan, pointed to the slender white lines in the mud, “These were rotten grass leaves. They were used to wrap clay to form bundles of clay-grass mixture, and the Liangzhu inhabitants then used them to build the dams” (Figs. 1.38 and 1.39). How did the Liangzhu inhabitants manage to accomplish the task? Wang Ningyuan re-enacted the scene. The Liangzhu people lived by marshlands, where reeds, Chinese silvergrass and thatch flourished. They mixed grass leaves with clay, and then used reeds to bind the bundles of grass-clay mixture together, resembling “sand bags” we use today. Reasonable or not, let’s imagine a sight in ancient Liangzhu—workers shoveled all the way through the marshlands to remove grass and silt, finally digging out a water channel. They then used bamboo rafts to transport easily the bundles of grass-clay mixture to a dam construction site. “This was a task that could be finished in one work-flow process, as it had adapted well to local conditions,” Wang Ningyuan commented. “The grass-clay mixture was compact in volume and soft with good plasticity. The clay fitted closely with grass leaves outside, so it did not leak after stacking.” More importantly, archaeologists found all the bundles of the grass-clay mixture were laid close to the water diversion section of the dams, which endured relatively high stress from flooding water. This indicated the great role that the grass-clay mixture played in preventing floods.

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1.13.3 Authenticating the Water Conservancy System Two pieces of evidence have been collected to prove these dams originated in the Liangzhu period. First, the Laboratory of Inert Gas Isotope Geochronology of Peking University used radiocarbon dating to measure the age of grassy plant samples collected from the grass-clay mixture on seven dams. The results showed the samples dated at about 5,000 years. B.P., belonging to the early-to-middle Liangzhu periods. The other evidence, which further supports the assertion that the dams were built in the Liangzhu period, came from the domestic garbage left over by the ancients. Atop the Tangshan levee, archaeologists found several elite burials and a jade workshop from the late Liangzhu period. On the Laohuling dam, they excavated a ditch, where pottery fragments from the same period were found.

1.13.4 The Dams Capable of Resisting Severe Floods The mere discovery of the 10 dams and one levee had not revealed the whole story about the large-scale formalized water management in ancient Liangzhu. Later surveys found the dams were divided into two protection systems: high dams and low dams. The Liangzhu people planned and built these dams meticulously, in line with the altitude of their residences. High dams were mainly built in the mouth of valleys between hilly formations to block flooding water, while low dams connected isolated hills on the plain to enclose a huge area of low-lying land, forming a secondary reservoir with a coverage area of nine square kilometers. Here comes a question: Had these dams, built without any scientific and technological means in ancient times, worked well to prevent flooding? Using GIS software, Liu Jianguo and Wang Hui from the Institute of Archaeology under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences analyzed the effectiveness of the high dam system in flood prevention. Experts estimated that these dams could block 870 ml of continuous precipitations in a short timeframe—equivalent to withstanding severe floods which happened once in every 100 years in the area. In addition to fighting floods, the dams also facilitated water-borne transportation of both goods and people in the area. In the Liangzhu period, people without wheeled vehicles and support of road systems had to rely on boats as a means of travel. In fact, the dams contained huge amounts of water, creating reservoirs which joined valleys together and forming a major water transport network. Experts estimated boats could sail 1,500 m upstream along the valleys, when the reservoirs at Ganggongling and Laohuling reached full capacity. In the Liangzhu Ancient City, we can see signs of the ancient people transporting woods from mountains, taking advantage of a vast waterway network. Pairs of holes, called ox nostrils, appeared on the base pads of many wooden planks still standing upright at the Meirendi riverbank. The devices allowed boatmen to tie their vessels

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Fig. 1.40 Wooden pad with a pair of holes like ox nostrils, used by ancients to dock boats

with ropes, forming direct evidence that these wooden planks were transported to Meirendi by waterways (Fig. 1.40). Imagine the people in Liangzhu, adept at boating, maneuvered their “private yachts”—the canoes—along the valleys, enjoying beautiful scenery, chanting love songs and even drifting leisurely down rivers. What a wonderful life they had! (Original title: Top Archaeologists and Water Conservancy Experts Gathered in Hangzhou for the 11 Liangzhu Dams, which Rewrite China’s Water Conservancy History; The Liangzhu People Created the World’s Earliest Flood Prevention Dams, Mar. 15, 2016).

1.14 Major Archaeological Discovery in Hydraulic Science The 11 dams had really signified the great hydraulic engineering achievements by the Liangzhu people. The dams contained massive amounts of water, forming reservoirs equivalent to the added capacity of three West Lakes in Hangzhou City. With the advanced combination of high and low dams, how did they function to control flooding water? How did the Liangzhu people arrange the transport of construction materials? Facing such complex planning and construction project, you can feel the strong organizational capability that its chief architects and leaders had exercised in advancing and completing the project. They might be called “Yu the Great,” of Liangzhu (Fig. 1.41). “To evaluate how advanced a civilization was, we really need to examine the scale of its water management system,” said Liu Bin, director of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. At the authentication meeting on Mar. 14, 2016, Li Boqian, chief scientist of the Xia-Shang-Zhou Dynasties Chronology Project and professor of Peking University commented that “An (ancient) hydraulic engineering facility covering over 100 square kilometers is rarely seen in the world. The Liangzhu water conservancy

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Fig. 1.41 Experts and journalists at the Liangzhu Liyushan low dam ruins

system is of greater historical significance than the excavated Tomb of the Marquis of Haihun.10 It is also a major scientific and technological discovery in the world.” Experts suggested the water conservancy system be included in the list of protected Liangzhu sites as soon as possible. More efforts should also be made in the research of its value for nominating the Liangzhu Ancient City for the UNESCO World Heritage status.

1.14.1 Imitating Liangzhu for Flood Control, Yu the Great Succeeded and His Father Failed The wisdom of the Liangzhu inhabitants had been reflected in advanced water management to prevent flooding. Let’s assume the Liangzhu experience had been learned by Yu the Great, famed for his flood control success, would he be convinced by what the Liangzhu people had done? China’s water conservancy history was said to start with Yu the Great and his father Gun, with their reign presumably dated at 4,100–4,000 years B.P. As the Liangzhu Culture was dated at about 5,300–4,300 years B.P., can we conceive of Yu the Great imbibing the wisdom from Liangzu in taming floods? “We may find some traces in this legend about the Liangzhu people’s experience in flood control,” said Wang Ningyuan, adding that might be reflected by the respective efforts of Gun and Gonggong to control floods.

10

The Tomb of the Marquis of Haihun belonged to Liu He (92–59 B.C.), the ninth emperor of the Western Han Dynasty. Liu was deposed 27 days after his enthronement for committing numerous misconducts. He was exiled to the Haihun Kingdom in present-day Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. Throughout his tumultuous life, Liu He went from being a prince to a king, then from an emperor to a commoner, and eventually died as the Marquis of the Haihun Kingdom.

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Both men failed to tame flooding water. The “Guoyu”,11 or “Discourses of the States,” attributed their failure to gross errors ranging from blocking rivers and flattening hills to fill low-lying lands. “Viewing the dam system of the Liangzhu Ancient City as a whole, several high dams built in the valleys were purely flood- interception dams. Even the low dams in the south aimed to contain water from the northwestern mountains within lowlying lands. This was the application of the so called ‘blocking-rivers’ technique. The Liangzhu inhabitants transformed the swampy lowland into an inhabitable landscape of artificial mounds and built houses on them. This was the ‘filling-up-lowland’ technique,” Wang Ningyuan explained. But why had Gun and Gonggong failed in their attempts to control floods? Wang Ningyuan reckoned that was probably because they did not know how to adapt the application of these techniques to meet local conditions. He explained that during the period, the flooding on the Central Plains was not caused by local climate disasters, but by a steady rise of sea level driven by global climate change. As a result, inland rivers could not flow smoothly downstream and even reversed their flowing direction due to the rising tide. The water management experience of Liangzhu on the swampy plain was simply copied by Gun without any change for blocking flooding water on the Central Plains, which all had the same high elevations, and did not have the protection of sea and river embankments. It was a futile effort to prevent floods, as concluded by the “Guoyu,” or “Discourses of the States,” lamenting “that failure hurt the world.” In contrast, Yu the Great adopted a combination of measures consisting of flood blocking, river dredging and water diversion, which eventually led to his success.

1.14.2 Water Management Linked to Birth of Civilization At the authentication meeting, Professor Gao Menghe from Fudan University suggested adding one sentence to describe the significance of the Liangzhu hydraulic works system: The low dams represented the highest level of large-scale, stacked water conservancy structure in its contemporaneous period. Let’s take a look at the Egyptian pyramids dated at 5,300 and 4,300 years B.P. The water conservancy system of ancient Egypt mainly consisted of canals and water storage pools, not comparable with the scale of the dams in the periphery of the Liangzhu Ancient City. As far as the flood-prevention dams were concerned, no other hydraulic dam structures in the world emerged earlier than Liangzhu’s dams.

11 The Guoyu, often translated as Discourses of the States, is an ancient Chinese text that consists of a collection of speeches attributed to rulers and other men from the Spring and Autumn period (771– 476 BC). It comprises a total of 240 speeches. Its author is unknown, but it is sometimes attributed to Zuo Qiuming, a contemporary of the Confucius. The earliest chapter of the compilation is the Discourses of Zhou.

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Many experts from the international archaeological community have linked largescale water conservancy facilities with the emergence of civilizations and the formation of states. For example, Karl Marx believed that large-scale public works represented by water control facilities had a close relationship with the emergence of civilizations. German-American historian, Karl Wittfogel asserted that the need for water management was a direct cause of the emergence of a civilization. For this, he put forward the term of hydraulic civilization, referring to any culture having an agricultural system that was dependent upon large-scale government-managed waterworks—productive (for irrigation) and protective (for flood control). “Water management needed a chief architect. A hydraulic civilization emerged in response to the need for joint coordination and cooperation,” Liu Bin said. At the end of the meeting, the experts concluded that the discovery of the water conservancy system further corroborated the existence of Liangzhu as an early state society, whose value was on a par with other contemporaneous civilizations in the world.

1.14.3 Liangzhu Set Settlement Patterns South of Yangtze River Experts have drawn a strong link between water management and the birth of a civilization. How had the water conservancy facility built 5,000 years ago affected the life of the Liangzhu people? The Taihu Lake plain where the ancients lived was frequently hit by floods and droughts, but they were smart in coping with these natural calamities. By building houses on artificial mounds, they tried to avert the risks of their homes being inundated by floods. Meanwhile, the removal of earth for piling up the mounds enabled the Liangzhu inhabitants to create networks of waterways and ponds for irrigating rice paddy fields around their villages. These ensured a regular supply of food for them. This economic and social growth pattern has been described by archaeologists as a dense distribution of small but relatively independent settlements. “The characteristics of the Liangzhu settlements were very similar to the present-day settlement patterns in the south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. That is why we conclude the Liangzhu people laid the foundation for settlement and living patterns in the region, which have not changed in the past five millennia,” Wang Ningyuan said. (Original title: Experts Authenticated Liangzhu’s Flood Control Dams as the World’s Major Scientific and Archaeological Discovery; They Confirmed Liangzhu as an Early State Society, on a Par with Contemporaneous World Civilization, Mar.15, 2016).

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1.15 Liangzhu Selected as Top 10 New Discoveries On May 15, 2016, a final review for the selection of China’s top 10 new archaeological discoveries in 2015 was held in Beijing. The annual event is known as China’s “Oscar Awards” in archaeology. Following the first two rounds of preliminary evaluation, 25 candidate properties were shortlisted for the final review, which would lead to the unveiling of the top 10 discoveries on the afternoon of May 16, 2016. Three major properties from Zhejiang Province were among the final contenders: the surveying and excavation of the peripheral large-scale water conservancy system of the Liangzhu Ancient City in Yuhang; the surveying and exploration of the royal and elite tombs of the Yue Kingdom in Shaoxing City; and the site of Lin’an City, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty in Hangzhou. Zhejiang shared the first place with Central China’s Hubei Province, with the same number of shortlisted properties. Other big hit properties included the Tomb of the Marquis of Haihun from Jiangxi, the Sanxingdui ruins from Sichuan Province, the Guangfulin ruins from Shanghai and the underwater exploration on the sunken Chinese warship, code-named “Dandong No.1”12 off the coast of Liaoning Province. Properties for the final review were presented in a chronological order from the earliest to the latest, with a grand finale by the red-hot favorite—the Tomb of the Marquis of Haihun. Accordingly, the presentation for “the Liangzhu people” dated at 5,000 years B.P—much older than Liu He, the Marquis of Haihun—was scheduled for the morning. Interestingly enough, two properties, whose presentations came earlier than the Liangzhu flood control dam complex, also belonged to the Liangzhu Culture. They were the Guangfulin ruins in Songjiang, Shanghai, and the Jiangzhuang ruins located at the junction of Xinghua and Dongtai cities, Jiangsu Province, though outsiders could hardly find the commonality among the three. In total, the candidate properties from Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai in the Yangtze River delta accounted for half of the shortlisted projects competing for a place on the top 10 list. The Guangfulin ruins site was first discovered in 1959, and the well-known “Guangfulin Culture” was named after it. Sometime between 2014 and 2015, archaeologists found at the site a cemetery of the Songze-Liangzhu cultures, with 103 tombs. In his presentation, Chen Jie, the leading archaeologist for the project, showed a picture of clearly visible human skeletons in the tombs, which immediately caught the attention of the audience. “Through the restoration of skulls, we have gained a preliminary understanding of the physical characteristics of humans at that time,” Chen Jie revealed more about his team’s discoveries, which appealed to the audience. “For examples, they had the custom of teeth extraction; and a ligament indentation indicated they rowed boats 12

The sunken warship known as Dandong No. 1 had been identified as the cruiser Zhiyuan of the Beiyang Fleet of the Qing Dynasty. Zhiyuan was one of the most advanced naval vessels in Asia in the late 1800s. During the first Sino-Japanese war (1894–1895), the Chinese fleet lost four warships, including the Zhiyuan.

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frequently. They also had cervical spondylosis, and we found what turned out to be the earliest spinal deformity caused by tuberculosis in East Asia.” The discovery of the Jiangzhuang ruins in Jiangsu Province in 2011 shocked many, as it filled a research void about the Liangzhu Culture ruins north of the Yangtze River. Refreshing our knowledge base, it altered the traditional beliefs that the geographical span of the Liangzhu Culture, centering on the Circum-Taihu Lake area, would not extend beyond the south of the Yangtze River. “An experienced public speaker as he is, the leading archaeologist for the excavation of the Jiangzhuang ruins, Gan Huiyuan, nicknamed A Gan, is presenting the project in a steady pace,” Fang Xiangming, a research fellow of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, commented in his live streaming at the WeChat Circle of Friends. “Many incomplete bodies—headless, single arm or no palm, disconnection between the head and body, and simply the head—were unearthed from tombs. Wars might explain these phenomena. In other words, these people were heroes defending the Liangzhu kingdom,” A Gan explained while showing several pictures of human remains. Being active in the north of the Liangzhu kingdom was the aggressive Dawenkou Culture, which in its heyday expanded to the northern bank of the Huaihe River. This might have caused head-on clashes between the two cultures in the region. By April 2016, a total of 284 tombs had been cleared up from the Jiangzhuang ruins, harvesting the most complete and abundant record of well-preserved human remains from the cemeteries of the Liangzhu Culture. With the introduction of the two Liangzhu Culture sites, we turn to the flagship archaeological project of the Liangzhu Ancient City. The Liangzhu peripheral water conservancy system was the earliest large-scale hydraulic engineering works in China, and also the earliest dam system in the world. Its designed coverage area exceeded 100 square kilometers, which proved once again that the Liangzhu Ancient City had a complete capital structure. “This discovery is very important,” this reassuring statement made by the exciting expert panel had almost set the tone for the ultimate success of the Liangzhu water conservancy system in winning a place on the top 10 list. Heated discussions continued during the Q&A session, and the moderator had to break in over and over again to ensure the presentation would end within the scheduled timeframe. Finally, the Marquis of Haihun, Liu He “came” onto the stage. The expert panel reacted calmly to the presentation made by Yang Jun, the leading archaeologist of the tomb’s excavation, probably due to their familiarity of the subject that had gained an enormous amount of exposure in the media. Yang also talked briefly about the latest excavation of the tomb’s inner coffin. As the final review drew to a close, good news reached the archaeological teams of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. The surveying and excavation of the Liangzhu peripheral large-scale water conservancy system won the first prize of the China Field Archaeology Award for 2011–2015, the highest award in the archaeological field. The surveying and exploration of the royal and elite tombs of the Yue Kingdom in Shaoxing won the third prize.

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(Original title: Competition for China’s Top 10 New Archaeological Discoveries in 2015 Enters Final Review; Liangzhu Culture Sites Made a Big Hit; Final Results Would be Unveiled Today. May 16, 2016).

1.16 Leave Fame and Merits Behind, as Duties Are Fulfilled At 4:30 p.m. on May 16, 2016, following two days of presentations and expert panel voting, the final results of China’s top 10 new archaeological discoveries in 2015 were announced in Beijing. The surveying and excavation of the peripheral largescale water conservancy system of the Liangzhu Ancient City in Yuhang, Zhejiang Province secured a place on the top 10 list, which also included the most eye-catching excavation of the Tomb of the Marquis of Haihun in Jiangxi Province. “It is time for us to ‘leave fame and merits behind, as duties are fulfilled.’ After 80 years of continuous pursuit for success by archaeologists in generations, we finally recovered the faded and dusty part of history about the Liangzhu Culture 5,000 years ago and accomplished the long-cherished dream in glory.” This was an “award-acceptance message” in the WeChat Circle of Friends, posted by Wang Ningyuan, the team leader for the excavation of the Liangzhu water conservancy system. Quoting a poem by Li Bai, a renowned Tang Dynasty poet, Wang expressed some excitement after winning the top 10 honor. The honor did not come as a surprise for many, as it was granted to the discovery of the world’s earliest flood control dam complex. However, the excitement of Wang Ningyuan and his colleagues came for some reasons. The year of 2016 marked the 80th anniversary of the first excavation of the Liangzhu ruins and the 10th anniversary of the discovery of the Liangzhu Ancient City. “The honor embodies the recognition of the significance and value of the Liangzhu Culture by the Chinese archaeological community. Meanwhile, it is a tribute to the upcoming 80th anniversary,” Liu Bin commented.

1.16.1 Liangzhu Prehistoric Society Brings Joy to Zhejiang The Jiangzhuang ruins from Jiangsu Province, belonging to the Liangzhu Culture, also won a place on the top 10 new discoveries list. After the press conference for unveiling the honors, Liu Bin immediately called Lin Liugen, director of the Archaeology Research Institute of the Nanjing Museum and A Gan, inviting them for group photos. Seeing this, a young archaeologist born in the 1980s gave an exclamation in his message to the WeChat Circle of Friends: “Double Happiness for Greater Liangzhu!”. The “Liangzhu phenomenon” also attracted the attention of the expert panel and the media. “The Liangzhu ruins sites have already received several top 10 prizes

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in Zhejiang Province. This time, if they were only relatively important rather than being exceptionally outstanding, we would have definitely neglected them. However, they stood out prominently,” said Yan Wenming, a senior professor at the School of Archaeology and Museology of Peking University. “The legend has it that Yu the Great had successfully tamed the flooding water by building hydraulic works, but many people suspect that he was capable of doing that. The Liangzhu hydraulic engineering system emerged over 1,000 years earlier than Yu the Great, so the legend itself is by no means groundless.” In November 1936, Shi Xingeng—a native to the Liangzhu Township, and a staff of the West Lake Museum—carried out the first trial excavation on the Qipanfen by archaeological means. A large number of pottery objects were unearthed from the site, making him the first discoverer of the Liangzhu ruins. Archaeology in China 80 years ago was still a fledgling science. Archaeologists understood very vaguely the chronology of the Chinese history, especially that preceding the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties. Liu Bin recalled the Liangzhu exploration started when the Chinese prehistoric archaeology was still at its infancy stage. “Through 80 years of efforts, we have developed a pedigree of the Neolithic cultures in the Taihu Lake basin on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, ranging from the 7,000-year-old Majiabang Culture to the Songze, Liangzhu and QianshanyangGuangfulin cultures, presenting a true state about human life from 10,000 years ago to the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties.” With the discovery of the Liangzhu Ancient City in 2007 and the authentication of its peripheral water conservancy system in 2015, Liu Bing said “we gradually figured out, step by step, a state polity system in the Liangzhu area, with separate cemeteries for elites and commoners, a palace zone, and functional zoning for inner and outer cities, which with substantial evidence attested to the existence of the 5,000-year-old Chinese Civilization.”

1.16.2 More Discoveries Expected for Liangzhu Archaeology is a science about exploring the human past and restoring history, rather than simply digging out treasures. For excavating the gigantic Liangzhu ruins site cluster, Liu Bin said they often had to ponder over the sources of all the materials including clay and rocks. The discoveries of the ancient city and hydraulic dams were the results of such long-time research efforts. According to Liu Bin, the Liangzhu water conservancy system drew much attention at a conference on water management and world civilizations sponsored by the University of London in April 2016. Colin Renfrew, a renowned archaeologist from the Cambridge University, wrote an article entitled “The Far Underestimated Neolithic Age of China.” Due to a series of important discoveries of Liangzhu in recent years, the world archaeological community began re-examining the history of China before the Shang Dynasty. Traditionally, historians had thought that China’s

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earliest recorded dynasty was the Shang, which ruled through the Bronze Age, in the 2nd millennium BC. The excavation and research of the Liangzhu water conservancy system still has a long way to go, despite receiving the top 10 honor. “To understand how the excavated dam complex operated and functioned may lead to discoveries of other dams. By tracing the whereabouts of irrigated areas, we may find ancient rice paddy fields lying out there. Accompanying the dams, there must have been reservoirs. By studying the deposits and microorganisms to be excavated from reservoir areas, we can restore the sites to their original state,” said Liu Bin. However, he cautioned that to accomplish these, more needs to be done in the future. Since 2015, the Yuhang Archaeological Site Administrative District Management Committee has included the remarkable network of earthen dams into its protection and administration system. Next, cultural heritage regulators and the government of Yuhang district would expand the coverage of the Liangzhu protection zone, in order to grant the newly discovered dams a deserved status for stronger protection. These have reflected one of the characteristics of archaeology—making a new discovery will lead to more issues for archaeologists to settle, a major difference from some other professions, in which when a task is done, it is done. (Original title: Newly Unveiled Top 10 Archaeological Discoveries for 2015 included Liangzhu Water Conservancy System, 1,000 Years Earlier than the Legend about Yu the Great Taming Waters; 5,000-year-old Dam Complex Awaits Further Excavations for New Discoveries, May 17, 2016).

1.17 The Ancient City—Home to Royalty, Craftsmen and Northerners Eating Millet November 2016 marked the 80th anniversary of the first excavation of the Liangzhu ruins. A series of activities were held to mark the occasion, including a seminar and the release of a book titled “Eighty Years of Liangzhu Archaeology.” The Liangzhu Museum also opened a special exhibition themed “The Sights in the Kingdom.” By then, Liu Bin had been working on the excavation and protection of the Liangzhu ruins for 30 years, ever since he came to work in Hangzhou in 1985. “In the past, we were on a stage to discover the basic features of the Liangzhu Culture, and now, we are entering a new phase of studies to interpret the society of Liangzhu and its environment.” Liu Bin said the 80th anniversary marked the beginning of a new exploration phase for the Liangzhu ruins. In a conversation with me, he revealed plans for the future. Journalist Ma Li: How has the archaeological understanding of the Liangzhu Culture evolved over the past 80 years?

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Liu Bin: Sometime between 2006 and 2007, we discovered the Liangzhu Ancient City, and in 2015, we excavated its peripheral water conservancy system. The two projects had a time gap of one decade. After 10 years of hard work, the exploration of the Liangzhu ruins has entered a new phase of doing research in line with plans. We have gradually sketched out a state polity with a grand scale in the Liangzhu area. Inside and outside the ancient city, there were the palace zone, inner city walls and outer city walls. A royal mausoleum, separate cemeteries for the nobility and commoners, observatories and jade workshops had been unearthed. The functional zoning for the entire ancient city system has become increasingly clear. These archaeological achievements have presented strong evidence that attests to the 5,000-year-old Chinese Civilization. Journalist Ma Li: People are very concerned about the progress of Liangzhu’s application for a World Cultural Heritage status. How are things going? Liu Bin: The construction of the Liangzhu State Archaeological Ruins Park is in progress. The project requires fine workmanship and meticulous attention and hence, it cannot be rushed. The park is envisaged to display the original layout of the ancient city, so that visitors can intuitively understand the structure and functional divisions of the Liangzhu Ancient City during their tour. The governments of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou City and the Yuhang District have set the goal of submitting Liangzhu’s application for the World Heritage status in 2019, and hoped to achieve the goal during the 13th Five-Year Plan Period. Journalist Ma Li: Speaking of the 13th Five-Year Plan, is there any specific plan to get Liangzhu listed in the (state) Special Plan for the Protection of Large Ruins Sites? Liu Bin: The 13th Five-Year Plan marks a new beginning for the archaeological research of the Liangzhu Ancient City. With the support of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, we are ready to carry out research on the model of early civilization on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, with a focus on the evolution pattern of the Liangzhu Culture. This research will be carried out across provinces, including Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Anhui and Jiangxi, etc., to study the evolution and development patterns of the Songze-Liangzhu regional civilization on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The research in Zhejiang will pivot to the comprehensive investigation of 1,000 square kilometers in the Yuhang basin. In other words, Liangzhu as a kingdom was able to rule the whole Taihu Lake region, and we have basically sketched the layout of its core area which encompassed the ancient city, the water conservancy system and the suburbs, with an estimated area of 100 square kilometers. Next, we need to study the whole area of 1,000 square kilometers, mainly in Yuhang, referred to as the hinterland of the Liangzhu Ancient City. We plan to

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carry out a comprehensive study of the society, culture and environment in this core area, which supports our understanding of the Liangzhu kingdom. Journalist Ma Li: Are there any new discoveries in our excavation these days? Liu Bin: Archaeological excavations are underway at two separate places—one within the ancient city and the other on the water conservancy system. Discoveries inside the city have gone far beyond our expectations. Journalist Ma Li: Could you give us more details? Liu Bin: Some clues we have found indicate that people from a wide range of areas came to work and live in the capital city, and there might also be many workshops. Journalist Ma Li: For example, who were exactly the city’s inhabitants? Liu Bin: We have excavated the Zhongjiagang ruins since 2015 (Fig. 1.42). This was an ancient canal extending in a south-north direction in the east of Mojiaoshan. Massive amounts of raw jades, jade drills, flint stones and other remains related to working jades were found in the abandoned deposits of the river channel. Meanwhile, some wooden planks have also been found. Therefore, we speculated that jade workshops and lacquerware workshops operated in this area. On the basis of this clue, we came to realize that a large number of craftsmen lived in the outer city and this finding helped us understand more clearly about the layout, function and other properties of the Liangzhu Ancient City. Its center consisted of the palace zone, the royal mausoleum and cemeteries for elites, where the ruling class resided and got buried. The rest of Fig. 1.42 Zhongjiagang canal bank

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the areas might be reserved for various workshops. We did a careful coring survey and found no rice paddy fields in the outer city, indicating that people living in this area were not engaged in agriculture. In addition, we uncovered human skeletal remains of abnormal death from the Bianjiashan and Putaofen sections of the ancient river channels. Tests revealed they lived on a diet of millet instead of rice, indicating they might have come from the north. We need to further study whether they were killed or were offered to the heaven as human sacrifices. The Liangzhu people were largely a very peaceful ethnic group who rarely committed killings. We only observed traces of violence at a few ruins sites, such as the burial of some human skulls at the Jiangzhuang ruins in Jiangsu Province. However, that area was basically the border of the Liangzhu kingdom and violent incidents could be somewhat forgiven. Recently, we discovered a great many human skulls in the Zhongjiagang canal, which implicated some very interesting issues. Well, no disclosure now. And we shall keep it for an announcement at the annual archaeological sharing session next month. Journalist Ma Li: It sounds interesting. Why has Liangzhu attracted so much attention these years? Liu Bin: The development of human societies had a lot in common. States and civilizations, like the ancient Egypt, began to emerge at about 5,000 years B.P. How could we assert that China has 5,000 years of civilization history as well, without the discovery of contemporaneous kingdoms and civilizations? The discovery of the Liangzhu Civilization proves that the Chinese Civilization is not an unconventional existence in the world. The Xia、Shang、Zhou dynasties started at 4,000 years B.P., making 5,000 years B.P. a major milestone in the Chinese history. The Liangzhu ruins would have received less attention, if it had been dated at 3,000 years B.P. We used to apply mechanically key elements summarized by the Western society, such as cities, formal writings and bronzes, etc., to judging the emergence of a state or civilization. Now we find that this set of criteria may not hold true for China’s early civilization. Foreign archaeologists have also begun to question and abandon these early concepts. We should identify and summarize the key elements and characteristics of the Chinese Civilization on the basis of the discoveries from Liangzhu and other early Chinese civilizations. In other words, we need to work out a Chinese research model on the origin of civilization, and this will be an important research subject for future. (Original title: Intriguing Disclosures from Liu Bin, Director of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology——Royalty, Craftsmen and Northerners Eating Millet Living in the Ancient City, Nov. 27, 2016).

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1.18 Mysterious Disappearance—Where Had the Liangzhu People Gone? Dec. 4, 2017 was Monday, a closing day normally for museums in China. However, the West Lake Museum on the Nanshan Road in Hangzhou broke the routine. For whom did it open? Villagers from Haochuan, Suichang, were very proud of this welcome from the museum. What happened to inhabitants there over 4,000 years ago had already vanished in the remote mountains, and few people know about it today. However, between Dec. 4, 2017 and Jan. 30, 2018, the West Lake Museum launched an exhibition dedicated to telling the stories about the ancient Haochuan inhabitants living in the remote mountains, to mark the 20th anniversary of the discovery of the Haochuan Culture. We may be familiar with the Shangshan Culture, Kuahuqiao Culture and Liangzhu Culture, but for most people, the name of the Haochuan Culture is quite new. Here is some information about it. In 1997, a rescue excavation was conducted on a cemetery in Lingtougang, Haochuan village by the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, in cooperation with the Cultural Relics Management Committee in Suichang County. The excavation yielded the discovery of 80 tombs and three ash pits, which dated sometime between the preceding Liangzhu Culture and the subsequent Maqiao Culture. Hence, the year of 2017 marked the 20th anniversary of the discovery of the Haochuan Culture. Chronologically, the Liangzhu people were close to those living at Haochuan. In the words of Wang Haiming, excavation project leader and deputy director of the institute, the Haochuan villagers were referred to as “the nephews” of the Liangzhu people. As expected, many “relatives”—archaeologists specializing in the study of the Liangzhu Culture—came early to meet “the nephews” at the exhibition’s opening ceremony. Yan Wenming, a senior professor of Peking University, was one of them. What was indeed the relationship between the Haochuan and Liangzhu people? A few days before the ceremony, many experts posted various intriguing messages on social media, like the following one with a fancy, literary style: “Lingtougang of Haochuan (village) sits amid the meandering Xianxialing Mountains. What happened indeed in the late Liangzhu period 4,300 years ago? Who were the original inhabitants of Haochuan? How extensive was their territory, adjacent to Jiangxi and Fujian (provinces)? Twenty years have passed, and they will have a get-together at the West Lake Museum, so will we.” By reading this message, we have probably known how the story would unfold: Where had the Liangzhu ancestors gone, when their final days of the late Liangzhu Culture period were numbered? The answer: Haochuan must have been one of their major destinations.

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Then, what was the evidence for drawing this conclusion? Over 200 pieces (sets) of artefacts on display, including stone, jade and lacquer objects, gave a clear narration of the story.

1.18.1 Liangzhu Culture “DNA” Hidden on Jade Plaques The story about the Haochuan ancients started with the present-day local villagers who decided in April 1997 to transform a tea plantation at Lingtougang into a paddy field to cope with a slump in the tea market. With the irrigation ditch ready, villagers began bulldozing the plantation, but they soon found something had gone wrong: as the bulldozer moved forward, many pottery shards were unearthed. At that time, transportation between Hangzhou and Haochuan was rather inconvenient. It took Liu Bin and Wang Haiming a whole night to drive to Haochuan. They found a large cemetery at the top of the mound. Altogether, 23 tombs yielded a total of 26 objects, carrying the signs of red-colored lacquer. Later, the archaeologists had more important findings: most objects were inlaid or glued with stone flakes and curved jades in various geometric patterns. The combination of inlaid jades and lacquerwares gave Liu Bin and Wang Haiming a sense of déjà vu, so overwhelming that they could not ignore. The Zhejiang Provincial Museum also has a collection of lacquerwares with inlaid jades, unearthed from cemeteries in Fanshan, Yaoshan and Fuquanshan. The overall shape of the lacquerwares with inlaid jade (stone) ornaments found in Haochuan closely resembled the lacquer gu-wine vessel, unearthed from the Bianjiashan ruins of the Liangzhu Culture. Yet, this does not constitute a piece of critical evidence. A small jade slice, in a single-tiered pattern, was printed on the cover of the exhibition pamphlet. Of course, what have excited experts most are jade slices with a three-tiered pattern. M60, the largest joint burial tomb at the Haochuan cemetery, yielded 22 jade slices in different shapes with either flat or curved surfaces. Among them, two mini-slices had the distinctive shape of a three-tiered pattern, with a size almost equal to an adult’s thumb nail. If you are familiar with the Liangzhu Culture, you must have seen a symbolic pictograph—a bird perching on a three-tiered altar—often engraved on high-grade jades of Liangzhu. The Haochuan jade slices, as big as an adult’s thumb nail, carried patterns as same as those on Liangzhu’s three-tiered altar, forming major material evidence that the Haochuan Culture was closely linked to the earlier Liangzhu Culture. Liu Bin explained the Haochuan Culture seemed very unique at first glance, but it displayed some links with the preceding Liangzhu Culture, as archaeologists found out later. For example, the utensils the Haochuan inhabitants used, such as gui-ewer (a cooking utensil with three legs) and dou-pedestal plate (a container for meat or

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Fig. 1.43 Gui-ewer, a cooking utensil with three legs, unearthed from tomb M18 of Haochuan Culture

other foods), had emerged in the late Liangzhu Culture period, indicating cultural inheritance and development within the two societies (Fig. 1.43). “Archaeology aims to identify unearthed artefacts. We had failed to chronicle many. Without the discoveries at Haochuan, we might have chronicled pottery with stamped decorations to the Maqiao Culture13 of the Xia Dynasty,” said Liu Bin.

1.18.2 Three Criteria for Naming Haochuan Culture A report on the excavation of the Haochuan cemetery, published in 2001, highlighted all the information about the 80 tombs in a systemic manner. On the basis of this report, archaeologists named the culture after the Haochuan ruins in Suichang City, Zhejiang Province. They concluded the “Haochun Culture” emerged in the late Liangzhu Culture period, dated at 4,300 years B.P. People may question what conditions are required for naming ancient ruins as a “culture.” Mr. Xia Nai had put forward some principles for naming a culture in an article titled “Issues on Naming a Culture from an Archaeological Perspective.”14 Guided by his opinions, Chinese archaeologists have named a series of archaeological cultures, including the Liangzhu Culture. Archaeologist Wang Mingda believes that to name a culture needs to consider three key elements, “The candidate culture persisted in a territory (region), with a considerably long span of time (age) and remains displaying some cultural characteristics, such as a set of pottery wares with distinctive features, and/or jade ritual objects, including cong-cylinder, bi-disc, yue-ceremonial axe and others.” What’s more, following the discovery of the Haochuan cemetery ruins, the excavation of the Haochuan Culture settlement ruins in Caowanshan, Wenzhou in 2002,

13

The Maqiao Culture has been named after the Maqiao ruins in Shanghai, where its remains were first found in the middle layer of the site. In chronology, the Maqiao Culture came shortly after the Liangzhu Culture, but they differed sharply in terms of cultural characteristics. 14 Xia Nai: Issues on Naming a Culture from an Archaeological Perspective. Archaeology, 4th issue,1959.

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and burial plots for commoners on the northeastern slope of Lingtougang, Haochuan in 2004, further enriched the connotations of the Haochuan Culture. The year of 2017 also witnessed a new round of surveying and exploration of the Haochuan Culture tombs at the Shanyawei ruins, Jiangshan City, Zhejiang Province. There tombs with a square shape resembled those at the Haochuan. Archaeologist Mou Yongkang, who started surveying ancient ruins and tombs in Jiangshan as early as 1979, had confirmed that the ash pits at the Shanyawei ruins were related to Liangzhu, according to Fang Xiangming. The Haochuan cemetery, Caowanshan ruins and Shanyawei ruins well represented three different socially graded settlements under the Haochuan Culture. In this respect, the Haochuan Culture encompassed a larger geographical domain, extending from the heart of the Xianxialing Mountains to the Oujiang River in southern Zhejiang Province. Collisions, exchanges, integration and assimilation among the LiangzhuHaochuan cultures and neighboring counterparts might well represent a typical feature of the development of Chinese prehistoric cultures. At the exhibition, a wide spectrum of artefacts from the Dawenkou Culture, Tanshishan Culture, Shixia Culture, and the Sheshantou ruins in Guangfeng, Jiangxi Province, have been displayed to facilitate the understanding of the links among these archaeologically defined cultures.

1.18.3 Haochuan—Major Destination for Liangzhu People Since the Haochuan Culture emerged in the late Liangzhu period, many people have associated the disappearance of the Liangzhu inhabitants with the emergence of the Haochuan people. “5,300 years ago, the ancestors of Liangzhu established the first theocratic kingdom in China, opening the prelude of the 5,000-year history of the Chinese Civilization. Unfortunately, however, devastating floods that lasted for years eventually led to the fall of the Liangzhu Civilization. Over 4,000 years ago, the Liangzhu kingdom disappeared mysteriously. Almost at the same time, the Liangzhu people courageously set foot on a place called Haochuan, in the rugged mountains in southern Zhejiang Province. What happened in the intervening years?” Chen Shoutian, deputy director of the Liangzhu Archaeological Site Administrative District Management Committee, posted his interpretation with an equally mysterious tone on the WeChat Circle of Friends. At the time of the Haochuan cemetery excavation, Chen Shoutian also wrote a poem with deep emotion, to this effect: Where had all the Liangzhu people gone, to the deep mountain valleys afar. “Initially, we were not very sure about the whereabouts of the Liangzhu people. Now we know at least one group of them moved along the Qiantang River and headed to Haochuan,” Wang Haiming explained, “We understand there were tribes in local areas and when the Liangzhu people arrived there, they gradually assimilated into

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local tribal communities. Eventually, local factors outweighed their own culture’s influence.” We can perceive this in a way as Wang Mingda suggested: the “close relatives” of the Liangzhu Culture arrived in Haochuan and Wenzhou. If we use archaeological terms to explain, as per the whereabouts of the Liangzhu Culture, we have located one of its most important destinations. “The characteristics of the Liangzhu Culture had also been reflected by the ruins in Fuyang, Yongkang and Tonglu areas in the south, as well as in Pujiang, but they looked a bit different,” said Wang Mingda. For instance, the coffins from the Liangzhu Culture were all placed in a north–south direction, while those from the Haochuan Culture, all in an east–west direction. “We should not conclude that the emergence of Haochuan Culture meant the disappearance of the Liangzhu Culture. By now, we can prove the Liangzhu Ancient City maintained its splendor 4,300 years ago, but it disappeared later. The Liangzhu people could not vanish without reasons. Some of them moved to the north of the Yangtze River. In the past, scholars believed that the Liangzhu Culture mainly encompassed the Circum-Taihu Lake area, and did not expand beyond the Yangtze River toward the north. The discovery of the Jiangzhuang ruins, though, suggested otherwise. Located at the junction of Xinghua and Dongtai in Jiangsu Province, the Jiangzhuang ruins, excavated in 2011, led to an unprecedented discovery of the Liangzhu Culture north of the Yangtze River. Another group of the Liangzhu people went along the Qiantang River and migrated to the southwest of Zhejiang,” said Fang Xiangming. Pointing to a jade slice with twisted and curved patterns, he explained further, “The Haochuan people had further perfected jade working techniques, demonstrating a more exquisite craftsmanship than the Liangzhu people.” “This illustrated the cultural and social progress in the wake of the Liangzhu period,” said Liu Bin. He took jade slices with tiers as an example. The artefacts had been recovered in many areas ranging from Wenzhou and Lishui in southern Zhejiang to sites in Shandong Province, symbolizing the progress of the society based on the inheritance of a unified belief system. (Original title: Where had the Liangzhu People Gone after Their Kingdom Disappeared Mysteriously? An Exhibition in the West Lake Museum Tells You: Haochuan People Living in the Mountains in Suichang Carried the DNA of Liangzhu, Dec. 5, 2017).

1.19 Brilliant Transformation of Liangzhu Museum Following 315 days of upgrading and renovation, the Liangzhu Museum reopened at 1:30 pm on Jun. 25, 2018. “What an amazing metamorphosis!” I was bursting to share my feeling after I marveled at the extraordinary artefacts from the Liangzhu Ancient City for several consecutive days. “Metamorphosis” may have perfectly described the changes in the three exhibition halls of the beautifully refurbished museum.

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Fig. 1.44 Aerial view of the Liangzhu Museum

The renovation was quite necessary for the Liangzhu Museum, which opened in 2008, as it displayed cultural relics reflecting only the archaeological understanding of the Liangzhu Ancient City 10 years ago. The recent decade, however, has witnessed a rapid increase in the number of new discoveries from the ancient city, accompanied by the application of new displaying technologies and a rise of its growing international reputation and influence. The museum originally consisted of halls for both permanent and temporary exhibitions. The three halls, designated for permanent exhibitions, covered the introduction of the Liangzhu Culture, archaeological discoveries and research findings. The refurbishment focused on a substantial update of themes and displaying content for the three halls (Fig. 1.44). The most notable change lies in the abundance of exhibits. Their total number has increased from over 400 items (sets) in 2008 to 600 in 2018, nearly half of which came from new archaeological discoveries over the past 10 years. The additions included some 200 pieces of pottery and specimens of plants and animals collected from Zhongjiagang, Putaofan, Meirendi and other ruins, as well as jade artefacts of cong-cylinder, bi-disc and zhui-awl unearthed from Houyangcun, Wenjiashan and Bianjiashan. Skulls of the Liangzhu inhabitants and fishhooks unearthed from Zhongjiagang have been put on display for the first time. Besides its own collections, the museum has also solicited over 100 new findings over the past 10 years, from the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. Visitors are impressed by a pleasant feel when they enter the museum—bright, elegant, friendly and comfortable (Fig. 1.45). This is a sharp contrast to the dim lighting that shrouds traditional museums in mystery, where sometimes a display case is shaded in darkness and the induction light would be on only when a visitor passes by. For some time, there had been online discussions on what illumination was needed for museums. The relaunched Liangzhu Museum has made an audacious attempt in this respect.

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Fig. 1.45 Exhibition Hall of Liangzhu Museum

“Many people think the dim lighting effect reflects elaborately the mysteries and backwardness of ancient tribes and primitive humans. As a matter of fact, Liangzhu had entered an era of civilization, and we want to pursue a bright displaying effect for it. Exhibition lighting should not only match our civilization, but also meet the current trends of international museums,” said Gao Menghe, chief curator of the Liangzhu Museum and professor of the Department of Cultural Relics and Museology at Fudan University. In fact, more and more public spaces and large museums in the world have turned to the use of natural daylight to enhance the visitors’ perception of exhibits. The most typical example is the British Museum, where the sunlight shines on exhibition walls, creating a natural and elegant atmosphere and making them a perfect backdrop reflecting the beauty of dawn and dusk for photography. Gao Menghe said that this time he wanted everyone who visited the Liangzhu Museum to have such a feeling: the vision is very bright, like what he or she sees under natural daylight (Fig. 1.46). “At a time, many museums in the world relied exclusively on interior lighting, rather than natural daylight, to create a confined illumination effect. But nowadays, we have tried to utilize interior lighting to simulate the effect of natural daylight, making visitors feel they are wandering in a natural environment. This approach follows an international trend in curating exhibitions” (Fig. 1.47). The renovation of the No.3 exhibition hall, designated for displaying Liangzhu jades (Fig. 1.48), exemplifies this concept. A bright ceiling lends a sense of height Fig. 1.46 (Above) Visitors at the relaunched Liangzhu Museum

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Fig. 1.47 (Bottom left) Exhibition hall simulating natural daylight at the Liangzhu Museum

Fig. 1.48 (Bottom right) Exhibition hall for jades at the Liangzhu Museum

to the hall, in line with the nature of the exhibits, namely cong-cylinder, bi-disc and yue-ceremonial axe, which embody the unity of the Heaven and God. “That is why the hall’s ceiling has been redesigned accordingly to generate a clean, simple and bright atmosphere, rather than a sense of mystery. An (ancient) civilization shall no longer be perceived as primitive humans in animal furs running in the wild,” Gao Menghe said. Light brightness in the exhibition hall is adjustable with a three-level intensity control, applying to both warm light and cold light. Well, you may ask, won’t such high brightness damage the cultural relics? “Most of the cultural relics were not made of organic objects, unlike paintings, calligraphy, and silk fabrics. They are mainly pottery and jade objects, invulnerable to lights. Given the small size of jades, we try to leverage spotlights to highlight its beauty,” Gao Menghe explained. Another improvement in the refurbished museum comes from the display cases installed with anti-reflective glass for showcasing the 600 plus exhibits. When you approach one case, you will not see your own shadow. In other words, you don’t bother with reflection when taking photos. In particular, the jade exhibition hall has been equipped with four advanced display cases imported from Glasbau Hahn, Germany, customized for displaying “the hefty three” of the Liangzhu jades, namely cong-cylinder, bi-disc and yue-ceremonial axe. It took two German craftsmen one week for assembling each case (Fig. 1.49). The Hahn display cases have already been deployed at the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States

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Fig. 1.49 The king of cong placed in the Glasbau Hahn display case at the Liangzhu Museum

and the National Museum of Egypt for displaying and protecting precious cultural relics. What is the effect of taking photos of cultural relics in front of these glass cases? Well, you just feel free to take photos from any angle without worrying about reflection. The quality of your photos is so good that its viewers may feel they are taken directly in the front of the exhibits, rather than through a layer of glass. At the exhibition halls, you can also read English descriptions of cultural relics everywhere. In the past, only descriptions and titles for major artefacts were translated into English. But now, a new bilingual information service covers the introductions of all cultural relics, catering to the needs of foreign visitors. To guarantee the quality of the English version for all the prefaces and epilogues, experts met over 10 times to discuss the translation, wording and even punctuations. For instance, they chose the word “urban” to define the civilization of the early regional state. Gao Menghe revealed the English translations were jointly worked out and finalized by both archaeological and English experts, after careful discussions and proofreading. The Liangzhu Museum also provides a Japanese version of guide narratives, a service which was not available before. The museum has made unprecedented efforts in presenting three new versions of Chinese guide narratives for visitors, experts and children, respectively. Well, after presenting the general impressions, let’s turn to the most important part of the museum—the exhibits. Before the visit, I intended to write an article aiming to provide tips and guide information for visitors. However, I was surprised to find that the museum had neither offered any clear guiding routes nor prepared any arrow signs for visitors. For touring the three exhibition halls, the museum provides an open-ended solution. “Yes, the exhibition is structured around themes with certain logic about its layout, but on the whole, the museum provides an open-ended touring experience. In other words, we offer no guide route,” Gao Menghe replied with a smile while commenting on the issue. “We used to arrange a guide and design a route for visitors according to the displaying logic lines. This time, we have adopted the popular laissez-faire model for visitors and set no specific routes for them.” After 10 years of exploration and research, archaeologists have not only figured out the layout, functions and other attributes of the Liangzhu Ancient City, but

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also discovered the large-scale peripheral water conservancy system. Gao Menghe explained the exhibition is a comprehensive presentation of the archaeological achievements of Liangzhu in the past 80 years, especially those in the past decade, with the first-hand information at the earliest possible time. The theme of the permanent exhibition in the Liangzhu Museum has been engraved on the big screen wall of the main hall: Liangzhu is a sacred place that attests to the 5,000-year history of the Chinese Civilization. The theme, concise and powerful as it is, has impressed visitors with the latest conclusion about the discoveries and research concerning the Liangzhu Civilization, before they start the museum tour. “We were yet to substantiate the assertion when we set up the exhibition last time (before the refurbishment) and thus that exhibition was curated as a manifestation of the Liangzhu Culture. Now this conclusion has been fully authenticated. Why are we sure about it?Two significant discoveries have affirmed that conclusion. On the one hand, we have figured out the overall layout and functions of the Liangzhu Ancient City. On the other hand, we have identified the large-scale peripheral water conservancy system. Consequently, we dare to claim that the Liangzhu ruins site cluster is not only an authentic demonstration of the 5,000-year Chinese Civilization, but also a typical example epitomizing the outstanding universal values of the civilization. Hence, we refer to Liangzhu as a sacred place of civilization.” The No.1 exhibition hall was previously designed to highlight the history of discovering the Liangzhu Culture. This part of content, however, has been deemphasized at the ongoing exhibition. Instead, as visitors enter the hall, they are first told about the conclusion affirmed by the world archaeological community, and then they will be guided onto various questions: Where is the Liangzhu site? How old is the Liangzhu Culture? Who discovered the Liangzhu ruins? Gao Menghe said that the three exhibition halls presented the research results over the past decade with facts. What are the facts? You may answer: they are the artefacts displayed in the museum. Right, this is exactly the focus of the museum following this renovation. The curators have put a great many emphasis on displaying artefacts unearthed in archaeological excavation, rather than deploying auxiliary exhibition items, such as full-size landscaping scenes and figural sculptures, a practice which had been adopted by many museums to catch the attention of visitors. Visitors can feel the real difference in this respect. In the past, the No. 2 exhibition hall was decorated with landscaping scenes, including trees and waters, which aimed to simulate the living environment of ancient Liangzhu inhabitants. The renovation removed almost all of the full-size landscaping scenes, allowing visitors to marvel at the authentic cultural relics without interference. The museum displays two categories of exhibits about the Liangzhu ruins. One category involves the photos and models reflecting the key features of the ancient city’s water conservancy system, while the other, artefacts. The museum presents a comprehensive display of pottery, jade, stone, bone and lacquer objects unearthed from the Liangzhu ruins. “There are no missing items. There was no such comprehensive classification before,” Gao Menghe said.

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The No. 3 exhibition hall, which carries the theme of “Jades as the Spritual Symbol of the State,” concentrates on the display of jade artefacts only. But how large is the spectrum of its exhibits? Here you are a long list of jade exhibits: cong-cylinder, yue-ceremonial axe, crown-like object, zhuo-bracelet, bi-disc, zhui-pendant, three-pronged object, zhuiawl, huang-pendant, annular plaque, cylinder-shaped bracelet, tube chain, bead chain, tube, bead, semi-spherical button-like bead, petal-shaped button-like ornament, button-like cylindrical object, ornament with sewing-hole on back, arrowheadshaped ornament, cong-like tube, jade plaque, jade bird, cylindrical object with lid, cylindrical object, long handle-shaped object, jade handle, jade spoon, jade dagger, harvesting knife, jade end ornament, pipe-shaped double-knobbed ornament…What a dazzling array of jades! Then, you may ask, what can visitors do if they fail to understand the artefacts? The Liangzhu cultural relics—whether they are pottery or jade artefacts—have a plain look and are less gorgeous than their colorful counterparts from the Tang and Song dynasties. What has the Liangzhu Museum done to help visitors understand the connotations and inner beauty of the Liangzhu artefacts? In fact, the Liangzhu Museum has prepared, for almost every exhibit, detailed information on the display board to explain its connotation, so as to help visitors not only appreciate the contour of each artefact, but also understand the role it had played in the whole process of civilization. Overall, what the museum has done allows the treasures to “speak for themselves.” For instance, people may not be familiar with the Liangzhu lacquerware, named gu-drinking vessel. Fragments of gu, unearthed at the Bianjiasha ruins by the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, have been put on display at the museum. Gao Menghe explained that in the past, probably only a part or a model of the lacquerware had been displayed with very simple explanations. But now they introduce the whole lacquerware making process ranging from molding to lacquer painting. Visitors are also informed of the then popular colors (red and black) of lacquerwares as well as when they were abandoned by ancient people and how they were restored by later generations. There was even a detailed and vivid explanation about how the Liangzhu people wore clogs. A large number of archaeological findings accomplished with the assistance of high technology have also been added to the exhibition. For example, the process of painting lacquer one layer after another to form a coating with varied thickness is fully demonstrated by the use of new technology. “Ten years ago, the technologies applied to archaeological exploration were not as advanced as they are today. New technologies have enriched our ways of displaying cultural relics. To summarize, the new approaches are characterized with all-round interpretation of artefacts and full demon of whole working processes.” In addition to the multiplicities of cultural relics, the Liangzhu Museum also adopts new technological means including 3D printing to help visitors gain a better understanding of the life of the Liangzhu inhabitants 5,000 years ago. Many visitors are interested in the burials unearthed from the Liangzhu tombs, but the cemeteries could not be moved to the exhibition hall. With 3D printing, the

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museum has reproduced a mini-version of the Fanshan royal mausoleum, including nine tombs and grave goods for displaying at the No.2 exhibition hall. The 3D “artefacts” look quite real, revealing almost the same details about their originals. The same technology has also been applied to reproducing mini-versions of a palace zone and a workshop zone of Liangzhu, respectively. Visitors can “meet” at the mini-version of the Zhongjiagang workshop zone, various people with interesting postures—playing, fishing, working jades, doing woodwork, making pottery and even sleeping and loafing on a job. The technology of 3D printing has restored as much as possible the real-life scene of the Liangzhu ancients. However, this innovative practice has not yet been adopted by many other museums in China. It takes a visitor about one and half hours to walk through the three exhibition halls, if he or she observes all the cultural relics carefully and watches over 12 multimedia films and projections presenting knowledge and stories about the Liangzhu ruins. According to Gao Menghe, the museum has a total of over 20 multimedia video booths—both offline and online—to present all the newly shot videos, which activate an otherwise static exhibition with sound and moving images. The coolest addition is a dome theater at the No. 2 exhibition hall, which plays a 10min film to introduce the Liangzhu Ancient City and its peripheral water conservancy system. Enjoy the “global premiere” of an epic blockbuster with surrounding sound! Different from conventional cinemas, a few lovely designed lazy sofas, instead of rows of seats, are placed in the small theater to accommodate only 25 people for one show. The museum will issue a number of tickets at the front desk, and play a show every half an hour. If you want to see a movie, please go to the front desk to get a ticket. Visitors can also enjoy an immersive experience, normally available at a drama theater. It comes from a wall covering—a section cut from the northern wall of the Liangzhu Ancient City—embedded on a displaying screen wall at the No. 2 exhibition hall. The displaying medium is four meters long and three meters wide… so big that visitors can clearly see the differences in soil color and texture, and even the traces of superimposed layers of clay. Most visitors may not take notice of its existence, or simply do not know its application, when it is static; but when they pass by, the wall “moves” all at once. A large multimedia device is installed on the ceiling of the exhibition hall, projects moving images on this 5,000-year-old city wall, showing the formation of the Liangzhu Ancient City and the building of its walls, step by step. Moving images on the static ancient wall give the audience a feeling of transcending time and space to experience the human past. Gao Menghe said that this displaying technique, which had not been used before, aimed to bring a brand new viewing experience to the visitors. In the same exhibition hall, you will view the most dramatic scene—on one side, men and women, old and young, from Liangzhu 5,000 years ago are busy with their work, while on the other side, three archaeologists, with trowels in hand, are carrying out the excavation and survey. Seeing this, we finally realize that transcending the time and space of the 5,000 years has been completed at one museum.

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(Original title: Liangzhu Museum Reopens after 315 Days of Refurbishment; Qianjiang Evening News Reporter Visits Relaunched Museum which Follows International Trends, Adopts Black Technology and Offers Immersive Experience, Jun. 23, 2018).

1.20 Six Keywords Explain Why Liangzhu is Sacred Place of Civilization Why and how has the relaunched Liangzhu Museum experienced an amazing metamorphosis? For this, I interviewed the chief curator of the museum—professor Gao Menghe from the Department of Cultural Relics and Museology of Fudan University (Fig. 1.50). Here is the conversation. Journalist Ma Li: What were the major differences between curating exhibitions today and those 10 years ago? Gao Menghe: Well, 10 years ago, the audience of the Liangzhu Museum was limited to domestic visitors and scholars. During these 10 years of exploration, foreign experts and scholars had constantly visited Liangzhu for conducting research. With the discovery of Liangzhu, the mainstream international academic circles have turned to accept the view that the Chinese Civilization has lasted five millennia. So now, we are not only facing a domestic audience, but a growing number of international visitors. I hope this museum of archaeological ruins will become influential both at home and abroad. We employed the latest technological means, designs and planning concepts in the country to curate this new exhibition. We expect to work out a brand new exhibition model including lighting, for the Chinese archaeological ruins museums. The model will be the best not only for today, but also remain advanced for the next five to ten years to play a leading and exemplary role in the sector. Therefore, this exhibition is forward-looking, visionary, demonstrative and influential theoretically. We’d like to Fig. 1.50 Professor Gao Menghe

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see that the Liangzhu museum will be leading domestically, and famed internationally in the next five to 10 years. Another difference is the background. You can see a detailed introduction of the Liangzhu Culture on page 11 of the textbook Chinese History (Volume I, Grade 7), uniformly adopted by most of the provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in China since 2017. This is the fourth time, but with the largest content volume, that the Liangzhu Culture has been written into the history textbook for middle schools. The introduction of the Liangzhu Culture in the textbook will be further improved in five to ten years. Ordinary archaeological discoveries are ineligible for inclusion in the textbook. Only significant and influential ones that prove the development and evolution of Chinese traditions, especially early civilizations, can be included. So as you see, many changes have taken place with the Liangzhu Culture in the past 10 years. To summarize, there are three hallmarks: We have made many discoveries; the Culture has gained international recognition; and it has generated a great impact on cultural inheritance among the contemporary people. This is also the background for our exhibition. As a result, one of our principles for curating this exhibition is to fully absorb and respect all archaeological achievements in the past 10 years. For example, we have outlined the functional zones in the Liangzhu Ancient City. Before that, we knew the Fanshan ruins and the ancient city ruins, but had no real idea about their relationship and attributes. Now we have figured out several of the most important functional areas, namely the palace zone, the mausoleum zone, the workshop zone and the storage area of the Liangzhu Ancient City. These interrelated zones fulfilled the fundamental functions of “the capital”. The triple-tier structure of Liangzhu’s palace zone, inner city and outer city was similar to that of the capitals of the Ming and Qing dynasties in Beijing, which consisted of the palace city, imperial city and outer city. It was an exemplary early urban planning in China and even East Asia. Why has the Chinese Civilization lasted for 5,000 years? Because it derives from the same origin and this has been reflected by the evolution of urban landscape engineering and functional settings. We are not supposed to say that there is no inherent connection at all between the triple-tier structure of the Liangzhu Ancient City 5,000 years ago and that of the capitals of the Ming and Qing dynasties 5,000 years later. It can be understood that one was the river source while the other, the water flow. These ideas, however, were not introduced for curating exhibitions in the past (Fig. 1.51). Journalist Ma Li: I see the exhibition also adds a displaying booth for “Primitive Written Characters,” which is separated from that for Liangzhu’s incised and drawn symbols. Why doing so? Gao Menghe: According to the indicators set for the Western material civilizations, a civilization carries three hallmarks: namely, city, metal and formal writings. At the last exhibition,

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Fig. 1.51 Inner coffin of tomb M14 and its burial articles from the Fanshan ruins, displayed at the Liangzhu Museum

we just had the element of the city—the Liangzhu Ancient City was discovered in 2007. And today, the Liangzhu ruins have possessed these three elements of civilization. Although there was no bronze, the technical level and symbolic significance represented by the designing, working and utilization of jades were as equally important as bronze. We have added “Primitive Written Characters,” which were specially authenticated by ancient characters experts, into the exhibition. We found in the Liangzhu Culture ruins multiple pictorial symbols intentionally arranged together, and this was different from the isolated use of symbols. They can be viewed as the primitive characters of the Liangzhu Culture. That is why we have separated the primitive written characters from those symbols. At the exhibition halls 10 years ago, we talked about “characters” only superficially, without any in-depth explanations and qualitative analysis. But this time we’ve designated a wall for displaying these primitive characters and compared them with ancient Egyptian characters in order to provide multi-dimensional information to visitors. A lot of “super fans” of these primitive written characters stared at these words and asked a lot of serious questions. The characters on display bear academic value authenticated by ancient character experts. These primitive characters are credited with forming typical sentences. Journalist Ma Li: I see that on the art walls, there are various keywords about Liangzhu. The six most impressive keywords are “Rice Civilization,” “Jade Civilization,” “Water Civilization,” “Primitive Written Characters,” “Urban Civilization” and “Early State.” How do you interpret them? Gao Menghe: We have summarized the features of the Liangzhu civilization with these six keywords, so visitors can remember them after watching the exhibition, especially the following two: First, “Urban Civilization” means that Liangzhu was a big city. The second, “Early State,” refers to Liangzhu as a state. These are the two most important keywords, forming the key messages we intend to convey through this exhibition. We have also listed these six words at the exit hall, hoping that the audience will begin to understand why Liangzhu is a sacred place (of civilization). All are expressed in these six keywords.

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Fig. 1.52 Exit hall of the Liangzhu Museum

Journalist Ma Li: Yes, I find the exit hall very interesting. Generally, many museums present an epilogue which serves as an exit hall, but the Liangzhu Museum has an independent hall, which houses a 24-m-long ink scroll, similar to the world-famous painting “Along the River during the Qingming Festival.”15 The ink scroll depicts the environment and life in Liangzhu, with the ancient city at the center, and the eastern and western suburbs at both sides. A display case below the ink scroll exhibits archaeological reports, archaeological licenses and other material evidence, etc. (Fig. 1.52). Gao Menghe: With rich content structured along a clear logic line, we hope the exhibition will emphasize three key parts: First, a tiger head—Liangzhu is a sacred place where the 5,000 years of Chinese Civilization originated; second, a bear waist—the ancient city and its water conservancy system; and third, a leopard tail—six keywords of the Liangzhu Civilization. What the visitors can take away from their Liangzhu Museum tour is our major concern. Journalist Ma Li: There is also a temporary exhibition focusing on the protection and utilization of the Liangzhu ruins. How is this considered? Gao Menghe: In the past, archaeology was only about discovery and research, but now it has expanded its working areas further to protection and utilization. The ultimate goal that archaeology pursues is to pass valuable findings on for inheritance. From this point of view, the archaeological exploration of Liangzhu in the past 80 years has evolved from making discovery and research at the initial stage to a comprehensive model with concurrent discovery, research, protection, utilization and inheritance as

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Along the River during the Qingming Festival is a painting by the Song dynasty painter Zhang Zeduan (1085–1145). It depicts the daily life of people and the landscape of the capital, Bianjing (present-day Kaifeng) during the Northern Song Dynasty.

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a coherent whole. The Liangzhu archaeological exploration has taken the lead in this regard. For many years, the Liangzhu archaeological team and the Liangzhu Archaeological Site Administrative District Management Committee have been practicing in line with this model, doing a better job than other parts of the country. This special exhibition on the protection of Liangzhu may also go on a national tour to help preserve state-level large ruins and facilitate construction of state heritage parks. This is a new model of archaeology, which can inspire the whole archaeological sector to develop further. In this regard, Liangzhu provides a very good experience for such practices. Journalist Ma Li: In the absence of large-scale landscaping, the renovation, however, has enhanced the sense of contemporaneity, highlighted the state-of-the-art technology and improved the experience of interaction and enjoyment. There is a dome theater, an interactive room for children, and the Cultural and Creative Design Space jointly run by the Liangzhu Museum and the Xiaofeng Bookhouse. As you have just said, what can visitors take away after watching the exhibition? Gao Menghe: I want to tell visitors that our museum is beyond a place for education. Though the function of a classroom remains, the museum is more like a culture-and-leisure attraction. It needs to provide cultural services for the community and the public to share the beauty of life. These are also the theme and development trends of today’s international museums. We will closely follow the practices of international museums in curating exhibitions and meet the social needs of cultural services. For example, besides explaining the exhibits, an interpreter should also guide and serve visitors. Equipped with an interactive room and even a theater for entertainment, the museum has become a large cultural complex with all-round services. We hope that to visit the exhibitions in the Liangzhu Museum will lead a new way of life for the Hangzhou residents. (Original title: Interview with Gao Menghe, Chief Curator of the Liangzhu Museum——Why is Liangzhu a Sacred Place? Six Key Words to Summarize the Liangzhu Culture, Jun. 26, 2018).

1.21 The First Visitor to Relaunched Liangzhu Museum “I came especially for the first day of the reopening, hoping to stamp a seal of the Liangzhu Museum on my postcards.” “It’s so hot today. Thank you for coming. Welcome to the museum.” At 1:30 pm. on Jun. 25, 2018, the Liangzhu Museum reopened after 315 days of upgrading and renovation. In the afternoon, while the temperature reached 35 degrees, Mr. Jin Naimin, aged 81, trotted into the museum with a stack of homemade

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Fig. 1.53 Mr. Jin Naimin, the first visitor to the relaunched Liangzhu Museum, was interviewed by Journalist Ma Li

postcards, becoming the first visitor after the reopening of the Liangzhu Museum. (Fig. 1.53). Ma Dongfeng, director of the Liangzhu Museum, stood at the entrance of the building, designed by British architect David Chipperfield to welcome the first visitor. Although it was Monday, the admissions to the museum in the first two and a half hours after its opening totaled about 1,265, equivalent to the average number for a normal weekend. How did the first visitors feel? Well, let’s first meet the director of the Palace Museum, Shan Jixiang, who visited the relaunched museum before its opening, and see how he felt. As Shan Jixiang entered the exhibition hall, he was caught by the “sparkle” of the refurbished museum—the three exhibition halls were bathed in softer and brighter light. “The light is the most suitable for viewing cultural relics. Several major museums in the world have adopted the same lighting. Under such lighting conditions, the museum looks much better than before,” Shan Jixiang first praised the lighting effect. Then he noticed the transparency of the display cases, “this glass is very good.” Shan Jixiang was among the heads of many museums in China who visited the Liangzhu Museum to observe the renovation. After a careful study of the display designs for each hall, Song Xinchao, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, fully confirmed the idea of telling stories about the Liangzhu civilization with cultural relics. An Laishun, vice president of the International Council of Museums and vice president of the Chinese Museums Association, and other experts suggested that “the renovation should highlight the value of the heritage as well as its protection and administration, and pay attention to its utilization.” Gong Liang, director of the Nanjing Museum, and other experts believed that “The Liangzhu Museum has a very good overall design and its exquisite collection boasts absolute and unparalleled beauty. The new designs have marked a breakthrough on the traditional models of cultural heritage museums, and the adoption of digital technology has enhanced the displaying effect in some ways.” The breakthroughs in improving lighting conditions and the use of display cases with anti-reflective glass have impressed the first group of visitors—brilliant light

1.21 The First Visitor to Relaunched Liangzhu Museum

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Fig. 1.54 Newly added VR gear at the Liangzhu Museum

in the museum gave them a comfortable view of the details of artefacts; they also benefitted from the convenience of using a mobile phone to take photos of cultural relics—the glass of the display cases does not reflect light at all. “I came here for the first time. I feel that the whole exhibition is well done. The lighting and display cases meet professional standards. Traditional museums are generally lighted dimly, but it’s brighter here. It is no longer a highbrow show and appeals to young people,” commented the visitor named Yang Yi. The experience of black technologies is even more amazing for many people. The use of 3D printing for reproducing the burials from nine tombs and the workshop zone of the Fanshan mausoleum, a dome theater, and the interactive room featuring VR games, sand digging and treasure hunting activities—these services are all rare in an archaeological ruins museum (Fig. 1.54). Yang Fengyu, a teacher in Shanghai, and her son arrived in Hangzhou on a highspeed train early in the morning, anticipating an entry as early as possible. She visited the museum before and felt a bit uncomfortable with the then dim light. She also thought the previous exhibition was so technical that it went beyond the ken of children. “The light is very bright now and the display pattern is novel. There are many high-tech gears, like interactive gaming rooms. The VR goggles attracted my son’s attention and he was unwilling to leave.” Experts from the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology also expressed appreciation for the improvements. The institute was involved in the entire renovation process and over 100 cultural relics from the institute made public debut in the refurbished museum. Liu Bin, director of the institute, commented on the difficulty of curating the exhibition for a refurbished museum rather than a new one, saying it was like shooting the Romance of the Three Kingdoms twice and many people would compare the two versions and judge which one is better. The curating team worked hard to ensure that a new exhibition would embody the archaeological understanding and research progress about the Liangzhu Culture and the ancient city in nearly a decade. As a heritage museum of the Liangzhu Culture, it needs to reflect the overall understanding on the Liangzhu ruins by the archaeological team. What Liu Bin liked most were the bright and open-ended exhibition halls, a design in line with international trends. He was also satisfied with the multimedia applications, “We discussed the circumstances for the application of multimedia

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technology. For instance, the environment and the whole transformation process of the Liangzhu Ancient City could not be represented by photos, and then we turned to multimedia applications to optimize their display. I think the exhibition halls are very good. For example, it is more effective to use murals to demonstrate the layout of the ancient city.” Liu Bin reminded the visitors not to miss a multimedia video about restoring a portrait of the Liangzhu ancestors. The No. 2 exhibition hall displays a complete human skeleton unearthed from tomb M49 at the Bianjiashan ruins in Yuhang. Please note that the skeleton is not a restoration, but a real skeleton of our Liangzhu ancestors 5,000 years ago. Above it, a video shows the process of reconstructing a portrait for a male who died at the age of 25. His skull was unearthed from the Zhongjiagang ancient canal. The computerized three-dimensional reconstruction of facial features is an interdisciplinary research application which takes human skulls as the basic material and combines anthropology, archaeology, history, anatomy, computer technology and other related disciplines, in reconstructing portraits of ancient people. “I think it is quite an improvement. The museum used to tell visitors what the Liangzhu people looked like via static photos. This dynamic restoration process is an innovation,” Liu Bin said. The exhibition curation team has tried its best to guarantee a more enjoyable experience for visitors. It might have escaped your notice when you visit the jade exhibition hall—a magnifying glass is installed in front of a bi-disc carved with a symbol of “a bird perching on a high platform.” Without the magnifier, a visitor is unable to see clearly the pattern and thus fails to appreciate the exquisite craftsmanship of the Liangzhu ancients. Zhao Ye, a research fellow from the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, who participated in curating the exhibition, revealed that more magnifiers would be placed before exhibits, and a bracket would be added for the yue-ceremonial axe. Further improvements and adjustments of such details will be made to ensure a better experience for visitors. In addition to the three exhibition halls, the Cultural and Creative Design Space jointly run by the Liangzhu Museum and the Xiaofeng Bookhouse made its debut at the museum. It is part of the 14th outlet of the Xiaofeng Bookhouse, where visitors can buy souvenirs (Fig. 1.55). Unlike other Xiaofeng bookstores, it sells many customized peripheral products about the Liangzhu Culture, such as tea cups, tea sets and brush-washing trays, based on the prototype of the Liangzhu jade cong-cylinder. Fig. 1.55 (Above) Xiaofeng Bookhouse, Cultural and Creative Design Space, Liangzhu Museum

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Fig. 1.56 (below) Jade-bird brooch pinned on the shirt of Jiang Aijun at the Cultural and Creative Design Space, Liangzhu Museum

The cultural and creative products earned the commendation from Shan Jixiang who came specially to observe the souvenirs before leaving the museum. In the museum’s Cultural and Creative Design Space, we met Jiang Aijun, president of the Xiaofeng Bookhouse and asked him to recommend some souvenirs. At a glance, I saw a jade-bird brooch pinned on his shirt, which carries the unique pattern of the Liangzhu Culture (Fig. 1.56). A choice of either matt or gloss finish makes it especially suitable for couples. Each costs 68 yuan, not expensive at all. He said that the most cost-effective ones were notepads and small notebooks, with a price of 10 yuan and 25 yuan, respectively. Printed with the sacred human-animal motif of the Liangzhu Culture, they look beautiful and practically handy. (Original title: Over 200 Artefacts Make Public Debut; Video Shows Reconstruction of Ancient Human Skull; Liangzhu Museum Version 2.0 Reopened Yesterday; Black Technology Enables Artefacts to Speak for Themselves, Jun. 26, 2018).

1.22 Identifying Needs for Jades by Ancient Customers Forty-five hundred years ago, a jade workshop in Leidian Town, Deqing County, Zhejiang Province, received an order from a buyer. While little was known about the buyer whose account information was concealed, the workshop’s manager was requested to work raw jades into over a thousand of zhui-awls and guan-tubes. Such an order was fairly predictable and unexceptional for him. The jade workshop was situated at a place called Zhongchuming, a swampy lowlying land with an extensive waterway network. The manager operated a family business to select raw jades, and then cut and carve them into desired size and shape. Every day, the craftsmen worked busily on the processing line, but the bulk of their products were inferior jades. The jade workshop’s owner—the father of the manager—felt a niggling unease. For so many years, his son had been receiving big orders for low-grade jades only. Who were the buyers? The father, before his retirement, was a top craftsman in the jade trade, and jade craftsmanship had been handed down for five generations within the family. But what he and his ancestors worked on was a pure, creamy-colored type of precious raw jade, called nephrite. With fine texture and hardness, nephrite was used exclusively

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for carving famous jades including cong-cylinder and yue-ceremonial axe, to fulfill the customized orders from the royal family of the Liangzhu king who lived 18 km away in the ancient city. The commoners then did not have a chance to own and enjoy these precious jades. The father was wondering why the business environment turned tough after he handed the workshop’s operational right to his son. In the beginning, the workshop was relocated to the outskirts of the Liangzhu Ancient City, though it was still not very far from the king. The father had to move along with his son. After that, it seemed the orders no longer came from the royal family, as the finished products turned out to be inferior jades. Was the king still the buyer who had made the order? If not, what would be the destinations of the bulk delivery? These questions persisted in haunting the father, as he shied away from getting an answer from his son. Forty-five hundred years later, Fang Xiangming, a research fellow at the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, had been pondering over the same questions, since he and his colleagues discovered the ruins of the family-run jade workshop from the Liangzhu Culture period. In fact, the workshop was among a cluster of jade workshop ruins of the Liangzhu Culture unearthed at Zhongchuming, Deqing. On March 29, 2019, this jade workshop complex was shortlisted as China’s top 10 new archaeological discoveries in 2018. An introduction about the ruins went as the following: The cluster of jade workshop ruins had been the largest of its kind from the Liangzhu Culture period, discovered thus far on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Excavation of these jade workshop ruins led to the largest yield of raw jade materials and semi-finished products among all the Liangzhu Culture sites. These impressive accomplishments today have certainly come beyond the imaginations of the father and the son 4,500 years ago. Although they prided themselves on the workshop’s craftsmanship and wished to expand its business, they looked too preoccupied with their own thoughts upon receiving the order in those days. From the final naming of the sites, we can see that the workshop was obviously not the single entity operating in the area. The Zhongchuming area, equivalent to a small industrial park in a modern sense, accommodated a number of jade workshops which formed the cluster of ruins the archaeologists discovered today. It belongs to Yangdun village in the Leidian Town, Deqing County (Fig. 1.57). As a local saying goes, the Tangqi Town in the Yuhang District boasts the best species of loquat, but this species originated from the Yangdun village in Leidian. Yangdun is one of the famous loquat producers in Zhejiang Province, yielding highquality loquats known for thin peel, thick pulp and a small core. Deqing County is rich in water resources, and many places are named after a water pond or “yang” in Chinese, such as Baimuyang, Banduanyang and Zhuxiyang. Huangpoyang in Leidian prospers with aquaculture. Why did the archaeologists lock in this place? Early historical records had already indicated jade artefacts were unearthed in Zhongchuming. According to Volume II of New Records of Deqing County

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Fig. 1.57 Location of Zhongchuming ruins

published in 1932, “In Zhongchuming, Xiachuming, Sangyugaoqiao (present-day Xin’angaoqiao), ancient jades in irregular forms, jade rings and pendants were often unearthed. With high hardness and colors mostly in red and yellow, they were called jades from the west land of the Han Dynasty, and the top quality ones were extremely precious.” This record was compiled into the chapter “Products”. The description was very accurate, especially in defining ancient jades in irregular forms as “Za Jiao Gu Yu” ( 杂角古玉). Fang Xiangming, a native of Cixi City, pronounced it in local dialect— “Za Ge Leng Deng” (杂个楞登), meaning irregular and variegated shapes. Some of them were in red color, consistent with the archaeological discoveries made later. Enormous amounts of raw jades came to light in the 1990s, when local farmers dug ponds for breeding fish. This phenomenon, coupled with rampant illegal excavations, had aroused great concerns from local cultural heritage regulators. Liu Bin speculated on the existence of a large jade workshop after finding a manifold of raw jades in his trial excavation in this area. In recent years, archaeologists turned their attention to the periphery of the Liangzhu Ancient City, after figuring out the layout for the city’s core area in the wake of its discovery in 2007. Totaling 1,000 square kilometers, the peripheral areas including Yuhang mostly and Deqing formed the hinterland of the Liangzhu Ancient City, which provides the basic struts for our understanding of the Liangzhu kingdom. Both Liu Bin and Fang Xiangming thought of the prospect of making big discoveries at Zhongchuming in Deqing. In 2017 and 2018, the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the Deqing Museum carried out a large-scale and systemic investigation, exploration and trial excavation of the Zhongchuming area. It was part of the efforts

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to investigate the peripheral sites of the Liangzhu Ancient City and cooperate with a state archaeological project focusing on the regional civilization models concerning the Songze and Liangzhu cultures on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, listed in the 13th Five-Year Plan by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage. “Time flies. Two years have passed,” said Fang Xiangming, as his car went by an old river channel named Xidagang. Not far away, a road sign reads: Muyuqiao. For Fang Xiangming, leader of the Zhongchuming project, and Zhu Yefei, a post90 s girl born in Tangqi, the Muyuqiao ruins site was an old and familiar place where they carried out trial excavations in 2017. It is now a quiet vineyard where people can also find turnips and radishes, hear birds twittering and smell the fragrance of flowers. In the second half of 2017, Fang Xiangming made seven to eight inspection tours at Zhongchuming, and found one site of illegal excavation. On one day, while Fang Xiangming and his colleagues were drilling a detective hole, they found something weird with the opening of a tap water pipeline. Inside it, there was a small piece of raw jade apparently discarded by grave robbers. Fang Xiangming told Zhu Yefei: “Let’s focus on this area for excavation.” Indeed, there were a lot more to be found. After surveying and excavations, archaeologists located and confirmed Muyuqiao, Tianbandai, Baoanqiao, Xiaoqiaotou, Wangjiali and other ruins in succession. Altogether, the seven sites yielded jade materials, leading to conclusions that a wellmanaged “industrial park” consisting of a number of jade workshops from the Liangzhu Culture period operated in the Zhongchuming area. The cluster of jade workshop ruins, as what experts have called it, covered a total of one million square meters, with jade workshops located not far away from each other. Less than one kilometer away from the Muyuqiao ruins is the Baoanqiao ruins. Many large factory building complexes spread along a major road in the Baoanqiao Town, indicating the construction of the Tonghang Smart Manufacturing Town, an industrial development zone, is getting well under way. The archaeological team chose Baoanqiao to carry out an official excavation in 2018, encompassing an area of nearly 1,100 square meters. The decision was made in view of the great significance of the Zhongchuming ruins to the research of the source of raw jade materials, and the production and circulation of Liangzhu jades, as well as the need to co-ordinate with the construction of the Tonghang Smart Manufacturing Town (Exploration of underground cultural relics must be carried out prior to infrastructure construction). It kept raining for several consecutive days. On the day Fang Xiangm and his colleagues arrived at the Baoanqiao site, it finally turned sunny. Fang pointed to a ditch in the shape of a ramp extending in the north. By excavating the unspectacular dumping deposits lying there, they made a big discovery. Enormous amounts of jade materials, finished, semi-finished and broken jade products, as well as a few pottery and stone wares were unearthed from the abandoned deposits around an earthen mound. The amazing yield consisted of over 1,600 raw jades, over 200 finished, semi-finished and broken jade products, and over 200 stone objects (including over 50 flint and grindstone tools). The raw jade materials were

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Fig. 1.58 Earthen mound I of Baoanqiao, Zhongchuming ruins

thrown away by Liangzhu craftsmen, whose workshop was situated right atop the mound (Fig. 1.58). What had the archaeologists found on the mound? Zhu Yefei said that by far, four tombs and an ash pit with a small amount of raw jades (an ash pit was a place where the ancients discarded household garbage) were uncovered on the top of the mound, along with an irregular deposit of burnt red earth—the remains of a house foundation. The findings led to initial confirmations that houses and tombs existed on the mound. The ancients worked and were buried there after death. The working platform was more or less a rectangle in shape. Its exposed part extended about 23.5 m long from east to west and 20 m wide from north to south, with a size of less than 500 square meters. The platform stood about 2.4 m above sea level, and its remaining depth was only 40–120 cm. Fang Xiangming said a small cottage workshop with a limited number of craftsmen operated on the mound. And the remains of the four tombs, though incomplete, basically reflected their original size. They were mainly located in the eastcentral part of the mound. A jade zhuo-bracelet (Fig. 1.59) and some raw jades (Fig. 1.60) were among those burials unearthed from tomb M1. Don’t think zhuo-bracelets were exclusive for women; men in the Liangzhu Culture period also wore them. Fang Xiangming said a set of zhui-awl ornaments (exclusive for men) unearthed from this tomb, indicated it was a tomb of a male. Sets of zhui-awls, unearthed from the Liangzhu Ancient City and surrounding areas, indicated the preferences of their owners with a relatively high social status. Let’s check the details of unearthed objects: Fig. 1.59 (Left) Jade zhuo-bracelet unearthed from tomb M1 at Baoanqiao, Zhongchuming ruins

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Fig. 1.60 (Right) Jade material unearthed from tomb M1 at Baoanqiao, Zhongchuming ruins

Thirteen funerary objects unearthed from M1 included 10 jades—one zhuobracelet, five zhui-awls, one semi-circular ornament, two guan-tubes and one raw jade, as well as three pottery wares, namely a pot, a round foot plate and a ding-tripod. Zhu Yefei believed the jades revealed the special identity of the tomb’s master—he must have been engaged in the jade working business. The excavation also uncovered two wells at the edge and periphery of the ditch. What did that indicate? Fang Xiangming explained that taking account of the settlement landscape, the inhabitants did not dig a well directly on the mound, and instead they did it outside. It implied a different terrain with the then water level being lower than the present day, thus digging a well on the mound would cost too much effort. However, living on the swampy land, the inhabitants still needed clean water for daily consumption; so they dug wells outside. Although the workshop at Baoanqiao was rather small, we could still figure out the operating model and scale of the then Liangzhu jade working sector, based on discoveries from this single site, which had a clear layout of its functional structure. Though we do not know what the house looked like, we do know that the people dwelled and got buried on the mound. Moreover, the garbage, dumped mostly in one place and tapered off at the edges, also indicated that the residents worked on the mound. Take a look at the sketch by Fang Xiangming aiming to restore the family-run jade workshop, you will have a direct, panoramic view of it (Fig. 1.61). After having a holistic view of the jade working business in ancient Zhongchuming, we still feel confused about the order for jade products, as did the retired workshop director. What products were required in the order? The more than 200 finished, semi-finished and broken jade products found from the deposits were basically divided into two categories: namely zhui-awls and guantubes. The rest were a few small pendants (Fig. 1.62). Somehow, they were not the three hefty jades of cong-cylinders, yue-ceremonial axes and bi-discs favored by the Liangzhu king and the elites. On the contrary, they were small inferior jades produced with a limited variety but a large quantity.

1.22 Identifying Needs for Jades by Ancient Customers

Fig. 1.61 Sketch of the restored Baoanqiao ruins (by Fang Xiangming)

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Fig. 1.62 Zhui-awl ornaments and other objects unearthed from the Baoanqiao ruins

Fang Xiangming believed this indicated the jade working business in Liangzhu had reached a high level of specialization. The production of zhui-awls and the highend category of jades—cong-cylinders and bi-discs required the use of different technologies and raw jade materials. They also demanded two separate sets of skills from craftsmen. Then how came such big demands for the zhui-awl ornaments in ancient Liangzhu? Who were the customers? Those who are familiar with the three spectacular Liangzhu jades, namely cong, bi and yue may find the plain-looking zhui-awl a bit strange. Here, we will present more information about the daily life of the Liangzhu ancients, so as to help you understand its importance. The Liangzhu people might spend at least half an hour to dress up every morning. They wore various jade headdresses which might include a three-pronged object, a set of zhui-awls, a set of semi-circular ornaments and a comb-head ornament, etc. The former three, which were exclusive for men, were inserted into hair via various carriers such as combs and enamels. A diagram in the Liangzhu Museum shows a Liangzhu man wearing zhui-awls, each with a drill hole at the bottom. An organic carrier is attached with the holes through mortise-and-tenon joints. Some of the zhui-awls had a smooth surface, while others were engraved with elaborate, cong-style patterns, like the scared humananimal motif, which might have symbolized the heavenly God worshiped by the Liangzhu ancients. The zhui-awls were usually inserted into human hair in groups. The higher the status of a man, the greater the number of such ornaments he wore, with a maximum of 9–10 pieces per set. This has been evidenced by the sets of the zhui-awls unearthed from the Fanshan royal mausoleum, the majority of which had nine pieces per set. In a sharp contrast, the highest-status tomb at the Wenjiashan cemetery ruins in the southwest of the Liangzhu Ancient City yielded a maximum of only three zhui-awls per set, revealing the lower status of the deceased. Overall, the zhui-awls were used in large numbers by both the Liangzhu elites and the commoners, and this explained why they were quite popular in the ancient city and its peripheral areas. Let’s look at the statistics on the zhui-awls collected by Fang Xiangming:

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– A total of 58 pieces were unearthed from 11 tombs at Yaoshan, an average of 4.8 per tomb, excluding tomb M12 which had been robbed of its treasures; – 72 pieces form 9 tombs at Fanshan, an average of 8 per tomb; – 82 pieces from 140 tombs in Xindili, an average of 0.59 per tomb; – 16 pieces from 23 tombs in Tinglin, an average of 0.7 per tomb; – 59 pieces from 30 tombs in Fuquanshan—a regional center in Shanghai—an average of 1.97 per tomb; – And it seemed that the people in Jiangsu were not fond of the zhui-awl, as only 3 pieces were unearthed from tomb M3 in Sidun. The figures above indicated that the closer to the principle settlements of the Liangzhu Culture—the ancient city, the greater the numbers of zhui-awls used, “indicating that there were great demands for zhui-awl ornaments produced at Zhongchuming,” Fang Xiangming concluded. Now we return to the questions we raised earlier: Who actually placed this order with the jade workshop at Zhongchuming? What was the destination of the delivery? Was it an order placed by the “poor” in Jiaxing? Without adequate information, these questions will be left unanswered for some time. However, Fang Xiangming pledged “We will determine the final destinations of the products through the non-destructive trace element and radiocarbon dating analyses.” With the destinations of the delivery still unknown, can we determine the techniques the Liangzhu craftsmen employed to work the jades, as well as the basic features of their products, on the basis of over 1,000 raw jades unearthed from the cluster of jade workshop ruins? Zhu Yefei fetched a piece of raw jade on which the circles of waves-like cutting traces could be clearly seen on its processed flat section. It was the result of the so-called line cutting (Fig. 1.63). Cutting is essential for jade carving, that is to say, a fine jade is made from a cut jade. It is necessary to remove a rough outer layer damaged by long-time weathering and oxidization, and keep the fine jade core for further processing. The Liangzhu people adopted two major ways to cut raw jade materials into the desired size and shape. One was line cutting—being embedded with abrasive sands, a flexible but tenacious string was moved back and forth on jade by hand (The abrasive sand was a mixture of gravels processed and refined from natural mineral ores including Fig. 1.63 (Above) Raw jades unearthed from the Zhongchuming ruins (with traces of line cutting)

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Fig. 1.64 (Below) Raw jades unearthed from the Zhongchuming ruins (with traces of slice cutting)

quartz, corundum and mica. With its hardness higher than jade as well its selfsharpening performance, the abrasives could be used to slice jade, even it was turned into very fine particles). The other method was slice cutting. The archaeological understanding of this technique dated back to the generation of Mr. Mou Yongkang, a forerunner of Chinese archaeology, who had settled the puzzles surrounding ancient jade working techniques. In his paper titled “Some Views on the Archaeological Study of Prehistoric Jade Working Techniques,” Mr. Mou gave a detailed narration on three models of slice cutting, and on how to observe the technological traces left on jades by the pipe drilling technique. His paper highlighted a combination of jade working techniques used before the introduction of grinding wheels. They included line cutting, slice cutting, push rubbing and pipe drilling, characterized by the use of sand as the indirect abrasive medium. The techniques upended the conventional perceptions that the ancients used only grinding wheels to work raw jades. The jades unearthed from Zhongchuming were mainly processed by slice cutting, but archaeologists found something strange about the traces left on the jades. For example, one piece of raw jade was grooved by nearly 5 mm in depth and a maximum of 1.4 cm was allowed for any further cut. Another raw jade was sliced with a line on each side, each less than 1.4 cm in depth (Fig. 1.64). What did this mean? During the Liangzhu Culture period, craftsmen could hardly cut deep into the jades with the slice cutting technique. Fang Xiangming believed this might have been related to the tools used by the Liangzhu ancients. They used only two types of slice cutting tools—one was the stone knife and the other, a soft tool like bamboo. The traces left on the raw jades matched those on the Liangzhu jade artefacts. For instance, the jade cong-cylinder, bi-disc and yue-ceremonial axe were worked completely with line cutting, but not the slice cutting technique. Almost all the Liangzhu jade cong-cylinders we see today were essentially processed with line cutting. Despite the hefty size of some cong-cylinders, the Liangzhu people still enjoyed pulling the gritted strings back and forth, in order to cut raw jades into their desired size and shape.

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Due to the technical constraints of the slice cutting method, jade workshops at Zhongchuming only accepted orders for jades with shallow engravings, but not orders for large jade objects. This conclusion matched the shallow engravings on artefacts including the zhui-awls, guan-tubes and small pendants unearthed at Zhongchuming. In addition to concerns about the orders for a limited variety of products, the retired workshop manager had also been confounded by a long-standing problem with low-grade jade materials—where had all the quality jades with “creamy, sleek and elegant colors” gone? Why did his son have to use common serpentine with far more inferior textures (the stone’s name originated from the similarity of the rock’s texture to that of a snake skin)? To answer these questions, we will take up another lesson on the Liangzhu jades. In ancient Liangzhu, high-grade jades with exquisite designs and craftsmanship symbolized the status of their owners. Their quality could also been differentiated in the use of raw jades. The top grade jade missed by the father and described by Mr. Mou Yongkang as having “creamy, sleek and elegant colors,” has been called nephrite. The well-known king of cong and king of yue were carved from this raw jade with fine and dense texture and a creamy color, commonly known as chicken bone white. Creamy white represented the mainstream color of the high-grade burial jades. Sampling tests prove the jades unearthed from the Fanshan and Yaoshan cemeteries, which represented the most spectacular of all the jades in Liangzhu, were mostly made of nephrite of tremolite. Actinolite ranked second only after tremolite for ornamental carvings in ancient Liangzhu. Jade bi-disc was the principal example in the use of actinolite, which carries a shade of green due to a high percentage of iron content. In as early as 1938, Mr. Shi Xingeng vividly depicted the color as “duck droppings green” in his report titled “Liangzhu”: “It takes on a fully antique hue, mainly green, commonly known as ‘duck droppings green.’” Interestingly, actinolite has been used as an ingredient of traditional Chinese medicine, and it’s displayed at the Huqingyutang Traditional Chinese Medicine Museum in Hangzhou. The third place belonged to the raw jades found at the Zhongchuming ruins, most of which were serpentine (Fig. 1.65). Only a small proportion of raw jades were pyrophyllite, inferior to serpentine. The jades unearthed from the cemeteries for the poor in Jiaxing were all made of this low-grade jade material. What did the wide use of serpentine indicate? The Zhongchuming jade workshop complex had dated back to the late Liangzhu Culture period when serpentine accounted for a large proportion of jade consumption. Can we deduce that by then the Liangzhu people could only use low-end materials for working jades? Fang Xiangming gave an example to explain the phenomenon. At the Fanshan ruins, even the king’s tomb M12 contained crispy jades that could be easily crumbled into powder with fingers. The M14 and M23 tombs, dated to a later period, yielded many more lightweight jades. There was no equipment available to analyze the materials by the time they were unearthed, but now archaeologists suspect that they were made of serpentine.

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Fig. 1.65 Long strips of raw jade unearthed at the ruins

We often say the use of jade was differentiated socially in the world of Liangzhu ancients. Fine jades carved with exquisite and delicate patterns were owned by the elites and inferior jades by those at the lower social hierarchy. However, low-grade jades were also buried in high-status tombs, indicating jade workshops could not always fulfill all the customized orders for quality jades, and the craftsmen might still have to use serpentine as a substitute. The poorest, like those commoners who resided in Jiaxing, had to make do with pyrophyllite. Did it imply a drastic reduction in the living standard of the people in the late Liangzhu Culture period, or was there a major problem with the supply of jade? Had Liangzhu exhausted its nephrite resources? The mysteries surrounding the deterioration of jade quality at that time remain unsettled, but we do find authentic evidence about what tools that the Liangzhu craftsmen used to work jades. In addition to raw jades, semi-finished and finished products, jade working tools, such as grinding stones and whetstones were also found at the Zhongchuming ruins. The grinding stones were small in size for hand holding, while the whetstones were used for sharpening knives (Fig. 1.66). Fig. 1.66 (Above) Grinding stones unearthed from the Zhongchuming ruins

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In addition, the archeologists are more interested in some small and unspectacular stones—black and red—like a handful of fried beans. They were flints and stone flakes, tools used for jade carving and drilling. With a magnifying glass, we can clearly see some flint flakes were processed to have sharp edges (Fig. 1.67). Fang Xiangming believed that these flint tools, with hardness higher than jade bi-discs, had two functions: One was for carving, and the other for grooving. Before cutting the jades, it was crucial to draw a few grooves to increase the frictions, otherwise, the string or knife would slip to one side easily and the abrasive sand would fail to work effectively. Before Zhongchuming, archaeologists had also found flint stones at Mopandun and Dingshadi of Jiangsu, Jincunduan of Tangshan, Liangzhu and Zhongjiagang in the Liangzhu Ancient City. The new discovery at Zhongchuming once again confirmed the old saying that goes: Stones from mountains elsewhere can tackle the obstinate hardness of jade. What types of stones were used by the Liangzhu craftsmen for working raw jades painstakingly into fine ornaments? “It is clear flints were indispensable tools for carving jades in Liangzhu. Without a flint, it was impossible to work jades. It was the real ‘stone from mountains elsewhere,’” said Fang Xiangming. In the eyes of archaeologists, every piece of jade, whether it was as small as a fingernail or in a shabby condition, should not be ignored, because a tiny trace or any minor details might tell the difference. Zhu Yefei picked up another piece of jade, with one side carrying the signs of line cutting, whereas the other side taking an utterly crispy look, as if it could be turned into powder with fingers. “This has indicated that the craftsman utilized the material fully to reach a cut limit,” said Zhu Yefei. Fang Xiangming added that it also reflects another important matter. Dong Chuanwan, professor of the Earth Science Department at Zhejiang University, has made a description of this raw jade: its surface is rather reflective with waxy luster and some natural scratches, apparently affected by tectonic stress. He concluded this raw jade came from a mountain (Fig. 1.68), or in other words, the Fig. 1.67 (Below) Flint tools unearthed from the Zhongchuming ruins

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Fig. 1.68 Jade material unearthed from the Zhongchuming ruins

Liangzhu people mined jade directly from the mountains. The other side of the raw jade looked rather rough and coarse, indicating its outer layer lacked roundability, using a petrological term to describe it. However, this was not the case with the massive amounts of raw jades unearthed from a jade workshop at Jincunduan of the Tangshan ruins of the Liangzhu ruins site cluster in the 1990s. From December 1996 to January 1997, the archaeological team led by Wang Mingda undertook a trial excavation at Jincunduan, about four kilometers north of the cluster, and made a significant discovery. Fang Xiangming wrote this in his diary: Dec. 20, excavation of T1 is completed. In order to compare the layers of the mound, I decided to clean up the bushy section in the south of the mound. As I was hoeing the field, I found a strange stone about 70 cm above the paddy field. Unfortunately, I broke it a little bit. After washing it in the paddy field, I was overjoyed to see a jade! I immediately filmed the scene. While it was getting dark, Fei Guoping and I packed up and returned to the Wujiabu workstation. Upon arrival, I reported the unexpected discovery to Mr. Wang Mingda who also rejoiced at the amazing news. We spent a boozy night. From April to July 2002, a new round of excavation at Jincunduan of Tangshan led to the discovery of over 460 jades and three stone structures related to working jade. According to an article “A Jade Workshop of the Liangzhu Culture Discovered at Tangshan Ruins,” co-signed by Wang Mingda, Fang Xiangming, Xu Xinmin and Fang Zhonghua on China Cultural Relics News, P.1 on Sept. 20, 2002, the Tangshan ruins was a levee built by the Liangzhu inhabitants, and they chose the elevated terrain of Tangshan—a relatively safe place—to run this jade workshop. The raw jades found by Fang Xiangming at Jincunduan of Tangshan had a smooth outer layer. Why? When the stones broke down from the mountains, they fell into the riverbed. The flowing water eventually washed off their rough “coating”, exposing the fine core of the jades. In contrast, the jade unearthed at Zhongchuming displayed different features. The rough and “fracturing” surface of the jade carried credible evidence that it was mined at its originating place on a mountain, rather than being brought down by natural forces.

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“The kernel material of Hotan16 jade is a typical example of the effect of natural movement. Along with the rolling movements, the soft outer layer of the big stone is worn down and only the tiny core of the jade is left over and that is the precious essence,” said Fang Xiangming. So, how had the Liangzhu inhabitants acquired their jade materials? One way was to pick them up from riverbeds, such as the jade found at the Jincunduan of Tangshan. The other way was to mine them directly from the mountains, like the one discovered at Zhongchuming. Which mountains? The Liangzhu Culture produced the finest jades of the Neolithic era, which are well known in the world with extremely exquisite craftsmanship and attention to detail. However, it is a pity that for so many years, we are still unable to determine the locations of jade mines which supplied raw materials to the Liangzhu jade workshops. At present, archaeologists have indicated the Tianmu Mountains range in the west might be the possible originating place of raw jades for Liangzhu. Wang Mingda and other archaeologists had once carried out a short-term investigation covering the Liangzhu ruins site cluster and its adjacent areas in the west. Based on the geological structure distribution diagram, they believed the Tianmu Mountains range should have the geological conditions for the formation of jade deposits. However, Zhongchuming was not within easy reach for either possible jade mine or other Liangzhu ruins. Overall, it might not be easy for local jade workshops to procure much-needed raw materials. To better utilize raw jades, the craftsmen tried hard to avoid any waste. One way was through reworking broken products into other usable objects. For instance, the Zhongchuming craftsmen did not discard one semi-finished product, probably a yueceremonial axe, despite it was broken. Instead, they reprocessed it for making other products. “The practice was exactly the same approach applied to the jades unearthed from Jincunduan of Tangshan. Many scraps of cong-cylinders, bi-discs and yue-ceremonial axes were reprocessed. Even jade cong-cylinder, a carrier of sacred human-animal motif, had its nozzle cut off and was reworked into low-end zhui-awl ornaments,” said Fang Xiangming. To sum up, the jade workshop produced neither yue-ceremonial axe nor congcylinder. The order requested a big supply of one or two products. The jade materials were mined from mountains rather than from riverbeds. So, how did the Liangzhu people transport raw jades to Zhongchuming? Who were the suppliers as they were mined from the mountains?

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Hotan is a major oasis town in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. It is located in the Tarim Basin some 1,500 km southwest of the regional capital, Urumqi. Chinese historical sources indicate that Hotan was the main source of the nephrite jade used in ancient China.

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Another thing still puzzles Fang Xiangming. It seems irrelevant to Zhongchuming, but actually it is a pertinent matter. In the Liangzhu Culture, almost all the jades carried the sacred human-animal motif. Prevailing on the Liangzhu jades, it lasted from the early to the late Liangzhu periods. After having drawing pictures for all the Liangzhu jades, Fang Xiangming noticed that the corners on the incised motif was no longer as round and vigorous as it appeared originally, and became square and upright in the end. Did this subtle shift in style have something to do with the change in the use of raw materials? “Originally, an oval was drawn in an ellipse, and the eyes had round corners with smooth and beautiful curves. I found it strange that the lines eventually turned into dull strokes with a bit rigid style. Some people are wondering whether it was due to a shake-up with the craftsmen team. There had been no answer for it because all of them vanished. Nevertheless, if the craftsmen were changed, the shift in style should have taken place not only with jades, but also with pottery. Several factors might have caused the complications, and the change in raw materials is believed to be one major factor.” Though there are many puzzles yet to be solved, the significance of the Zhongchuming ruins is remarkably clear: – Major changes in the ways of utilizating and procuring jades signified the evolution getting underway in the late Liangzhu period. It also provides the research team with new inspirations about how to locate jade mines. – Different from previous discoveries of various Liangzhu Culture ruins, it opens a new horizon for conducting field archaeology concerning the Culture. – It is a significant follow-up to the major discoveries of the gigantic peripheral water conservancy system, extensive paddy fields in Maoshan of Linping, and the ring-moat settlements in Yujiashan, expanding the scope of archaeological exploration in the periphery of the Liangzhu Ancient City; it reflects the model of large-scale specialized product manufacturing at remote locations, and provides abundant data for the study of the social structure, settlement patterns and the handicrafts-making models in the late Liangzhu Culture period. The order for the family-run workshop, though it sounded “problematic”, has brought us some excitements after all: the discoveries from the Zhongchuming ruins take us one step closer to the Liangzhu people, to get answers from them ultimately. As far as the mystery play goes here, details about the order have all come to the light. However, for archaeologists, figuring out the supply of raw materials and the application of workmanship only marked their first step to unravel the mysteries surrounding the Zhongchuming ruins. Their ultimate goal is to understand the social changes in the late Liangzhu Culture period mirrored or implied by these findings. There remains one key question that many people may ask: did this order for low-grade jades have anything to do with the king? Was he fully aware of it? In other words, what was the relationship between the jade workshop complex at Zhongchuming and the Liangzhu Ancient City?

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To find an answer, Fang Xiangming often biked 31 km to Zhongchuming of Deqing County, from his home in the west of Hangzhou, over the past two years. This is the shortest way from Hangzhou to the ruins, and the two-hour cycling is just a piece of cake to this sports maniac. The Liangzhu Ancient City is only 18 km away from Zhongchuming, which takes half an hour by car. The ancient inhabitants at Zhongchuming were still fairly close to the king, closer than the people living at Maoshan and Yujiashan. In his article titled “5,000 Years of Chinese Civilization - the Great Liangzhu,” Mr. Yan Wenming inferred that “Over 13 acres of paddy fields found at the Maoshan ruins might be the state-owned farm of Liangzhu.” In line with this logic of reasoning, can we assert that Zhongchuming was a state-owned jade distribution center subordinate to the Liangzhu Ancient City? Fang Xiangming quoted several experts while proceeding with his analysis in the following aspects. First, with a distance of 18 km, what kind of links could be built up between Zhongchuming and the Liangzhu Ancient City? Zhao Hui, professor of Peking University and chief expert of the Project for Tracing the Origins of the Chinese Civilization, estimated that the population size in the ancient city stood at approximately 20,000. His conclusion was based on the quantity of rice unearthed from the two granaries in the Liangzhu Ancient City—12 tons (at the burnt granary in Mojiaoshan East) and 200 tons (at Chizhongsi granary), respectively. Dr. Zheng Yunfei from the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology reckoned further that the yield of grain per acre at that time reached 856 kg. In light of the rice yield per acre, the rice-farming area in Maoshan and the population size in the Liangzhu Ancient City, archaeologists believed that 2,000–3,000 peripheral settlements (sites) were needed to support the operations of the city. While the city’s residents were not engaged in rice farming, an area of 100 square kilometers was far from enough to support the principle settlements of Liangzhu. Thus, archaeologists expanded the surveying area to a greater 1,000 square kilometers, including the eastern parts of Yuhang and Deqing. As what had been determined by the distance, the greater Liangzhu area needed the protection and patronization by the king and in return, the people living on the land were obligated to serve the king. Secondly, back to the old question, where had the large-scale jade workshop complex at Zhongchuming procured raw jades? Since Deqing did not have jade mines, local craftsmen had to source materials from those owned by the Liangzhu Ancient City. Thirdly, the burials in the tombs might have revealed the close relationship between Zhongchuming and the Liangzhu Ancient City. Pottery wares unearthed from the four tombs at the Baoanqiao ruins included dingtripods, dou-pedestal plates, jars and pots. This combination of pottery was exactly the same with those unearthed at the Liangzhu ruins site cluster and the Linping cemeteries, a standard configuration for the deceased in Liangzhu. Sets of zhui-awls, worn as headdresses by men, were the typical burial goods in the Liangzhu tombs (Fig. 1.69).

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Fig. 1.69 Baoanqiao tomb M1 at the Zhongchuming ruins

However, it was a different case in Jiaxing, which includes Haining and Tongxiang cities under its jurisdiction nowadays. A large number of he-drinking vessels were unearthed in Xiaodouli of Haining, while Xindili of Tongxiang yielded wine vessels in abundance. As for neighboring Shanghai, a lot of double-knobbed pots were unearthed there (double-knobbed pots were rarely buried in tombs of ancient Liangzhu). In contrast, Zhongchuming seemed to be underdeveloped in the beverage business. “I think local craftsmen drank alcohols, but dared not have too much, due to the proximity of their place to the ancient city and the king. They had to abide by strict rules. The craftsmen could not get drunk or they were even banned from drinking liquor. Otherwise, they might have felt dizzy while working jades,” Fang Xiangming made the remark in jest. To define its geographic relationship with the Liangzhu Ancient City, the Zhongchuming ruins have been named as the peripheral large-scale jade workshop ruins site cluster. Like the hydraulic dams, its name also carries the word “peripheral”. Now let’s look at the transport conditions at Zhongchuming. Fang Xiangming thought the geographical location of this place is actually quite interesting—though it was near the Liangzhu Ancient City, transportation was not so convenient. Though in close proximity to the present-day Tiaoxi (Located in the north of Zhejiang Province, it is one of the eight major water systems in Zhejiang Province and an important tributary of the Taihu Lake) and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, the extensive waterway network surrounding Zhongchuming consists of many off-track channels, like a sprawling maze trap which could lead boats to a dead end. Overall, Zhongchuming was not particularly suitable for jade production. It took craftsmen of local jade workshops to travel some distance to reach jade mines for procuring raw materials, and large settlements for finding potential customers. Fang Xiangming also believed that the low elevation of only over two meters of the mound (at Baoanqiao) indicated it was difficult to grow rice in this area. The name of Leidian implies that it was a low-lying marshland and “pictures taken by a drone show the whole area is covered by water pools,” Fang Xiangming added. But why did the Liangzhu people go out of their own way to set up workshops to process low-end jades at Zhongchuming?

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By now, we are still unable to give a perfect answer. “There is no need to reiterate its importance, should we eventually ascertain its close relationship with the Liangzhu Ancient City,” said Fang Xiangming. Next, the archaeologists will try to find out the logistics and distribution for this order of jades. By carrying out mineralogical trace element tests, they will determine the whereabouts of these products and their buyers (Fig. 1.70). Despite the trivialness in the archaeology of the handicraft industry, archaeologists continued their painstaking efforts to crack the mysteries surrounding the jade workshops at Zhongchuming. A regional systematic investigation centering on the Liangzhu Ancient City was in full swing in 2019, going along with a state archaeology project launched on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The investigation would focus on Leidian, covering an area over 200 square kilometers and aiming to clearly identify the archaeological landscape in the area as well as its relationship with the Liangzhu Ancient City. Journalist Ma Li and Fang Xiangming had the following conversation on the topic. Journalist Ma Li: What is the importance of Zhongchuming? Fang Xiangming: With a distribution in a large area, as well as a clearly determined age and functions, this is by far the largest Neolithic jade workshop complex ever discovered in China. It enriches the archaeological research scope on the periphery of the Liangzhu Ancient City and embodies the sophistication of the Liangzhu Civilization and the ancient regional state. Journalist Ma Li: Who were engaged in the jade working sector? Fang Xiangming: Production at each single site was carried out on a small scale, implying the possible model of small family workshops.

Fig. 1.70 Archaeologists clearing up ancient tombs

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Journalist Ma Li: How about the jade material? Fang Xiangming: The low-end serpentine, bearing the distinct characteristics of mountainous materials, accounted for a substantial proportion of the major supply. It indicates a significant change in the way of utilizing and procuring jades in the late Liangzhu period, one of the signs of concurrent social transmutations. It also provides new clues for us to locate jade mines. Journalist Ma Li: What was the source of jade materials? Fang Xiangming: There are indications that they might be quarried from the Tianmu Mountains in the west. Journalist Ma Li: What were the tools for working jades? Fang Xiangming: It was confirmed once again that flint stones could be used for carving as well as incising raw jades before cutting, after relevant evidence was found in Mopandun and Dingshadi in Jiangsu, Jincunduan of Tangshan at Liangzhu and Zhongjiagang of the ancient city. Defined as an indispensable tool for jade carving in Liangzhu, the flint was a real “stone from other mountains”. Journalist Ma Li: What products did they make? Fang Xiangming: High output of a single category of jades, mostly the zhui-awl ornaments. We will determine the final destinations of the products through the non-destructive trace element analysis and isotope testing. Journalist Ma Li: Why has Zhongchuming been defined as the jade workshops ruins site cluster though many other jade workshops were found earlier at the Liangzhu Culture ruins? Fang Xiangming: The yield of massive raw jades, semi-finished and broken products, a small number of finished products and jade working tools including grindstones, whetstones and carvers, coupled with other objects uncovered at the ruins, constituted the major evidence for this definition.

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Speaking of workshops, there were so many of them. For example, we found in the Zhongjiagang ancient canal in the Liangzhu Ancient City, the ruins of jade workshops involved in processing bone, lacquer, jade and stone wares. We compare them to a consortium of “a hundred trades”. The jade workshops at Jinchunduan of Tangshan operated in a relatively small scale. Moreover, they could not be ruled out the possibility of making stone tools and arrowheads (stone arrowheads). But workshops at Zhongchuming made no finished and semi-finished stone objects, or other types of products, as they specialized in working jades. Jades have formed an important part of the Liangzhu Civilization. Hence, the discovery of a jade workshop ruins site cluster is of great importance. We cannot ignore them, simply because of their narrow product range and low-end jades. It is called a cluster for its large scope. In the next step, we should identify not only the production setup at each site, with an approach like dissecting a sparrow, but also summarize the production model of the whole site cluster. These would be very important for analyzing the social structure, settlement patterns and the model of family-based handicraft production in the late Liangzhu Culture period. Journalist Ma Li: Now that we have found a workshop ruins site cluster for low-end jades, where are those for high-end jades? Is it possible to discover them? Fang Xiangming: I believe there is a slim chance to find them. Nephrite was utilized efficiently for working jades, thanks to techniques which enabled the inlaying (gluing) of minimal jades, smaller than rice grains, onto lacquer wares for making decorative patterns. In other words, all suitable raw jades were most likely to be used fully, unlike Zhongchuming, where we could find massive amounts of discarded waste and semifinished products. The discarded raw jades bore rough texture with even blowholes, and they were deemed useless and thrown away in the middle of the jade working process. But high-end nephrite bore a fine texture. With its rough and coarse outer layers being worn out by flowing river water, all the essence remained and even its outer layers could be used for working jades. The fractures we found on some jade bracelets were not breakages or artificial traces but the defects of the original material. The most typical example is the king of cong unearthed at the M12 tomb of the king. A decorative pattern was engraved to conceal a fracture on the jade’s lower corner, as a best compromise to utilize the jade material to its maximum. The confirmation of this jade workshop ruins site cluster indicates that in addition to the representation of high-end, fine quality products, the late Liangzhu Culture period also witnessed a coexistence of multiple economic forms and production models, which heralded significant social transformations. The Zhongchuming jade workshop ruins site cluster was a remarkable embodiment of the sophistication of the Liangzhu Civilization and the ancient Liangzhu state. (Original title: “Liangzhu Jades” Enter the Final Review for the Top 10 New Archaeological Discoveries in 2018; We’ll Tell You Details about a 16-min-long Presentation about it—an Order Made by Liangzhu Ancients on Taobao.com, Mar. 29, 2019).

Chapter 2

Those Enterprising Archaeologists

2.1 Shi Xingeng: Born in Liangzhu, Born for Liangzhu On Dec. 23, 1936, the Southeast Daily published a report titled “Black Pottery Cultural Ruins Discovered in Hangxian County by the West Lake Museum.” The report presented the following information: “Shi Xingeng, a staff member of the West Lake Museum, recently discovered several black pottery cultural ruins in Hangxian County, while carrying out geological surveys there. The pottery was buried in black silt at the bottom of ponds, with a depth of two meters. Archaeologists believed it belonged to an inherent part of the ancient Oriental culture and an important element of China’s earliest historical culture before the Shang Dynasty. Several investigations by Mr. Shi in Hangxian County gradually built up a clear profile of the cultural layers.”

© Zhejiang University Press 2022 L. Ma, Liangzhu in the Eyes of an Archaeological Journalist, Liangzhu Civilization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3792-7_2

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Fig. 2.1 Shi Xingeng in 1939

The report has been the earliest historical record available about the discovery of the Liangzhu ruins. As an archeological journalist, I was wondering out of curiosity, whether the reporter from the Southeast Daily had a chance to interview Shi Xingeng on the discovery. Eighty years ago, however, no one came to realize that this lean scholar, then only 25 years old, was the discoverer of the Liangzhu ruins. Even worse, Shi Xingeng died of scarlet fever unexpectedly three years later, at a tragically young age (Fig. 2.1). That was his only field archaeology experience in his short life of 28 years. Shi Shiying, the grandson of Shi Xingeng, works at the Liangzhu Archaeological Ruins Administrative Office. His office affords views of the historical bounty of the Chinese Civilization. It faces the Mojiaoshan ruins, namely the palace zone of the Liangzhu Ancient City, and is not far away from the famous Fanshan royal mausoleum in the north. Shi Shiying often wonders if his grandfather Shi Xingeng had ever trod the path before his office window, searching for the traces left behind by the creators of the Liangzhu Culture and buried in oblivion beneath the ponds and silt through the long span of history.

2.1.1 Chang Shuhong Taught Him Painting Shi Xingeng was not a professionally trained archaeologist, but he painted well. Artist Chang Shuhong had taught him painting. Wang Yunlu, former deputy director of the Office for Yuhang County (now Yuhang District) Cultural Relics Administration Committee, learned about this when he visited Chang Shuhong’s home in Beijing around 1990 to solicit an inscription for the Liangzhu Museum then under construction. In 1929, Hangzhou held the first West Lake Expo. With painting skills coming in handy, Shi Xingeng became an administrator of the First Department of the Art Gallery of the West Lake Expo. That year, he was 18. At that time, the curator of the Art Gallery was Lin Fengmian (Fig. 2.2). As spring turned to summer in 1930, Shi Xingeng joined the geology and minerals team of the West Lake Museum of Zhejiang Province. In addition to drawing, he

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Fig. 2.2 Shi Xingeng sitting right on the first row for a group photo of the counselors and members of the Preparatory Office for the West Lake Expo

collected rock specimens by the West Lake and on the hills of Feilaifeng, near the famous Lingyin Temple and Baochushan. In May 1933, Shi Xingeng published an article titled “A Review and Outlook by the Geology and Minerals Team”. In the fourth part of the article, Shi Xingeng wrote: China is “the top barren mountain” in the academic world and also “the golden world” for making scientific discoveries. There are materials aplenty for research and a big mess of unsettled problems. The academic institutions shall fulfill their major responsibilities in these areas. This was the view of a 21-year-old young man about the Chinese academic community at his time.

2.1.2 One or Two Black Pottery Shards In the chapter “The Discovery” of the book “Eighty Years of Liangzhu Archaeology”, Fang Xiangming mentioned a burgeoning rise of prehistoric archaeology in China in the 1930s. Along with the formation and growth of local consortiums in the Yangtze River Delta, some intelligent people began challenging the conventional thought that “no ancient culture originated in the Yangtze River Delta.” On May 31, 1936, archaeologist Wei Juxian and his colleagues started a trial excavation at Gudang, Hangzhou. Shi Xingeng was dispatched by the museum to join the task. By then, Shi Xingeng had not yet participated in any archaeological field work, though he had a keen interest in it. In the past years, this interest drove him to study ancient cultural layers, while he carried out geological surveys across Zhejiang Province. Turning to the excavation at Gudang, Shi Xingeng thought he was dispatched there to record data about cultural layers. On the first day of excavation, he found the unearthed artefacts could be seen very commonly in his hometown of Liangzhu. Most of them were rectangular stone axes with a hole in the middle, which were also

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called stone shovels. Previously, he did not pay much attention to them, thinking they were a similar fashion of jade artefacts. However, the excavation also led to the discovery of some other objects including stone ben-adzes and zu-arrowheads he had never seen before in Zhejiang. The next day, Shi Xingeng couldn’t wait to return to his hometown Liangzhu. Sure enough, in addition to stone shovels, he surprisingly collected many stone objects of different shapes. Would his trip to Lianzhu have ended up with that? In fact, the young man handled his trip to Liangzhu with a clear archaeological purpose. “I have realized that it was totally unscientific and immature to collect artefacts by purchasing,” Shi Xingeng remarked. He thought about observing the alluvial deposits on riverbeds and at the bottom of ponds, which was deemed the easiest way to carry out archaeological excavation. In July, Shi Xingeng came to Liangzhu for another round of investigation. After days of surveying in different areas, he acquired a general understanding of the local distribution of stone artefacts ruins. At the same time, he recovered many stone artefacts at the bottom of some dried-up ponds. On November 3, Shi Xingeng made a breakthrough in his third assessment survey. He found one or two black and glazed pottery shards at the bottom of a driedup pond at Qipanfen near Liangzhu Town. After returning to Hangzhou, he read various archaeological materials for references. Drawing inspiration from an excavation report of “Chengziya,”1 the first collection of works on field archaeology in China, Shi Xingeng soon realized that these black pottery shards unearthed in Liangzhu and the Chengziya black pottery in Shandong Province were “products of the same cultural system.” The discovery of the black pottery gave Shi Xingeng greater courage and interest to move forward. From what people had learned later, these one or two black pottery shards were the famous Liangzhu black pottery. A later decision made by Mr. Dong Yumao, curator of the West Lake Museum, made history. He attached great importance to the new discovery by Shi Xingeng. In line with Article 8 of the Law of Antiquities Preservation promulgated by the then national government, the museum submitted a report to the Central Committee for the Preservation of Antiquities and obtained an excavation license. This paved the way for the first official archaeological excavation of the Liangzhu Culture. According to the license, excavations should have started on Mar. 20 and ended on Jun. 20, 1937. However, all of Shi Xingeng’s three excavations were done earlier than the specified timeframe. Shi Xingeng explained in a candid manner why he acted first without waiting, “I badly needed to launch research on this site immediately. In view of this, I ventured to carry out three small-scale excavations which led to

1

Chengziya in Shandong Province is the location of the first discovery of the Neolithic Longshan Culture in 1928. The culture was noted for its highly polished black pottery. The discovery at Chengziya marked a significant step towards understanding the origins of Chinese Civilization.

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surprising discoveries, a memorable event for the archaeological work in the south of the Yangtze River!”.

2.1.3 An Archaeological Report Today, as we walk into the Liangzhu Museum, we can see a display case of cultural relics unearthed by Shi Xingeng in Liangzhu. On the far right is the mold of the archaeological report written by him. Its plain white cover carries the main heading: Liangzhu (Fig. 2.3). If Shi Xingeng had not written this archaeological report, the chronology of Chinese history might have been different. Chen Xingcan, director of the Institute of Archaeology under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes the report had presented for the first time accurate information about the prehistoric culture on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River to the academic community. Why was the report named after Liangzhu instead of Gudang and Shuangqiao or elsewhere? None of the 12 sites that Shi Xingeng listed for surveying and trial excavation was called Liangzhu. Shi Xingeng explained his decision to follow the popular practice of naming the latest archaeological reports after places, “As the ruins are all situated in the vicinity of the Liangzhu Town in Hangxian County, it is quite appropriate to name it after Liangzhu. Zhu is an islet in waters; Liang means good.” With this report and his pioneering work in the archaeological research of the Liangzhu Culture, Shi Xingeng established his academic reputation as “the discoverer of the Liangzhu ruins” and “the discoverer of the Liangzhu Culture”. Shi Shiying has placed a reprint of “Liangzhu” in his office, but he says he is afraid of reading it again, “I feel quite ashamed that I can hardly compare with my grandfather. His deep emotion for Liangzhu… you will know it after reading the preface of his report.” On the title page of the book, Shi Xingeng wrote: “This book is dedicated to the memory of my hometown.” Fig. 2.3 Printed copy of the archaeological report titled “Liangzhu”

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“This report has been finally published after encountering various adversities and difficulties, just as its author did in the troublesome time… Looking back, Liangzhu, the birthplace of this book, has been destroyed by the fiery fire of the enemy, and the beautiful landscape has been disfigured by their trampling wantonly. The source materials covered by this report have all been lost. When I turn every page of this book, I feel like a sad mourner viewing the human remains with deep sorrow…” Shi Xingeng wrote the preface without using common archaeological terms, but filled it with sadness. “Reprinted in August 1938—by Shi Xingeng in Rui’an.” Behind the word “reprinted”, there was another story of twists and turns. In April 1937, one year before the reprinting, Shi Xingeng had already finished compiling the report, making it ready for printing at the Hangzhou Printing House. However, due to the setbacks in making photo plates, the matter was handed over to the Shanghai Sciences Company. On July 7, with the breakout of the Lugouqiao Incident, the Japanese troops started their all-out aggression on China, shattering the peaceful life of all. The West Lake Museum had to move southward in order to escape the fighting. But at that time, the report “Liangzhu” was still in the printing press. Shi Xingeng decided to stay put. He remained at Liangzhu to monitor the printing. The war had not left Hangzhou undisturbed. It fell into enemy hands on Dec. 24, 1937. The printing of “Liangzhu” was disrupted, and even the zinc plates for printing the photos could not be taken out to safety. Shi Xingeng had to abandon his office he relied on heavily for doing research, but he never stopped working on the report. “In the midst of a war, we scientific workers must follow the spirit (of patriotism) themed in ‘The Last Lesson’ and carry on our work with dedication.” Shi Xingeng deposited the proofs of the report somewhere in Liangzhu and rushed to the new location of the West Lake Museum with the original manuscript. At that time, the museum was relocated to Lanxi in the mid-west of Zhejiang Province. Seeing the manuscript remained intact, curator Dong Yumao decided to reprint it. However, due to the great peril caused by the war, the museum had a very limited outlay to support the museum’s operation and the life of five staffers. Carrying the manuscript, the curator headed for the Zhejiang Provincial Education Department, which moved to Lishui, to seek help. With an appeal for cherishing the academic works, he requested government funding for the printing. After going over the manuscript, the secretary-general of the Education Department agreed to fund the printing of “Liangzhu”. At that time, the land route to other places was no longer accessible due to the blockade by the Japanese aggressors and so they had to go by sea. As there was no operational press in Wenzhou, they turned to Shanghai for printing. Zhong Guoyi, a close friend of Shi Xingeng, left Wenzhou with the manuscript on a roundabout route for Shanghai which was already an “isolated island”. At the same time, he entrusted archaeologist Wei Juxian for proofreading. As the efforts to reprint the archaeological report went on, Shi Xingeng received the bad news that his second son, Shi Jianliang, caught an illness and died young in hospital.

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At a time of national calamity, while almost all field archaeological activities in the country came to a halt and one could hardly carry on to make a living, an archaeological report eventually survived the war and went to the press. At the end of the story about his grandfather, Shi Shiying reproached himself by repeating the word “shame”. His daily work deals with various trivialities— coordination and supervision to prevent rule violations and illegal excavation, and advices or explanations on policy and regulations. When villagers complain about policy differentiations across a local river where house building is permitted on one side but forbidden on the other side, Shi Shiying responds: “This is the key protection area of the Liangzhu ruins. You cannot build houses on a site with a history of 5,000 years.” The villagers of Liangzhu Town are aware of his reputation for being “a piece of iron”. Despite a time interval of 80 years, the grandchild has actually inherited his grandfather’s temper. The only difference is that the father was the discoverer and the grandchild is the guardian. “I failed to cotton on to what he was doing until I read the preface for several times. His complex with Liangzhu...” Shi Shiying suddenly asked, “Do you know my father’s name? Shi Yiliang (meaning he should always remember Liangzhu).” (Original title: At the Age of 25, He Conducted His First and Only Field Archaeology Investigation in Liangzhu; He Died Young at 28, but His Archaeological Report Survives the War; Shi Xingeng: Born in Liangzhu, Born for Liangzhu, Nov. 27, 2016)

2.2 Fifty-Seven Explorers and Guardians of Liangzhu Setting off from Hangzhou and passing through Liangzhu Town, we finally reached a high earthen platform with a rolling terrain at Pingyao Town—that is Daguanshan orchard, a famous fruit plantation in Hangzhou. Few locals know that 5,000 years ago, this earthen mound was called Mojiaoshan, where the palatial compound of the Liangzhu Ancient City was built. One early morning in late April 2012, Liu Bin walked out of a building at the foot of the eastern slope of Mojiaoshan to work with his colleagues on digging and testing the soil on the hillside. Once the dormitories of orchard workers, the building now serves as the work station of the Liangzhu Archaeological and Preservation Center. Liu Bing almost made the work station his second home. In 2008, the Liangzhu Ancient City was selected as one of the top 10 new archaeological discoveries in China. Behind the fame and glory were the devotions and hard work of the archaeologists in Zhejiang.

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2.2.1 Fifty-Seven Archaeologists Discovered 5,000-Year-Old Civilization The discovery of the Liangzhu Ancient City was officially announced on November 29, 2007. From then on, the research fellow Wang Ningyuan moved his belongings from his home in Hangzhou to a small room at the work station. Wang Ningyuan said that transcending time and space to the Liangzhu period, this work station sat right at the edge of the palace zone and could serve as an outpost to protect its central residence. The archaeologists were the guardians of the ancient city. Wu Liwei, director of the Hangzhou Liangzhu Archaeological Site Administrative District Management Committee, was a comrade-in-arms of Liu Bin. In 2007, when the archeological team just moved in, the building was not equipped with air conditioning, and working in the rooms in summer was like taking a sauna. Wu Liwei could hardly bear to see their predicament, “These people are here to look for the lost part of history on our behalf!”. Wu Liwei acted quickly to install air conditioners for the archaeological team. “The archaeologists told me it was actually a much better accommodation for them. At other (archaeological excavation) sites, they simply made do with thatched cottages without doors and worked there for a year or so.” Facing poor living conditions, the archaeologists only said they “got used to it.” For them, the biggest challenge is the shortage of human resources. The Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology has only 57 archaeologists, overwhelmed by hectic work at over 50 archaeological sites in the province. However, it was this “undermanned team” who discovered the ruins of Liangzhu Ancient City and upended the conventional chronology of Chinese history. Their discoveries have provided authentic proofs that the Chinese Civilization has a history of 5,000 years.

2.2.2 Moving Forward Step by Step in Recovering History “The charred rice you see was the crop of the ancient people. This amount of rice remains—10,000–15,000 kg—were burnt twice and subsequently discarded. The granary might have stored much more in full capacity,” Wang Ningyuan said while taking me to the excavation site at Mojiaoshan (Fig. 2.4). “What was the status of those living in the palace, befitting such massive rice tributes?” he questioned. The archaeologists packed up the charred rice, pottery shards and even pig bone leftovers, and brought them back to their storage rooms. All of these were useful samples for radiocarbon dating. A small step by archaeologists may lead to a big step forward in uncovering the lost parts of history. In June 2006, Liu Bin and his archaeological team conducted a trial excavation at Putaofen.

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Fig. 2.4 Archaeologists classifying earthen layers, in line with soil samples collected at the Mojiaoshan ruins

Liu Bin saw a chance of making significant discoveries after they found a river channel of the Liangzhu Culture period, which ran in a north-south direction. They started digging from there and finally encountered stones at a depth of four meters. After analyzing the earthen layers, archaeologists concluded that it was an artificially piled-up structure, authenticated later as the city wall of the Liangzhu Ancient City. Now, Liu Bin is preparing for the application of the Archaeological Ruins of the Liangzhu Ancient City for an inscription on the World Cultural Heritage list. He commented that the Liangzhu Ancient City was contemporaneous with the Egyptian Pyramids, both dating back to 5,000 years ago, and the immense construction workload for building the ancient city was on par with that for the pyramids. “How do you know the history of ancient Egypt?” Liu Bin suddenly asked me this question. “Go to see the Pyramids,” I blurted out the reply. “The best way to promote the Liangzhu Ancient City is to attract visitors worldwide to come here and see the site in person,” Liu Bin said with an enigmatic smile.

2.2.3 Marriage of Couples with Long-Time Separation In the archaeological team, a joke goes like this: “Marry someone but not an archaeologist.” Li Xiaoning, director of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, says their field archaeologists work away from home for almost 300 days a year. Zhong Zhaobing is one of the two post-80 s staffers in the institute. His passion for Liangzhu Culture directed him to come and work in Hangzhou after graduating from Peking University. He got married a year ago, but has been separated from his wife for 10 months. “We support each other in doing what we enjoy.” You Xiaolei was born after 1985. Since she came to work at the institute in 2011, she has followed her tutor’s steps in carrying out field investigations every day. Girls of her age often go shopping or patronize cafes during their spare time. But for You Xiaolei, her companions are tombs, pottery shards and loess at desolate ruins sites.

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Girls love being pretty. Despite applying sunscreen three times a day, You Xiaolei has inevitably been weathered by the sun. “It does involve hard work. What we do are rescue excavations. Although we often carry out field archaeology repeatedly, we know pleasant surprises await us always,” You Xiaolei said. (Original title: They Dated the History of “Zhejiang Man” back to One Million Years ago; They Discovered the Liangzhu Ancient City, which Attests to Chinese Civilization; 57 Explorers and Guardians of Liangzhu, May 3, 2012)

2.3 Mou Yongkang: Persistent Practitioner of Field Archaeology With a bag in hand, Mr. Mou Yongkang was ready to go out when I arrived at his home. Seeing me in the doorway, the archaeologist patted his forehead, “Oh no! I mistook the time, thinking you would come tomorrow!”. We then sat down for a conversation on the history of archaeology in Zhejiang Province. The old man recalled, like a walking dictionary of archaeology, all the important discoveries made in those unforgettable years. “On Jul. 3, 1973, we went to the Hemudu bus station by a fire engine,” and “for the Erligang excavation, I was assigned to H111, the most important site in Zone C9…” Mou Yongkang remembered precisely all the details concerning past excavations, such as a specific point of time for excavations, codes for each tomb and even the number of pottery shards found each time. In 2012, Mou Yongkang was 79 years old. His young colleagues at the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology decided to celebrate his 80th birthday, but the old archaeologist thought it unbecoming. “Many archaeologists are even elder than I am. They don’t celebrate birthdays. How could I do that? I may consider a celebration of my 60 years of archaeological work instead of the 80th birthday.” Mou Yongkang was transferred to work at the institute on May 5, 1953, a starting point of his 60-year professional standing. In his study, the old man showed me excitedly the picture taken on his birthday. On the photo, a red banner reads “The 80th Birthday of Mr. Mou Yongkang and Symposium on the 60-year Archaeological Work.” The renowned archaeologist turned his 80th birthday party into an occasion for holding an archaeological symposium. Before the 1960s, Mou Yongkang participated in almost all the major archaeological excavations in Zhejiang Province. With the excavation of major ruins including Qianshanyang and Qiucheng in Huzhou City as well as Gaojitai in Jinxian Town of Chun’an County, Mou Yongkang delved into the study of the archaeological features and evolution sequences of the Neolithic Age cultures in northern Zhejiang Province. He proposed that the primitive

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cultures in the Taihu Lake Basin constituted an integral part of the origins of the Chinese nation. He took part in the two excavations at the Hemudu ruins and put forward the concept of the Hemudu Culture evolving from Phase one to Phase four. After the excavations at major ruins of the Liangzhu site cluster, Mou Yongkang studied the material and spiritual aspects of the Neolithic Liangzhu Culture with jades as its representation. He expounded his arguments on the God worship of the Liangzhu Culture and the Sun worship in the Oriental prehistoric period, and renewed the important concept of “Jade Age”, which has promoted the study of the evolution of the early Chinese civilizations. Mou Yongkang has been striving to keep up with the pace of archaeological progress over the past 60 consecutive years. I asked him if he had been persevering with fieldwork over the years. The old man thought it over and replied, “My foothold is in fieldwork, which gives me the impetus for making breakthroughs in archaeology. There would be no archaeology without field investigations. New materials and information obtained from fieldwork should be the starting points for interpreting history.” Mou Yongkang stepped into the office of the Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Relics Administration Committee at the age of 20, though he had not yet heard of the word “archaeology”. Since then, he was destined to engage in archaeological work for life (Figs. 2.5 and 2.6). Mou Yongkang attended an archaeological training course, during which he ate cold steamed buns, wore thin trousers in winter and slept by tombs. Such field archaeology experiences helped him understand the meaning of “archaeology plus hoes”, a tag for archaeology. He also realized that “archaeology requires high tolerance Fig. 2.5 In September 1954, 21-year-old Mou Yongkang (second from left in the back row) and his classmates at an archaeology training course at the excavation site of the Banpo ruins

Fig. 2.6 Mou Yongkang at work

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to hard work, and one should stay away from archaeology, should he or she fail to endure hardships.” There was even a saying which went: Those with flat feet should not engage in archaeology because they could not bear walking long distances. In the eyes of Mou Yongkang, Chinese archaeology should take a perspective of going global, seeking out the brilliance of the Oriental civilization. For the healthy development of archaeology, he also raised a serious issue that “many of the so-called antique identification and appreciation actually deviate from the essence of archaeology.” He drummed his fingers on the table, saying, “The scientific value of archaeology is to recognize history, reproduce the past of the Chinese nation and re-establish the Oriental ideology. Archaeology relies on the power of the intellectual community. It’s not about how much a painting or something else is worth. It hurts me more to hear that than slapping me on the face.”

2.3.1 Archaeology Was More Than a Straightforward Job In June 1952, the first archaeological training course was jointly held by the Ministry of Culture, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Peking University. In the absence of an archaeology department at Chinese universities, the course was then reputed as an archaeological class of “Huangpu Military Academy”2 within the archaeological community. In 1954, 21-year-old Mou Yongkang was enrolled in the third training course, after completing his first archaeological excavation at the Laoheshan ruins in Hangzhou. In the class, Mou Yongkang soon found out that archaeology was more than a straightforward job. The comment by his teacher that “at Laoheshan, you were merely gathering things rather than conducting archaeological excavation” hit the nail on the head. We had a conversation on this and other topics. Journalist Ma Li: How much did you know about archaeology when you were assigned to work for the then Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Relics Administration Committee? Mou Yongkang: Before that, I had never heard of archaeology. In less than a week after being registered for work, I was dispatched to participate in the excavation of the Laoheshan ruins site, which is now the student dormitory of Zhejiang University Yuquan campus.

2

The Huangpu Military Academy (Whampoa Military Academy) was set up in 1924 at Huangpu District, the east suburb of Guangzhou, South China’s Guangdong Province. The academy aimed to train military officials during the period of the first cooperation between the Kuomintang Party and the Communist Party.

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Wang Wenlin from the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology was my first teacher. At the excavation site, some were excavating the ruins and showing us unearthed objects. I took pictures for those acknowledged by Wang Wenlin, but had no idea what they actually were. Journalist Ma Li: After this excavation, you went to the third archaeological training course. What were the main topics of the course? Mou Yongkang: The three-month course was split in half between classroom learning and fieldwork. The course faculty included Yin Da, archaeology of primitive society; Jian Bozan, history of feudal society; Pei Wenzhong, archaeology of the Paleolithic Age and the renowned archaeologist Guo Moruo, history of slave society. Journalist Ma Li: Had you put yourself in the rank of “veteran” students, on account of your archaeological experience? Mou Yongkang: Yes, at that time, I was complacent over my year-long “archaeological experience”. When Mr. Pei Wenzhong, our mentor, gave his first lesson on the history of Chinese archaeology, I asked him at a break: “Mr. Pei, why didn’t you talk about the excavation of Laoheshan in Hangzhou?” Unexpectedly, he replied in a loud voice: “At Laoheshan, you were simply picking things up rather than excavating the ruins in a real sense.” The reply embarrassed me. So archaeology was not what I thought it was. From then on, I studied very hard. Journalist Ma Li: Which excavation made you a true entrant to the profession? Mou Yongkang: After the course was completed, the cultural relics administration committee sent me to pitch in the archaeological excavation in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. That marked the start of my professional archaeological work in a real sense. I participated in the excavation of Erligang, another Shang Dynasty ruins site discovered after the founding of new China. I was assigned to the H111 ash pit in Zone C9, where seven pigs and three human skulls were buried. The skulls wore two necklaces made of crocodile bones. I squatted in a pit about the size of an armchair for a week, eating a few cold steamed buns at noon. It was winter and I only wore a pair of trousers. I learned to drink to warm up myself. In the evenings, I spread a quilt on a tomb from the Song Dynasty and made it a bed for sleep. The next summer, I found a hole as big as my body in the quilt.

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2.3.2 Rescue Excavation on Hemudu Ruins The Hemudu ruins3 were discovered in Yuyao City, Zhejiang Province in 1973. On November 4, Mou Yongkang participated in the first round of excavation and clearing up at the site. It outstripped all previous excavations in Zhejiang Province in terms of the number of archaeologists and their academic quality as well as the excavation scale. It was also another field excavation following a 10-year halt in Zhejiang Province. In 1976, Mou Yongkang drafted a report titled “Major Results of the Phase I Excavation of Hemudu Ruins.” In the spring of 1977, he led the compilation of a report with over 300 thousand characters, titled “Report on the Phase I Excavation of Hemudu Ruins—Chronology and Connotations of the Hemudu Culture”. In his paper “On the Hemudu Culture” submitted to the founding conference and the first annual convention of the Chinese Society of Archaeology, Mou Yongkang put forward the new concept of the Hemudu Culture evolving from Phase I to Phase IV, and made a complete presentation on the connotations of the Hemudu Culture, the connections of the four cultural layers, a comparison with the Majiabang Culture and the issue of chronology. Journalist Ma Li: How were the Hemudu ruins discovered at that time? Mou Yongkang: In 1973, Xu Jinyue from the Yuyao Cultural Center told me on the phone that he found stone objects and some thick black pottery shards by the Yaojiang River. At that time, I immediately reported the situation to Zhou Zhongxia of the Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Relics Inspection and Clearance Team. He told me that his colleagues were on a work trip in Ningbo and could go for a check. The next day, they returned to Hangzhou with unearthed bone and stone objects and pottery shards. We found them exceptional and thought a rescue excavation should be carried out immediately. When we arrived in Yuyao County at noon that day, it was well past the departure time of a bus to Hemudu. Zheng Baomin, the curator of the local cultural center, borrowed a fire engine from a nearby fire squadron. Like firefighters, we clinched the pull rod with one hand and stood sideways on the fire engine, which took us directly to the Hemudu bus station, the nearest public transport facility to the ruins. Such experience made me feel that the protection of cultural relics is really a matter of utmost urgency, like fighting a fire.

3

The Hemudu ruins were discovered in 1973 in present-day Yuyao City, Zhejiang Province. The Hemudu Culture (5500 BC to 3300 BC) was one of the earliest cultures to cultivate rice. Most of its artefacts consisted of animal bones. Some scholars assert the Hemudu Culture co-existed with the Majiabang Culture as two separate and distinct cultures, with some integration between them.

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Journalist Ma Li: What was the most important discovery from that excavation? Mu Yongkang: In the deep ditch codenamed T3, we found another cultural layer that superimposed on the (layer of) black pottery shards. It was characterized by pottery wares made of clay red outside and black inside. This kind of clay pottery was found in the lower layer of the Qiucheng ruins in Huzhou in the winter of 1957. It was recognized as the earliest Neolithic cultural relics in Zhejiang Province. So the black coarse-grained pottery under it should have belonged to a more primitive, prehistoric culture period. The yield from the excavation came beyond our expectations. This excavation completely reversed the framework of Chinese archaeology that centered on the Central Plains. Hemudu, Qianshanyang and Qiucheng were determined by tests to be older than the Central Plains cultures, thus breaking the “Central Plains centered theory.” The discovery of 7,000-year-old Hemudu Culture has been written into history textbooks.

2.3.3 Conducting Research with Global Perspective In the years 1986 and 1987, numerous jade artefacts were unearthed from the elite tombs of the Liangzhu Culture represented by the Fanshan and Yaoshan ruins. Mou Yongkang valued the distinct features of “jade” as possessing smooth texture, superior hardness, as well as soft, warm and elegant luster. Mou Yongkang put forward his unique theory and viewpoints on studying the relationship between prehistoric jades and the origin of the Chinese Civilization. He reintroduced the concept of “Jade Age”, stressing it was a unique feature of the Chinese Civilization. The sacred human–animal motif, prevailing on Liangzhu jades, was the Oriental solar deity in the evolution from personification to anthropomorphosis. The Oriental solar deity is a strong testimony to the independent origination of the Oriental civilizations. The soft, warm and elegant luster valued by ancient people was seen as the materialization of the Sun worship in the Orient, with jade, silk and lacquer as its worldly representations. These three material objects all emerged in the Neolithic Age, representing the gentle and beautiful lifestyle coupled with the simple and elegant spiritual world valued in the Orient. Journalist Ma Li: You proposed the “Jade Age” once again in reference to the research of the Liangzhu Culture. How do you interpret this idea?

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Mou Yongkang: The evolution into a civilized society marked a great progress of mankind. Jades and relevant ritual systems were the important symbols of the Oriental civilization. In “Shuowen Jiezi”,4 “巫”(wizard)—the lower part of the character “靈” (spirit)— is interpreted as “to serve the God with jades”. As gifts to the God offered by wizards, jade ceremonial objects had played an important role in the ancient ritual systems and they were the material embodiment of the Oriental civilization. The Liangzhu jade ritual objects were the treasures of the Oriental prehistoric art. I proposed the core idea of “Jade Age” in an effort to show that we need to look at the Oriental viewpoint of “the unity of man and God” dialectically. On the one hand, it provided the impetus for social progress. On the other hand, it represented fetters and backwardness. Therefore, I believe that cultures from water-abundant areas in the southern part of East Asia can better decode the origin of the Chinese Civilization. Journalist Ma Li: You have proposed to handle China’s archaeological research from the perspective of a global village. What do you mean by saying that? Mou Yongkang: Following the introduction of archaeology in Zhejiang Province, none of the leading exponents in areas south of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River specialized in archaeology. For example, Zhang Tianfang majored in economics and Shi Xingeng, the discoverer of Liangzhu, studied geology. The progress of archaeological research in Zhejiang Province has epitomized the awakening of intellectuals, who have reinterpreted history by data available and accomplished archaeological findings. Oriental concepts and forms in archaeology deserve a rethink in a globalized village under the trend of economic globalization. (Original title: Sixty Years of Non-stop Pursuit of Field Archaeology as His Mission; Even His 80th Birthday Party Turned into an Archaeological Symposium; MouYongkang: Persistent Practitioner of Field Archaeology, Dec. 21, 2012)

2.4 Like Grass in Desert, He Takes Root Deeply to Survive At 6:12 a.m. on February 10, 2017, famous archaeologist Mou Yongkang died of illness at the age of 83. As the closest student of Mr. Mou Yongkang, Fang Xiangming, a research fellow at the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, was in charge of clearing up his late teacher’s belongs in the office. 4

Shuowen Jiezi is an ancient Chinese character dictionary compiled by Xu Shen, an Eastern Han Dynasty scholar. Although not the first comprehensive Chinese character dictionary, it was the first to analyze the structure of the characters and to explain the rationale behind them.

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In front of him were three small wooden cases with drawers that looked oldfashioned with a shade of mottled brown. These cases were supplied to researchers by the institute in the 1980s. In his retirement, Mr. Mou left them in the office, telling his colleagues: I shall leave these things with you. Gently wiping off the dust with a piece of soft cloth, Fang Xiangming opened one case and saw parcels tied tightly with plastic ropes, just like the packages for traditional Chinese herbal medicines. Unfolding gently the crispy wrapping paper, Fang Xiangming saw several heavy stone yue-battle axes and fu-axes—specimens collected by Mou Yongkang during fieldwork. The edge of a flat stone yue-battle axe carried the fuzzy and indistinct handwriting: “May 1, 1981, Daguanshan, Yuhang.” Fang Xiangming immediately recognized it was Mou Yongkang’s handwriting, knowing his teacher kept the habit to write down neatly in ink the location of the excavation. In the other box, there were tools for repairing artefacts, rusty pins, blackened erasers and even a pencil stub… Seeing the old stuffs, scenes from the past rose before Fang Xiangming’s eyes: Crouching on the ground, Mr. Mou first scraped off soil attached to unearthed objects, and then carefully cleared them up with a slender bamboo stick. In the spring of 1978, Mou Yongkang, a young archaeologist then, and his colleague Wang Mingda came to the Xubuqiao ruins in then Haining County to collect evidence to support the view that the deceased in the Liangzhu Culture period were buried in pits, instead of the flat ground. In order to find a tomb pit, they leveraged the change of the sunlight—positive light, side light and backlight—to observe keenly the earth day by day, searched patiently from one place to another, and scraped the soil carefully shovel by shovel, until they discovered and authenticated the first complete tomb from the Liangzhu Culture period. The old stuffs in the wooden case carried the records of a persistent archaeologist in Zhejiang, telling us silently stories about his years spent arduously on fieldwork. Being monotonous and repetitive, field archaeology is a kind of technical work that demands patience. “Only genuine field archaeologists are willing to do these things,” said Zheng Jiali, researcher fellow of the institute. Remembering the past, archaeologists from the institute sighed with emotion that an era of archaeology in Zhejiang has gone as Mr. Mou passed away. Why had they said that? At No. 20, West Ring Road in Hangzhou, a villa built in the period of the Republic of China, was once the office building for the Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Relics Administration Committee. Well-known figures of the then archaeological community—Sha Menghai, Shao Peizi, Li Chengquan, Chen Xunzi, Zhu Jiaji, Wang Shilun and Wang Jiying—all had worked in the building. In 1953, 20-year-old Mou Yongkang also became a member of this important academic institution. Now, all those stars fell one by one. Liu Bin left Jilin University in 1985 to work at the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. He still remembered that Mr. Zhang Zhongpei (who

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was then the teacher at the university and later the curator of the Palace Museum) encouraged him to make a go of it as both Mr. Mou Yongkang and Ji Zhongqing from the Nanjing Museum were archaeological gurus. Liu Bin shared an office with Mr. Mou at the start of his career. They worked together on the Fanshan and Yaoshan excavation projects. Mr. Mou often mentioned Liu Bin with pride “I asked Mr. Zhang to assign Liu Bin to work here after graduation.” Liu Bin found Mr. Mou had rather unconventional perspectives on many issues concerning Chinese archaeology and history. Moreover, unlike many sedate archaeologists, Mr. Mou was quite a character, hence owning two nicknames: “big head” and “beating about the bush”. The nickname of “big head” suggested he had too much knowledge in his brain. “Beating about the bush” implied that he had his own unique ways of reasoning logically and communicating with others; he disliked to come straight to the point, and preferred telling others something in a complicated and indirect manner. He had a quick temper and was easily agitated by discussions of differing views. Adhering to his arguments, he would keep on the discussions keenly until hashing out a result. It was interesting that Mr. Mou would greet those he met for the first time with questions like checking their IDs. “I’m an archaeologist, I’d like to identify who you are. What’s your major? What do your parents do?”. In November 2016, I called to consult Mr. Mou Yongkang at his home on feature stories about the 80th anniversary of the first excavation of the Liangzhu ruins. Since he was diagnosed with cancer in 2013, he had undergone several chemotherapy courses, and his colleagues called him a cancer fighter. Wang Haiming, deputy director of the institute, compared Mr. Mou to grass in the desert: The worse the environment is, the deeper the roots spread. Mr. Mou Yongkang, with a full head of black hair, looked quite good on the day when I met with him. Pointing to three photos on the tea table, he began talking in circles earnestly. “On May 1, 2013, a Tianjin TV crew came to my home to shoot a documentary,” Mr. Mou smiled a bit and continued to beat about the bush, “At that time, the Chinese Academy of Sciences decided to publish a series of books under the title ‘An Overview of the Academic Achievements of China’s Famous Scientists in the 20th Century’.Initially, only 18 subjects, all natural sciences, were listed. Later, the list was expanded to cover five more disciplines in social sciences, including archaeology and 118 archaeologists.” Then, he analyzed the makeup of 118 names, by categorizing them as before or after the founding of new China. In the words of Fang Xiangming, Mr. Mou made a detailed analysis of the listed scientists from an archaeological perspective. Finally, he narrowed his eyes and concluded his statement, “Two archaeologists from Zhejiang were put on the list—one was Shi Xingeng (the discoverer of the Liangzhu ruins) and the other, me. Never in all of my life have I dreamed of receiving such an honor.” Never pretending otherwise; never going with the tide, and being perfectly clear about love and hate—these were the glows of Mr. Mou’s temperament.

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Fang Xiangming recalled that after seeing his name on the list, his teacher stayed up all night and began writing his biography. The emotionally charged biography didn’t get approval (from the book compiling team), so he handed over the task to Fang, saying “Never mind the result. I trust you.” (Note: later on, his own version of biography was published in the second issue of “Relics for South”, 2013.) Mr. Mou Yongkang’s care for the growth of young archaeologists has often been remembered by his colleagues. In 1986, the institute began preparing a conference for the 50th anniversary of the first excavation of Liangzhu Ruins. While planning the excavation of the Fanshan ruins, Mr. Mou also set the subjects of papers for young colleagues: “Zhejiang, as the host, should contribute a set of decent papers.” He wrote, in collaboration with Liu Bin, a paper titled “On Liangzhu—A Review and Outlook of the 50th Anniversary of the Discovery of Liangzhu Culture”. He recommended Liu Bin read a long list of books on the archaeological history of Zhejiang and the archaeological history of prehistoric China. Liu Bin spent over half a year reading them and finally completed a paper under the guidance of Mr. Mou. “I have always been grateful to Mr. Mou for giving me—a young entrant—this opportunity, which had a significant bearing on my academic career.” Of course, his care was also “a matter of love or hate”. “Should he like you, he would feel you were just fine. Even when you didn’t do well, he would simply comment with a smile: ‘Maybe I need to spank you’.” Of course, there were times when the old man felt disappointed. “Young people were lazy sometimes and felt like they could afford ‘wasting’ some time. He never scolded me when coming across this situation. He just looked at me and then left. That meant he was gutted absolutely,” said Fang Xiangming. His students knew well how strict Mr. Mou was with them. Wang Haiming said many of the archaeological practices in Zhejiang were developed by Mr. Mou for students to follow. “For example, gloves are not allowed for excavation as the feel of touch is completely different from wearing gloves; No stools are placed on archaeological ruins to prevent the destruction of the sites. I have abided by these rules and now my knees can’t bend for a long time, but I’m still very grateful.” In 2000, Fang Xiangming assisted archaeologist Wang Mingda in clearing up the Fanshan ruins. One day, Mr. Mou quizzed Fang Xiangming. “Regarding the craftmanship (for jades), what do you think of your knack?”. “I think I have practically mastered the craft to facilitate sorting and studying the jades,” Fang Xiangming replied with confidence. “From your daily chats, I judge you are well below the pass level,” Mr. Mou showed his mordant wit. But on the other side, he showed his care for his young colleagues. In 2006, when Mr. Mou learned Fang Xiangming’s mother had fallen seriously ill, he talked to Fang with seriousness, “Do you have enough money? I’ve just sold my apartment. Feel free to borrow if you lack money.” Fang Xiangming came to work at the archaeological institute in 1989. He started sorting out the manuscripts written by Mou Yongkang after that year, including over 100 published articles. He found Mr. Mou was incredibly energetic in writing after he retired in 1995. The number of his articles peaked at around the year 2000,

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including one of his representative works titled “A Miracle in the Cradle of the Orient—Reflection in the Study of Prehistoric Jades in China”, and the articles on the Hemudu ruins and the official kilns of the Southern Song Dynasty. In 2016, 82-year-old Mou Yongkang wrote a preface for his new book “Han Dynasty Tombs in Zhejiang” and this was his last article. According to Fang Xiangming, Mr. Mou, in his later years, began rethinking some of his “persistent” ideas, and told his disciples that “you shall not listen to me all the time.” On November 25, 2016, Mr. Mou made his last public appearance in Hangzhou for the academic commemorative conference on the 80th anniversary of the first excavation of the Liangzhu ruins. Despite his poor health, he insisted on coming to the conference venue, sitting in the first row. Yan Wenming, an 84-year-old senior professor at Peking University, also attended the meeting. At the end of the event, an interesting sight appeared. After Mr. Yan wrote an inscription for the 80th anniversary of the first excavation of the Liangzhu ruins, he stopped by Mr. Mou Yongkang and shook hands with him. Mr. Mou didn’t stand up because he could hardly do that by himself. Mr. Yan took his hands, saying, “I miss Liangzhu very much. I miss badly those who excavated the Liangzhu.” Mr. Mou pointed to his nose, “Including me?”. “Of course,” Mr. Yan replied. The short conversation was anything but simple. Liu Bin, who is familiar with the story behind it, has been moved deeply. “When these old gentlemen met, they’d like to score points off each other as what the young people did sometimes. This is the lovely side of their characters.” Both Yan Wenming and Zhang Zhongpei are special consultants for the excavation and research of the Liangzhu ruins. Because of his health, Mr. Yan has not been to Liangzhu for many years, but he has deep feelings for Liangzhu. When Liu Bin dined with the archaeological gurus, Mr. Zhang sighed several times: lonely and so lonely. “It is not an idle boast of lacking dialogue partners, but a sigh of feeling sorry for losing good old peers. When talking about the past, you just could find no one to share the topics as those joint participants have already passed away,” Liu Bin said. So, had Mr. Mou felt lonely? (Original title: 83 Year-Old Archaeologist Mou Yongkang Died of Illness Yesterday; He was a Grass in the Desert, Taking Root Deeply against Harsh Environments, Feb. 11, 2017)

2.5 Wang Mingda: A Man Comparing Virtue to Jade In 1998, jade artefacts from Liangzhu, Yuhang were put on display at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. A lecture on Liangzhu jades was scheduled on the second day of the exhibition. Hearing the news, 81-year-old Rao Zongyi (former head of the Xiling Seal Art Society) drove all the way to the university to attend the lecture.

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When he arrived at the classroom, he found it was fully occupied. So he brought a folding chair into the classroom, squeezing into a corner and sitting down to listen quietly. The speaker was Wang Mingda, a specialist on the Liangzhu jade culture from the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. In the early autumn of 2013, we paid a special visit to the lecture “star” pursued by Rao Zongyi. We chose the cafe opposite Wang Mingda’s home for an interview. He talked in a resonant and penetrating voice, like delivering an open lecture. It appealed to attendants who could not help looking over several times, from the other side of the large second-floor space. Wang Mingda talked about archaeology, Liangzhu and jades for three hours. He clearly remembered the time, place and weather conditions for each excavation, and even 96 jade grains decorating the handle of a jade yue-ceremonial axe as well. Wang graduated from the Department of Archaeology at Peking University, the first of its kind set up at Chinese universities. Wang’s teachers included Lüˇ Zuner, who taught him about the Paleolithic Age. Lüˇ Zuner was a graduate student of Professor Pei Wenzhong, who discovered the first skull of the “Peking Man” at Zhoukoudian in suburban Beijing. Mr. Pei came to the campus once a week, giving Wang Mingda a lecture on the Paleolithic Age in Europe. His “star” faculty also included Zou Heng, Su Bingqi, Su Bai, Yu Weichao and Yan Wenming, the forerunners of Chinese archaeology. Due to historical reasons, Wang Mingda failed initially to accomplish his professional goals, although he graduated from Peking University with high credits and expectations. He once worked on a farm, later moved on to a thermos factory, and was finally transferred to the Zhejiang Provincial Museum. He participated in excavating tombs and arranging exhibitions, edited cultural relics newsletters, and even spent a year excavating revolutionary cultural relics. Wang Mingda had to mission around almost all the cultural heritage work units and museums at different levels within the province. “I fully mucked in with all sorts of things,” Wang used these words to describe his unique experience. Wang Mingda regarded all these miscellaneous jobs as opportunities for learning. “When you are given an opportunity, don’t give it up. Keep learning and you should do fine with whatever you are entrusted.” In 1981, when Wang Mingda took over the Liangzhu excavation project, no one had known clearly where the ancient Liangzhu was. He then ticked off eight towns for a 20-day surveying tour to locate the ruin sites. Based on the empirical data collected from field excavations, he first put forward the concept of “Liangzhu site cluster” at the Symposium for the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the Liangzhu ruins held in Hangzhou in 1986. This concept opened up a new horizon for the archaeological excavation and study of the Liangzhu Culture. In the same year, Wang Mingda took charge of the excavation of the Fanshan ruins. At the outset, only 11 tombs of the Han Dynasty were found (Fig. 2.7). Some people speculated he made something wrong. Firmly believing in his own judgment, Wang Mingda adhered to the original plan and moved ahead with the excavation

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Fig. 2.7 In September 1986, Wang Mingda and his team discussing the excavation at the Fanshan ruins (Mou Yongkang, in the middle; Wang Mingda on the left; Rui Guoyao, Liu Bin and Yang Nan on the right)

carefully. One afternoon before the arrival of a rainstorm, a lacquer cup inlaid with jades exposed its cinnabar coating, and the ruins of the Liangzhu royal mausoleum, buried underground for over 5,000 years, came to light. Later excavations yielded over 1000 pieces (sets) of jades including the spectacular king of cong, king of yue and the king’s scepter, which caused a sensation in the whole archaeological world. The “Shijing” or the “Classic of Poetry”5 described the virtues of a gentleman this way: “A gentleman compares virtue to jade, as it is gentle and beneficent.” Wang Mingda has an elegant manner and is neither rash nor sluggish in talking and action. When it came to the collection of artefacts, he responded unequivocally, “I don’t collect.” “This should be a voluntary code of conduct for the cultural heritage professionals. My duty is to tell the history of jades. For me, shutting myself off from all auction appraisals is the bottom line,” said Wang Mingda. He took a sip of his tea and put it down gently.

2.5.1 Thermos Factory: Three Archaeology Magazines and One Reader I had an interview with Wang Mingda about his working experience. Journalist Ma Li: The Archaeology Department at Peking University enjoyed a high reputation at that time. Was it a reason that you applied for it?

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The “Shijing” or the “Classic of Poetry” collects the oldest chronologically authenticated Chinese poems, comprising 305 works dating from the 11th to seventh centuries BC. It is one of the “Five Classics” traditionally said to have been compiled by the Confucius.

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Wang Mingda: I was not quite good at mathematics, physics and chemistry during my childhood, but I had grasped well the basic knowledge and was particularly familiar with geographic locations. I chose archaeology with high anticipation of field trips to run around for fresh experiences, not just book knowledge. Field practices give you a good chance to apply what you have learned from textbooks. The essence of archaeology is to distinguish the layers of the soil of different ages. You cannot get the knacks from books. Journalist Ma Li: Why have you been studying the Liangzhu Culture since then? Wang Mingda: Actually, I came near for the study of Han Dynasty tombs. In June 1968, a Han Dynasty tomb was found in Mancheng, Hebei Province. Later excavations yielded the famous jade suit sewn with gold thread. Premier Zhou Enlai told Guo Moruo, then president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, about the discovery of the Han tomb and asked him to see the excavation. At that time, I just started working at the Institute of Archaeology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and so I was dispatched for the tomb’s excavation. With my luggage packed up, an order from the central government came suddenly, mandating that “It is necessary for intellectuals to receive re-education.” Thus I had to work at a farm instead. Journalist Ma Li: I heard that after the Academy of Sciences, you were transferred to work at a thermos factory for some time? Wang Mingda: Following the directive for re-education, I spent two years at Qiaosi Farm affiliated with the Zhejiang Military Command. In 1970, I was transferred to work at a thermos factory, employing over 1,800 workers including several college graduates, though none of them majoring in arts. The management urgently needed a pen-pusher, so they decided to employ me. I thought this was where I could earn a salary, so I went there. At that time, there were no books to read, but the factory had subscribed to three major archaeological magazines: Archaeology, Journal of Archaeology and Wenwu, and I was the only reader of them. In order to introduce the great achievements of new China to the world and show the glamor of ancient Chinese Civilization through cultural relics diplomacy, the State Council issued a notice in August 1971, requesting to select cultural relics for exhibitions abroad. Premier Zhou added a one-sentence directive at the back of the document: Specially trained personnel should return to their own professions as

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early as possible. So, in December 1973, I went to work at the Zhejiang Provincial Museum. Journalist Ma Li: You finally returned to an institution befitting your major. Did you join archaeological projects immediately? Wang Mingda: I was assigned to the history team. I did everything that was given to me. I dug Han Dynasty tombs and handled several Ming and Qing tombs. At the time, we were all on call for tasks and whoever was available would be dispatched.

2.5.2 Excavation of Fanshan Ruins: We’ve Got It Journalist Ma Li: In 1981, when you took over the excavation of the Liangzhu ruins, they were not well known nationwide and even their locations were yet to be determined. How did you put forward the concept of “Liangzhu site cluster”? Wang Mingda: At that time, Mou Yongkang was the director of the Archaeology Office. He asked me to take a preliminary survey for that purpose. Today we can detect the locations of the ruins by using satellite remote-sensing technology. But at that time, we had to rely on our feet to walk on every footpath of farm fields to locate suspected sites. It took over 20 days for me and the other eight team members to walk through eight towns to discover over 30 new sites. A survey in 1983 led to new discoveries, which constituted the archaeological basis for me to raise the concept of “Liangzhu site cluster”. Journalist Ma Li: Over the past 20 years, you have led the excavations of over 30 important Liangzhu sites. What impressed you the most? Wang Mingda: The Fanshan ruins were discovered in 1986, as a result of my sound judgment. At the onset, excavation at Fanshan lasted over 20 days and only 11 tombs from the Han Dynasty were found. Many people thought that we had gone in the wrong direction, but I was not willing to retreat. Looking from a distance, it was a loess mound. I had observed it several times and found its shape matching the concept of “earthen pyramid” in my mind. The pyramid was built in line with the will of the ancient nobility rather than being piled in a haphazard fashion. In this respect, Fanshan was the earthen pyramid for the (Liangzhu) elites.

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Journalist Ma Li: You must have remembered the scene of the discovery, haven’t you? Wang Mingda: I would never forget the afternoon of May 31. After 2 p.m., dark clouds rumbled in the sky, forecasting heavy rains to come, and we had to knock off work early. Standing high on a partition beam, I instructed colleagues to quickly remove the loosened soil and cover the exploration ditch with plastic sheets. Just at that moment, a worker, who had been clearing tomb M12, climbed up from the 1.1-m deep pit, yelling “Mr. Wang, what is this?” Standing on the 1.6-m high beam, I looked down in the direction he pointed at and saw something red with white spots. A thought flashed into my mind: a lacquerware inlaid with jades! I jumped into the pit straightway from the beam. Pulling out a bamboo strip from a dustpan, I gently poked the earth and spotted the cinnabar object. I murmured to myself, “We’ve got it.” Then I used a bamboo stick to scrap the tomb pit back and forth, and finally saw a jade with a creamy white luster, a color also known as chicken bone white. I knew what to expect—the No. 97 jade cong-cylinder unearthed thereafter. In the evening, we got wet all over as we returned to our living place, but everyone was excited. I asked someone to buy several dishes for a dinner party, and said, “Fetch a jar of liquor and let’s have a good drink tonight.” I still remember my words “Our excavation this time will be written into the history of archaeology.” The No. 12 tomb was the first Liangzhu tomb excavated from the Fanshan royal mausoleum. After excavating the ruins for 100 days, I was trimmed down from 55 kg to 46.5 kg.

2.5.3 Liangzhu Jades: A Perfect Combination of Material and Fine Craftsmanship Journalist Ma Li: Jades played a vital role in the life of the Liangzhu ancients, as they were associated with divinity. What have we learned about the enormous number of jades unearthed at the Fanshan site? Wang Mingda: Before Fanshan, jades were found singly such as cong-cylinder and/or bi-disc. Starting from Fanshan, however, jades were unearthed in sets. The Fanshan ruins yielded over 1,200 pieces (sets) of jade. The Liangzhu inhabitants had developed very fine jade-working techniques. The small inlaid jade grains indicated the Liangzhu craftsmen were capable of utilizing

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raw jade scraps to maximize the use of the precious raw material. They adopted roll-grinding techniques to process small jade grains and used lacquer as an adhesive to glue jades onto wooden molds. Journalist Ma Li: Only the elites of Liangzhu could have owned high-grade jades. What was the rank of jade workers in the Liangzhu social hierarchy? The notion that the Liangzhu jades were processed by slaves remains controversial within the archaeological community. What’s your opinion? Wang Mingda: I disagree with the notion of a slave society. Just as archaeologist Su Bingqi has said, there are two stereotypes in Chinese history education. One of them is to substitute the history of social development for a specific part of history. Could slaves make bronze wares? Were ordinary workers capable of making the satellites and the Tiangong-1 space lab? Jade craftsmen at that time were present-day senior engineers and intellectuals. Employment of top-notch talents was a must for this sophisticated production activity that demanded both mental and physical capabilities. Journalist Ma Li: Jade has also been associated with human temperament and virtues. What is your perception of jade? Wang Mingda: Jade serves as one of the material embodiments of Chinese traditional culture, along with silk and lacquer. They symbolize the inheritance and development of the philosophy of the unity of heaven and man. Originally dedicated to God, silk fabrics were used for dressmaking only after the Han Dynasty. Nowadays, in some places, lacquer wares are still used to dower daughters, as an old custom. Jade is a perfect combination of durable material and fine craftsmanship. The Xinhua Dictionary collects over 200 characters with a component “玉-yu”, the Chinese character meaning jade. They include Chinese characters pronounced as “珍-zhen”, “宝-bao”, “琼-qiong” and “瑶-yao”, meaning precious and beautiful. The vocabulary “玉女-jade maiden” is a high praise for girls with good virtues. In line with the attributes of jade which may be shattered into pieces but is highly resistant to abrasion and scratch, courageous death has been acclaimed as “rather be a shattered piece of jade than intact tile”, meaning “better to die with honor than to live in shame.” The earliest jades seen thus far in China were the 8,000-year-old jue-slit rings unearthed from the Xinglongwa ruins in Inner Mongolia. The jades were highly valued as precious stones due to their scarcity. Although the Liangzhu period represented the height of the development of prehistoric jades, over 20 thousand pieces of Liangzhu jades are available worldwide, which amount to only the load of a pickup truck.

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The (Great) Pyramid of Khufu, the highest one in Egypt dated to over 4, 000 years B.P., is contemporaneous with the Liangzhu civilization. Being large in scale and possessing convincing evidence, Liangzhu is an outstanding testimony of the Chinese Civilization that is on a par with any other foreign counterpart. (Original title: He Initiated the Concept of “Liangzhu Site Cluster” and Led the Excavation of the Fanshan Ruins; He Gave Lecture on Liangzhu Jades in Hong Kong, that even Rao Zongyi Didn’t Want to Miss; Wang Mingda: A Gentleman Compares Virtue to Jade, Sept. 13, 2013)

2.6 Narrative of Liangzhu by A Cheng On May 15, 2016, the final results of China’s top 10 new archaeological discoveries in 2015 were unveiled in Beijing. The investigation and excavation of the large-scale water conservancy project in the periphery of the Liangzhu Ancient City in Yuhang, Zhejiang Province, secured a place on the list. The grand honor coincided with the 80th anniversary of the first excavation of the Liangzhu ruins, gratifying archaeologists in Zhejiang Province. The world’s earliest dam system, with a designed coverage area exceeding 100 square kilometers, once again proves that the Liangzhu Ancient City had a complete capital structure. More importantly, after 80 years of arduous efforts, archaeologists have established a pedigree of Neolithic cultures in the Taihu Lake Basin on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, starting from the 7,000-year-old Majiabang Culture to the Songze, Liangzhu and Qianshanyang-Guangfulin cultures. While the people in Zhejiang pride themselves on the discovery of these Liangzhu dams over 1,000 years earlier than the legend of Yu the Great taming waters, far away in Beijing, someone has also been watching closely every development concerning Liangzhu. This is A Cheng, a writer. On the following day after I finished my coverage of the top 10 discoveries, I called on Mr. A Cheng, bringing him a book he had been anticipating for so long—Pictographs of Liangzhu Culture compiled by the Liangzhu Museum. In April 2015, The Hetu & Luoshu Diagrams: Tracing the Origins and Models of Civilizations,6 written by A Cheng won a silver award for the nonfiction category of the “Spring Wind Book List” sponsored by the Qianjiang Evening News and Bookuu.com, an online book retailer. For the first time in 10 years, A Cheng appeared in public to receive the prize in person. During his trip, he visited the Liangzhu Museum and showed a keen interest in symbols incised and drawn on artefacts.

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The Hetu—“Yellow River Chart” and the Luoshu—“Inscription of the River Luo” were two cosmological diagrams used by both Daoists and Confucians in ancient China. They served to explain the correlation of the hexagrams of the Yijing or the “Book of Changes” with the universe and human life. They were also used in geomancy.

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Knowing that a book on this subject was about to be published, he made an early “order” for the book. Originally, I just went to deliver the book and didn’t expect an interview with A Cheng. “Well, it took a great effort.” He lit a cigarette, sat down, opened the book and began to browse. He remained silent until five minutes later. “Liangzhu (incised and drawn symbols) alone enabled the publication of such a big book,” A Cheng continued to flick through the pages. My tape recorder was running but it captured the sounds of turning pages in this quiet house. Painted in pure white, the loft studio looked spacious with a high ceiling and floor-to-ceiling windows. In the courtyard, there were some green plants, semi-finished joineries, various utensils and containers that you could ever hope to catalog. They remained pristine as if they were just unearthed. Books, picture albums, records and other collections were laid around within easy reach by the house owner. “In Chinese, ‘using a stone needle for acupuncture therapies’ is a metaphor for criticizing the maladies of the times and offering salutary advice,” A Cheng picked up a stone tool and started his “lecture”. “This is the mentioned stone needle which, in treatment, should be heated and pressed on acupuncture points. As a matter of fact, these were medical skills mastered exclusively by witches.” He maintained extraordinary curiosity and considerable insight into all sorts of everyday and mundane stuffs around him. Hermit A Cheng—that is what many people would say about him. Isolated in his dwelling rather difficult to be found by others, A Cheng had been intentionally making a break with the past over the years. He concentrated on studying and narrating the evolution and framework of the Chinese culture and tracing the origins of civilization models, and rarely mentioned his past and literature. But in the past two years, his new books caused a stir. In 2015, he published “The Hetu & Luoshu Diagrams: Tracing the Origins and Models of Civilizations” and also republished “Venice Diary”. The year 2016 witnessed more “blockbusters”. “Anthology of A Cheng” produced by Hantang Sunshine Publishing House was the first assembled collection of his works. However, he still did not mention the “new collection” of works 30 years ago. “Originally they intended to publish the complete works. I said I was not dead yet.” “Choking” in his usual style, he then burst out naive laughter. Had A Cheng made himself invisible? As I mentioned in the beginning, I was supposed to deliver the book only. Knowing that he was a big fan of the Liangzhu Culture, I took the opportunity to “report” to him the news about the Liangzhu dam system winning the top 10 honor and the upcoming activities to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the discovery of the Liangzhu ruins in the second half of 2016. In the next hour and a half, he talked casually about the Liangzhu dams and Liangzhu civilization. In spite of his seemingly idle chitchats, no one could actually talk about history in the way he did. He knows everything but says nothing, or simply spares with his words. “Did you go to see the exhibition of the Marquis of Haihun?” I asked.

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“The research has not been completed. Is there anything worth mentioning? Is the gold worth a look?” He laughed again. Seemingly a “cold fish”, A Cheng actually was able to easily amuse you with his sense of humor. Behind his round glasses, a “storm” of passion was gaining strength for a gaze at the vicissitudes of past life that had transformed the Liangzhu he cared about. The “Pictographs of Liangzhu Culture” collects the symbol of a bird perching on a high platform, incised on a jade bi-disc of Liangzhu. A strange pattern, carved on the platform under the bird, attracted A Cheng’s attention. Holding a cigarette, he read the page with the printed symbol for quite a while, knowing there was a debate among archaeologists about what it actually meant. “Do you play finger guessing games?”7 A Cheng surprised me with this question. “Wukuishou (the best five), Liuliuliu (triple six meaning everything goes smoothly),” he shouted out with a particular tone. “When chanting ‘wukuishou’, you shall spray out the five fingers to gesture for the number—five. And that is what the pattern under the bird looks like. Like in our everyday life, we tend to neglect things around or simply take them for granted. So many people play finger guessing games, but few of them even bother to ask what ‘wukuishou’ means.” It reminds me of a story about A Cheng. He was said to have been robbed by a masked man. Afterward, he accurately figured out the identity of the robber, based on the color and curls of the man’s stubble sticking out from his facial mask. No matter what he focuses on, it is always about the daily life of the people—the living materials which constitute the basis for his past literary writing, his current research on the origins and evolution models of civilizations, and even his own reasoning on the development of continental shelf civilizations. “I think Liangzhu is a good subject open for all. If you are interested in studying this culture, you can do it yourself,” A Cheng said. The following was an interview with A Cheng. Journalist Ma Li: We have the legend about Yu the Great taming waters, but many people question whether he had a great capability of doing so. Appearing over 1,000 years earlier than the legend, the Liangzhu water conservancy system might have strengthened the arguments that the legend is by no means groundless. What is your opinion on the relationship between the two? A Cheng: I personally think the Liangzhu Culture is extremely important. The tomb of the Marquis of Haihun was excavated with lots of fanfare. Over 5,200 bamboo slips were 7

The finger guessing games are often played when the Chinese drink wines or liquor. The game is for two players at a time. Both players extend any number of fingers on one or both hands, revealing their hands at the same time. Just before the revealing, one player must shout out a number between two and twenty. If the total number of fingers held up is equal to the sum guessed, that player is safe. If not, he or she must drink.

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unearthed, and a preliminary interpretation will be done afterward. In comparison, the interpretation of the Liangzhu dam system has seemingly not been done enough. It has something to do with Liangzhu that the legend about Yu the Great has gone popular in Kuaiji, the present-day Shaoxing City of Zhejiang Province. The Liangzhu dam system appeared earlier than Yu the Great. What were the efforts of Yu the Great in taming the floods? Diverting the flood water and dredging the channels. And the Liangzhu dams functioned to block the flooding. This was the “blocking” tactic employed before Yu the Great tamed the floods. Journalist Ma Li: Gun, the father of Yu the Great failed in his attempt to control floods. A Cheng: So we need to tap valuable information from historical records, myths and legends to analyze the significance of the dams. Why did Gun adopt the blocking tactic? Why did he fail? Over 10,000 years ago, the Quaternary glaciers began melting, causing devastating floods and mud-rock flows. Chinese geologist Li Siguang found the striations of glaciation while surveying at the Lushan Mountain in Jiangxi Province. Based on this observation, Li Siguang reckoned there might have existed oil resources in some parts of China, and eventually, his team found oil fields in Daqing, Heilongjiang and the provinces of Shandong and Hebei. As we observed from the earthquake in Wenchuan (of Sichuan Province), mud-rock flows blocked glacier runoffs to form barrier lakes, and they could collapse eventually, with the accumulation of the melting ice year by year. In an effort to prevent flooding, Gun adopted the tactic of consolidating the embankments of barrier lakes. The reinforcement, however, failed to work effectively to prevent the breach of the lakes’ banks. Liangzhu should have encountered a similar situation—the ancient inhabitants tried to block flooding water in order to protect their property, but failed in the end. This instinctive reaction was similar to the behavior of ants—when water submerges their nests, they first move to block the water before getting drowned. In the novel Li Shui, Chinese writer Lu Xun described Yu the Great as the chief engineer of the state water control project, traveling around the territories of his realm. But from the perspective of anthropology, Yu the Great had not played such a role, because it did not fall under the responsibilities of clan chiefs, not to mention Yu the Great was the leader of a tribal alliance, who called the chiefs to joint meetings. The barrier lakes would collapse unless their naturally formed dams could be reinforced effectively. Where should the rushing water flow once it breached the dams? This remained a critical point of consideration for Yu the Great to implement the dredging and diverting strategy. The flooding torrents would inevitably head to areas of some clans, and to protect the resources they lived on, clan chiefs would certainly argue that the flooding water should be blocked up. Equally, diverting flooding water elsewhere, would trigger demands from other clans for blocking it. At the moment, the prestige of the common leader was the key to forging a consensus. At such a democratic alliance conference, he would persuade clan chiefs to believe that water would be diverted to somewhere with the lowest costs, and for

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those affected by the diversion, their losses would be funded and shared by unaffected clans. What was the nature of striking such an agreement? It was politics. Yu the Great should have been the most prestigious leader then and his achievements through this classic democratic consultation were passed down as a myth. I personally use the mythological interpretation approach to restore the historical state of the legend about Yu the Great taming waters, which would help understand further the significance of the Liangzhu dam system. Liangzhu left behind the traces of its artificial dams. That’s the significance as far as I can see. This great undertaking had been testified by its blocking technology and enormous amounts of engineering workload involved. Journalist Ma Li: If this water conservancy system was so powerful, how come the civilization vanished suddenly about 4,000 years ago? It was not until the Han Dynasty that signs of human activities resumed there again. Where had the Liangzhu people gone? A Cheng: The readers are probably unaware that the last chapter of my book The Hetu & Luoshu Diagrams: Tracing the Origins and Models of Civilizations is about my speculation on the origin of East Asia civilizations. Less than 10,000 years ago, the continental shelf of the East China Sea was still a relatively flat landscape. The climate was warmer and more humid than the Central Plains in present-day China. The civilization created by inhabitants there would certainly have evolved from the Paleolithic Age to the Neolithic Age. Originally, people lived on the continental shelf as the continent was a plateau mostly covered by the Quaternary glaciers. After the glaciers melted, a subsequent rise in sea level gradually forced ancients to move to the elevated land, which is the present-day Yangtze River Delta. That migration caused tremendous losses in their living and production resources. The great floods recorded in the Bible and the myths and legends about floods in various civilizations across the world were all related to the melting of Quaternary glaciers. How to survive on the comparatively narrow lands at Hangzhou Bay and CircumTaihu Lake areas? The first choice definitely was to block the flooding, and the second was to move northward. Rice cultivation formed a key driver for the development of the Liangzhu civilization. A rice-cultivating civilization was more advanced than a millet-planting civilization, because growing rice required higher quality management. That is why even today, the southerners still boast a better sense of management than the northerners. My rural life experience in both the south and north of China during the “Cultural Revolution” left a lasting deep impression on me. In the era of the Liangzhu civilization, they turned to the north for resources, and then encountered the milletplanting civilization for a decisive battle. This should be the myth-archetype of the

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war between Chi You8 and the Yellow Emperor in ancient legends. Of course, as we often see in Chinese history, an advanced civilization was defeated but it was also diffused and assimilated by other civilizations. As per the legend about the Miao ethnic group and their westward migration, it should have been the continuation of the myth-archetype of Chi You. Hosting a funeral for a deceased Miao, a wizard would recite a long prayer to guide the soul of the deceased to ascend to the heavens, from somewhere but definitely not Guizhou Province in southwest China, where they had inhabited. Then, where was their ascending place? The East China Sea. The wizard guided the spirit of the deceased to move eastward across mountains and rivers until sighting the waves along the coast of the East China Sea—that was the place where they ascended to the heavens. Journalist Ma Li: So, where had the Liangzhu people gone? A Cheng: The Miao people claim to be the descendants of Chi You. The gene sequencing tests show the Miao, Yao and Zhuang ethnic groups as well as the natives here (Liangzhu) carry the same genes. This is the outcome of the great migration, which came partly due to a rise in sea level and partly due to Chi You’s defeat in the legendary battle against the Yellow Emperor. Journalist Ma Li: Wizards were wise and virtuous men in the early state period (of Liangzhu). Only a few in the Liangzhu society, adept at working jades, were elected as wizards to impersonate their gods and speak on their behalf. Finally, they monopolized the power of communicating with the deity. A Cheng: The souls of the deceased, guided by wizards, crossed the mountains and rivers with their “passports”, flying all the way toward the east. The Miao embroidery patterns were deemed as “passports” and it explained why modifications on the patterns were not allowed. If you embroidered a wrong pattern, your soul would be stuck somewhere. Hence, the conservatism of the Miao embroidery craftsmanship is dictated by religious beliefs. Journalist Ma Li: In this respect, the Miao embroidery is not what we call folk art, but the result of a highly developed civilization. Did it share the same root with the Liangzhu Culture?

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Chi You was a mythological warrior and tribe leader engaged in fighting with the Yellow Emperor in ancient China. He has been worshiped as the God of War despite his defeat.

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A Cheng: It was tied with Liangzhu, a civilization inherited from the continental shelf civilization. Thus, our study of the Liangzhu Culture and other cultures in the Taihu Lake Basin carried out by Zhejiang may cover areas greater than the Yellow and Yangtze rivers (basins). I’m afraid it should be defined as the East Asia continental shelf civilization. The sophistication of the Liangzhu civilization did not match its location on the fringes of coastal areas with limited resources. Once their geographic scope of utilizing resources was extended to the continental shelf of the East China Sea, we would not have such a sense of mismatch. I remember that in the early 1980s, novelist Wang Anyi once expressed her anxiety (about literary creation): Shanghai was a narrow territory subject, whereas Jia Pingwa and other novelists (from Northwest China), could base their literal creation on the basis of the “Yellow River”. Under this context, she felt that she could hardly outperform them. As a matter of fact, influenced by the prevailing theory of the Yellow Rivercentered civilization, many believed only one system was worthy of history. Now, we talk about civilizations in the Yangtze River basin with Liangzhu as its origin, which was superior in quality and other aspects. The burial articles unearthed from the tomb of Fu Hao9 reveal that the craftsmanship of jades in the Shang Dynasty was inferior to that of Liangzhu. Did this mean a retrograde step? The whole continental shelf extends all the way to Japan in shallow waters, with a maximum depth of no more than 150 m. I often wonder if we could carry out archaeological research along the southeast coast in the shallow waters of the continental shelf, we should be able to find more remains from the Liangzhu Culture or earlier civilizations. (Original title: A Rare Chance to Hear A Cheng Talking about Liangzhu; From Finger Guessing Game to Miao Embroidery, From Barrier Lakes to Continental Shelf, Explore the Origin of Liangzhu Culture from the Perspective of Daily Life; An Exclusive Report, Proofread by A Cheng: No One Had Ever Talked about Liangzhu in This Way, May 22, 2016)

2.7 Liu Bin: Keeping Eyes on Stars and Feet on the Ground Liu Bin couldn’t fall into sleep on the night of December 20, 2006, after a layer of rocks came to light at the Putaofan ruins of Pingyao, Yuhang. Thinking about the stones, he could hardly contain his excitement: that must be a significant discovery.

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The Tomb of Fu Hao is an archaeological site at Yinxu, the ruins of the ancient Shang Dynasty capital Yin, within the present-day Anyang in central China’s Henan Province. Discovered in 1976, it was identified as the final resting place of the queen and military general Fu Hao, who was one of many wives of King Wu Ding and died about 1,200 BC.

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He called his teacher, Mr. Zhang Zhongpei first, and later, Mr. Zhao Hui from Peking University and Mr. Meng Xianmin from the China Academy of Cultural Heritage, to report the finding as early as possible. Today, the Liangzhu palace zone unearthed from the ruins of Damojiaoshan has revealed its true state to us. Over 5,000 years ago, the king of Liangzhu stood on this hill to overlook the whole city. He probably had not imagined that the inconspicuous rocks in the soil led to the discovery of his state 5,000 years later, by an elegant man from northwest China, the director of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and his team (Fig. 2.8). Liu Bin started his archaeological career in Hangzhou over 30 years ago. Before that, he had only heard about a famous ruins site called Liangzhu, but had never expected his destiny to be tied to it in the following 30 years and beyond. Liu Bin has witnessed all major discoveries at the Liangzhu ruins since the excavation of the Fanshan royal mausoleum started in Pingyao in 1986. Since then, the sites of the Liangzhu ruins have been listed six times as the top 10 new archaeological discoveries in China. Large-scale explorations inside and outside the ancient city kicked off at the end of 2008, and by 2019, an intensive investigation covering an area of some 20 square kilometers was completed. From the nearly three square-kilometer inner city to the 6.3 square-km outer city, further to the peripheral large-scale water conservancy system, 10 years of explorations led to a series of significant discoveries and the consequent recognition of the Liangzhu kingdom and the 5,000 years history of Chinese Civilization by the international community. For archaeologists, a big step forward starts with a trowel to probably unearth a little stone. Without their perseverance and strong willpower, as solid as a rock, how could we discover Liangzhu 5,000 years ago and upend the conventional chronology of Chinese history? In June 2006, Liu Bin and his archaeological team carried out a trial excavation at the Putaofan ruins. Finding a north-south river channel dating back to the Liangzhu Culture period, Liu Bin felt impelled to move ahead. They started digging from there and encountered rocks at a depth of over three meters. Till now, it seems that a short paragraph of description is sufficient for describing the moment leading up to the discovery of the Liangzhu Ancient City. Yes, there were no jades and pottery, but only a thick layer of rocks…At the time, no one could have anticipated a possible, dramatic and exciting discovery of an ancient city, the capital of an early regional state from the Neolithic Age. Fig. 2.8 Liu Bin at the north wall ruins, Liangzhu Ancient City

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Starting with this clue, Liu Bin did not allow himself to be too caught up in perplexities and continued to move forward in surveying and research to clinch the matter. Liu Bin was impressed by a statement made by his teacher and famous archaeologist Mr. Zhang Zhongpei: dancing to the tune of materials. “What should be done next after you find the stones? How should you understand the materials and the messages they convey?”. Some people thought a pile of useless rocks rather than treasures did not deserve much attention. Liu Bin thought on the contrary. He danced to the tune of the important materials—the speculations and confusions caused by the rocks, pondering over the secrets behind every possible trace and beneath every inch of land. Liu Bin began cracking the case—the rocks were found under a three-meter thick layer of loess, which was piled up without intervals. It indicated that these rocks should have served as a base for the layer of loess, which presumably formed part of a levee or a city wall. He studied the rocks again and found they were quarried from elsewhere, possibly from nearby mountains. The loess used to pile the thick earthen layer was also from the mountains, which reminded him of the same approach adopted in modern engineering, that is, the earth is transported from mountains for building levees. All these pointed to the existence of a gigantic structure lying beneath the ground. “The so-called ‘dancing to the tune of materials’ means that when a certain material impresses you, you need to figure out what it is actually about. Led by the traces, you shall figure out the size of the city wall, and then further down to solve the puzzle about where the rocks came from. Archaeology teaches us how to track ancient remains and discover the function of each site.” During the excavation of the Liangzhu Ancient City, Liu Bin and his team focused on the layer of loess, instead of the ancient river channel stuffed with abundant pottery. In 2007, they successively found the walls in the west, north and east of the ancient city. By November, when the south wall was finally unearthed, the capital of an early state society, submerged by the dust of the 5,000-year history, came to light. “The history of 5,000 years was not a distant past. Passing through the ruins of the pubs of the Song Dynasty and the cemeteries of the Han Dynasty, we would catch the sight of the bonfire 5,000 years ago...” This romantic verse was written by Liu Bin at the Liangzhu work station in the winter of 2016, when another ancient burial plot was found at Jiangjiashan, south of the Fanshan mausoleum. Liu Bin, who likes to compose poems, wrote the verse in memory of the vanished culture, and for a dream of transcending time and space to “meet” the Liangzhu ancients. Many people say Liu Bin is driven by idealism and tenacity. But if it were not for his perseverance, this layer of rocks would still lie underground as it did in the past thousands of years ago. However, loneliness went along with him after he discovered the ruins of the Liangzhu Ancient City. The discovery was questioned and challenged by many. Liu Bin met with many red lights while drumming up support for the project. Assisted by only a few technicians,

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he made every effort to seek support from all levels for the protection of the ruins. He invited experts from different disciplines to authentication meetings to seek their endorsement. He applied for state funds to subsidize research and land requisition, and communicated with local villagers for the protection of the archaeological ruins. The responsibilities of archaeologists are not confined to excavation and research. Sometimes they act as a contractor to monitor the pace of construction, or play a role of a neighborhood committee worker to take care of trivial routines such as compensating farmers for their loss of crops on requisitioned land, employment and management of migrant workers as well as the daily life of the archaeological team itself. Liangzhu has now been approved as one of the first 12 state archaeological ruins parks in China. To facilitate its construction, Liu Bin needed to take care of minor details about whether a tree should be cut or a road should be built. Catching sight of a truck dumping garbage on the ruins, Liu Bin went straight to stop it. “Let’s take on the responsibilities,” Liu Bin often said. No wonder, his colleague Wang Ningyuan commented on him this way: You always get excited, as if you were Party A (in a contract). With a gentleman’s heart, Liu Bin keeps his stubborn determination and formidable tenacity hidden fathoms deep. At a time, a village in the north of the Mojiaoshan ruins was demolished and turned into farmland. Garbage yet to be cleared away was covered by a new blanket of soil and a water diversion stone ridge was built at the edge. These practices agitated him again. “What do you do with this rigid stone ridge? It looks awful and destroys the park. Isn’t that cheating to superimpose a new farmland on an existing one?”. “I did cause a lot of trouble for their project,” he laughed, “I must interfere in practices that would have a deleterious effect on the ruins.” “I am often asked whether being an archaeologist is a hard job. What a silly question. Is life hard? No one could justify it as clearly as the Buddha. Archaeology is a spiritual practice. In the face of history, we don’t change or invent anything. We can only see the truth of history in our firm belief,” Liu Bin said. The following is an interview with Liu Bin. Journalist Ma Li: Is there anything so special that you have treasured it up? Liu Bin: I still keep the notes and old photos taken at the college. What I cherish most, however, is a palm suitcase, made of wood inside and wrapped with palm sheets. I bought it in my hometown of Xi’an before I went to university in 1981. At that time, there was no leather trunk, so I packed the palm suitcase with quilts, clothes and books, and consigned it to Hangzhou. Though I moved house several times during my years in Hangzhou, I have kept the suitcase in use. Journalist Ma Li: What is intolerable for you at work? Or what do you care about the most?

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Liu Bin: (What I care about the most is) working carefully and methodically. Archaeological work is similar to making archives and records. For example, in field excavation, we need to keep a diary every day and sort out the data, which requires a good organization of records to avoid confusion later on. Journalist Ma Li: Besides archaeology, what are your favorite activities? Liu Bin: Drinking tea and sitting in meditation. I also like literature, books and poetry. In recent years, I have read many books about religion, tea culture and traditional Chinese medicines, as well as recent years’ best sellers on spirituality and sciences. Generally speaking, most of the books I read focus on the perception of the universe and reflection of life, basically relating to the exploratory analysis of philosophical thoughts. Journalist Ma Li: How would you summarize your comment on reform and opening up? Liu Bin: The country has been changing rapidly with each passing day, and that is my deepest impression of reform and opening up. First of all, it is a sense of time acceleration brought by the information age which has witnessed rapid changes in people and the environment. Archaeology is a process of understanding the past, from identifying artefacts to determining fundamental social development models, further exploring the process of change in vast spatial and temporal contexts by studying major historical transformations, the flow of people and the changes in the environment. Reform and opening up have brought luck to the archaeological sector. In the past, we were out of touch with the outside world. Now we can go abroad. With the Internet, the flow of information and knowledge is more frequent. We can not only understand the past, but also know the history and culture of the world by observing and experiencing the cultural differences caused by different environments in various regions. (Original title: Associated with Hangzhou for Over 30 Years, this Man from Northwest China Leads the Discovery of Liangzhu Kingdom Recognized by the International Community; Liu Bin: An Archaeologist keeping Eyes on the Stars and Feet on the Ground, Nov.6, 2018).

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2.8 He Draws Sacred Motif with Pen Thinner Than Hair In June 2018, the reopening of the Liangzhu Museum had gone viral online. With excitement, many fans of Liangzhu Culture visited the refurbished museum. Souvenirs are a nice memento after a visit to a museum. As the last stop of the tour, the willingness of visitors to buy souvenirs at the Cultural and Creative Design Space can “test” their mood after visiting the museum as well as their buying preferences. Would they be touched by the exquisite designs and aesthetic styles of the souvenirs, whose designers draw inspiration from objects popular in Liangzhu 5,000 years ago? In the Cultural and Creative Design Space jointly run by the museum and Xiaofeng Bookhouse, I found the bestsellers were notebooks, jade bird brooches and two lines of canvas bags printed with line drawings of the sacred human–animal motif. They were out of stock in only two days after the museum’s reopening and replenishments would rush in. A review of the hot-selling items reveals the powerful “souvenir influencers” would surely go to the Liangzhu sacred human–animal motif and the jade bird. Now, let’s try to look at the phenomenon from another perspective. If we simply paste the high-definition photos of the mask-like face of a monster with bulging eyes and long tusks, and the jade bird directly on the canvas bags, T-shirts and cups, no one would like the designs with such unpleasant features. By re-examining the souvenirs on sale, you may notice that the motifs with big eyes on fans, hats, mugs and postcards, and the spiral patterns on various pillows, all take the form of line drawings, the most traditional drawing technique. The drawings were neither products of computer-assisted designs nor highdefinition photos, but all the hand-creations by someone. Yes, only one person is eligible for doing that. He is Fang Xiangming, the only line drawing artist for jades unearthed from the Liangzhu ruins and the first line drawing archaeologist in Zhejiang Province. As a research fellow of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, he has excavated almost all Neolithic ruins in the province during his 30 years of archaeological career. He is not only an archaeologist, but also an archaeological artist. In 2014, I wrote an article titled “The Gorgeous Hand Drawings of Antiques by an Archaeologist”. In 2018, Fang Xiangming finally compiled his hand drawings of Liangzhu jades over 20 years into a book titled “Hand Drawings of Liangzhu Jades”. It is not a catalog of photos for the Liangzhu jades, but a real hand drawing album. What do the Liangzhu jades look like? With strokes of a pen, Fang Xiangming demonstrated the elaborate details of each plane, corner of eyes, finger and decorative pattern on ancient jades. Then, people may ask this question: high-definition photos and drawings with partial details are sufficient for the appreciation of ancient jades, and why bothering with line drawings? Fang Xiangming used the cultural creations of the Liangzhu artefacts as examples. “For creative designs, you will certainly be confused by reading archeological reports. And if you turn to photo catalogs, you may find drawings of artefacts are incomplete,

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and it is rather difficult to design souvenirs in accordance with photos. Line drawings are ready-made patterns for use on creative products,” said Fang Xiangming. But why? “The most fundamental function of archaeological line drawings is to present precise details about the contour and structure of an artefact, whereas photos can’t display its structure,” Fang Xiangming replied. Let’s turn to the line drawing below for a demonstration. This deluxe version of the king’s scepter was unearthed from the tomb M12 at the Fanshan royal mausoleum. Symbolizing military power and authority, the scepter represented the highest status of the tomb master, compared with other elites buried at the same mausoleum. It originally consisted of the yue-ceremonial axe and a handle coated with lacquer and inlaid with jade pieces. Both ends of the handle were decorated with jade ornaments. The upper end is called “mao” and the lower end, “dun”. Since the middle part of the handle was rotten, we can only see its jade ornaments displayed in the Liangzhu Museum. Still, it is very difficult to see clearly the details of their complex patterns, contours and structures, not even with pictures. Let’s take a look at the hand drawing by Fang Xiangming. Those who have trypophobia, mind your eyes! (Fig. 2.9). The spiral pattern on “mao” alone generates a tremendous visual impact with a more distinguishable composition of lines as compared with photos. “The contour and structure of the scepter have different planes and sections, and the line drawing for it is equivalent to an engineering drawing which can be used to reproduce the artefact. Like building a bridge, what you need are construction drawings rather than photos. But the line drawing is deficient in showing the material’s texture and color.” The luxurious scepter unearthed at Fanshan was made of jade (an ivory scepter was unearthed from a Liangzhu Culture cemetery in Wujiachang, Qingpu District, Shanghai). “Dun”—the lower end of the handle for the scepter was found to be inserted into a cong-cylinder, which served as its pedestal. According to the expansionary drawing of the upper-end ornament drawn by Fang Xiangming, both the top surface and body of “mao” carried spiral decorative patterns with three circular holes in the middle, though their functions remain unclear. The Fig. 2.9 Fanshan Tomb M12:103—expansionary drawing of the ornament pattern on “mao,” the upper end of the handle for the king’s scepter

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Fig. 2.10 Fanshan M12: 91 “dun” A (1)—ornament patterns on the lower end of the handle for the king’s scepter

Fig. 2.11 Fanshan M12: 103 “mao” A—ornament patterns on the upper end of the handle for the king’s scepter

decorative patterns and circular holes were integrated into a coherent whole—the holes with a spiral contour, look like rotating in the same direction, along with the indistinct zoomorphic mask patterns on both sides. We can clearly identify the eyes, nose, mouth and claws of the sacred human–animal motif, and the outline of its body mixes up perfectly with surrounding patterns (Figs. 2.10 and 2.11). It took Fang Xiangming three days to draw this group of patterns. When drawing, he also found out a tricky paradigm of decorations that could be divided into four groups of symmetric patterns in the shape of birds (Fig. 2.12). He was not sure about his finding at the time. Several years later, a crown-shaped ornament with openwork carving was unearthed from the Yujiashan ruins in Yuhang. He noticed its pattern was identical to that of “dun”, the lower-end ornament on the handle for the king’s scepter. With his hands-on drawing experience, Fang Xiangming proved that the Liangzhu ancients followed certain rules to create the exquisite patterns on the jades, instead of incising them randomly. So, how did Fang Xiangming work out his drawings? His studio is full of various drawing tools, most of which are quite common: triangle board, caliper, pencil, rubber, drawing pen and gluing tape, etc. Do you think you can make line drawings right away with these tools? Fig. 2.12 Fanshan M.12: 91—expansionary drawing of ornament patterns on “dun”, the lower end of the handle for the king’s scepter

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No, you need to meet some requirements before making marks on paper. First of all, you should place the objects correctly, otherwise, you will get imprecise drawings. Take a ding-tripod with three legs as an example. You need to give a clever show of its three-leg feature because many bronze wares have four legs. Normally, one object needs to be drawn twice. First, pencil a draft sketch on a piece of graph paper. Why graph paper? This is because grids are printed on the paper for the ease of scaling. Sometimes, drawing on ink painting paper is necessary for presenting finer details of open work patterns and engraved designs on artefacts like a jade pendant. However, when you fail to copy details accurately, you turn to another useful material for help. That’s wax ink. During your childhood, you might have played a game of putting a piece of paper on a coin and then rubbing it with a pencil to get its pattern. Equivalent to a pencil, wax ink is very convenient for making rubbings of jade wares, particularly those in small sizes. Another strangely shaped tool, which looks like a wooden comb, is called a bamboo arc, on which you can see numerous tiny bamboo sticks. This handmade tool, invented by the Japanese, can be used to gauge the three-dimensional contour of an artefact. A bamboo arc costs 4,000 yuan. It’s really quite expensive. “It is often used for profiling artefacts. For example, when drawing sections of stone yue-battle axes, big or small, you need to measure multiple points to gauge a curve, and yet, it is difficult to get an accurate profile of the artefact. However, with the bamboo arc, you shall get a quicker and more precise result. Just press it on the stone yue, you will get a precise outline (and then you copy it to paper).” After working out a sketch with a pencil, you need to ink it. Those are some tools and techniques employed in line drawing. On the question of how Fang Xiangming actually drew, he only replied: just try hard (Fig. 2.13). On Weibo (Sina’s microblog, equivalent to Twitter), his fans expressed admiration for his fine line drawings: Mr. Fang, I want to learn from you for line drawings. With a wry smile, Mr. Fang replied: The whole point of archaeological line drawing is conformity, which is totally different from the free-flowing style of aesthetics. Fig. 2.13 Fang Xiangming in drawing

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Fang Xiangming has never received systemic training in fine arts, but he likes them and draws a lot. When studying at the Sun Yat-sen University in south China’s Guangdong Province, he took a course in archaeological line drawing. Line drawing and rubbings are traditional ways of profiling the contour and structure of artefacts. However today, the line drawing course has been omitted from the archaeology curriculum by many universities. At the university, his teacher taught him to draw pottery gui- ewer with baggy legs, while his classmates only started working on bowls. He was the only student in the class allowed to draw the pottery with a complex structure. With this advanced training, he was able to draw artefacts independently upon graduation. Before each drawing, Fang Xiangming would first examine a jade for a while. For example, the three-pronged ornament was a headwear with a complex structure for Liangzhu ancients. Fang Xiangming spared no effort in drawing all the planes: the front, the side, the back, the top view and the bottom view. “It’s not a flat surface, but a convex on the front with a little curve, which needs to be reflected by the drawing. There is also a convex on the back, with holes drilled on it for assembling. Besides drawing the holes, we need also to draw a section of these holes to demonstrate how they were drilled. This is called ‘dead drawing’.” After observing the artefact, Fang Xiangming put it on the graph paper to measure its shape. For those with complex patterns, such as the king’s scepter, he needs to use rubbings instead of graph paper. “The advancement of technology enables computer-assisted recreation of artefact images, using photos taken by orthographic projection. In the past, we had to rely on a photocopier to produce enlarged rubbings which would then be covered with sulfuric acid paper for tracing and drawing. As lines forming the patterns incised on small jades are thin, rubbings will be very vague. There are at least three lines in a millimeter of incised patterns, so we must trace them in line with the real object.” Liangzhu jades, except for bi-disc, are generally very small, posing some challenges to one’s eyesight when drawing. “I had no problem with my eyesight at that time, but now I have to wear presbyopia glasses,” Fang Xiangming said with a smile. He doesn’t use a magnifying glass. “I can manage as long as my eyesight does not fail with presbyopia. Drawing patterns incised on jades is not complex, though it requires time and skills.” After so many years of drawing, Fang Xiangming found it the most difficult to draw spiral lines with a graphic fineliner pen. The Liangzhu ancients were so fond of spirals that they worked on various jades with patterns in dynamic styles. “When drawing spirals, the toughest challenge is to keep your hand steady from trembling to prevent overlaps. Many spirals, seen as a single thread, actually consist of two intertwined rotational lines. So, it is difficult to draw them,” Fang Xiangming commented. Among the drawing tools, the most useful one is a German graphic fine liner with a 0.1 mm extra-fine point. What would be if you draw with this pen? It has an unparalleled advantage over other pens to enable a line thinner than hair. For instance, the diameter of a special needle for mending silk garments is 0.35 mm, much thicker than the graphic fine liner.

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In fact, the Liangzhu artisans 5,000 years ago were more skillful and discerning than us today in terms of craftsmanship. They were able to engrave three to five lines within a width of 1 mm. In this respect, the Liangzhu ancients were distinguished in working out jades with the finest details that Fang Xiangming strives to present by hand drawings only. You may wonder why Mr. Fang spends so much time and energy on hand drawings while a computer is capable of doing the job. “In my opinion, hand measurement and drawing facilitate not only direct communication between draftsmen and objects, but also research on relevant objects. Research is absent from computer-assisted measurement and drawing which are equivalent to an automatic assembly line. I often say that if you draw more, you would commit them to memory.” In 2018, Fang Xiangming participated in an archaeological project in Copan, Honduras, hosted by the Institute of Archaeology under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in collaboration with the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. One day, he visited the Copan Museum, spending a whole afternoon sketching artefacts as photography was not allowed. “With the sketches, I memorized the tableaux of the ancients and I could put in all the details based on my memory after I drew a few more times.” In addition to produce drawings for the spiral patterns with density, Fang Xiangming drew all the eight sacred human–animal motifs carved on longitudinal grooves of the Liangzhu jade king of cong, endorsed by actress Zhou Dongyu in an episode of a TV documentary series “National Treasures” broadcast on Jan. 28, 2018. Each motif is as big as a matchbox, equivalent to a micro-sculpture. I asked Mr. Fang to put together the eight drawings. While observing them, have you met the steady gaze from the sacred human–animal motifs? (Fig. 2.14). No words could describe my feelings about the drawings of these ancient motifs. I just wanted to look at them quietly for a while. In 2001, Fang Xiangming drew the first motif on the king of cong.

Fig. 2.14 Eight sacred human-animal motifs carved on the longitudinal grooves of the king of cong, codenamed No. 98, unearthed from tomb M12 at Fanshan ruins

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Cao Jinyan was then the director of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. He asked Liu Bin, who was in charge of the First Department of Archaeology, not to arrange any other work for Fang Xiangming, but to allow him to work with archaeologist Wang Mingda to sort out and draw the artefacts unearthed from the Fanshan royal mausoleum. At that time, the Fanshan jades were kept in the storeroom of the Zhejiang Provincial Museum at Gudang, a rather inconvenient place to carry on the work. Fang Xiangming finally chose to be incommunicado at the Wujiabu work station, drawing the artefacts one batch after another. His tutor Wang Mingda came several times a week to join in sorting out the artefacts. They sometimes chilled out to drink and played cards together. Interestingly, different from Fang’s past experience of drawing the jades from single tombs at the Yaoshan ruins, the jades from the Fanshan ruins were delivered to him in batches by product category. “One truckload of jade bi-discs and another truckload of jade cong-cylinders were delivered to me. The most spectacular of all was the king of cong. I was very nervous after it reached my studio specially equipped with air conditioners.” Fang Xiangming didn’t wear gloves when he drew ordinary jades. “You can’t draw with gloves. And with air conditioning, no traces of hand touch would be left on jades.” But for drawing the king of cong, Fang Xiangming wore gloves cautiously to avoid any erosive effect. Mr. Wang Mingda showed up every day to “supervise” his drawing. Many other colleagues also came to see this spectacular artefact (Fig. 2.15). Fang Xiangming was given only a short time for drawing the king of cong, much to his regret when looking back on it. “I drew the main contour, but did not copy all the details. In the end, I was a bit tired.” But in the opinions of many, the eight motifs drawn by Fang Xiangming carry the same delicate details as the original. Hence, they can be used as models for the creative designs of Liangzhu souvenirs. In the past decades, Fang Xiangming has drawn artefacts in surprisingly large numbers. He was responsible for drawing the entire yields of over 1,800 pieces (sets) of jades from the Fanshan and Yaoshan ruins. A string of beads, the “necklaces” of the Liangzhu ancients, unearthed at the Yaoshan ruins, consisted of over 200 beads. Although a bead was a doddle to depict, he had to measure each of them he drew. “Do you know how I felt when drawing the first bead? I love sports (a good athlete and long-distance runner), but I had to calm myself down. A lot more would come Fig. 2.15 Sacred human–animal motif carved on the lower end of the longitudinal grooves A-B on the king of cong, codenamed No. 98, unearthed from tomb M12 at Fanshan ruins

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in and I shall draw them one by one. For me, it was a common experience,” Fang Xiangming said with a smile. “I hardly wrote about Liangzhu in a year after sorting out the Fanshan jades. Don’t mention the jades with me, or I will fall out with you,” he joked with his friends and colleagues. If calculated by pieces, he drew over 6,000 jades unearthed from the Fanshan and Yaoshan ruins. And in the past 20 years, he had drawn over tens of thousands of artefacts unearthed from Fanshan, Yaoshan, Miaoqian, Pishan and Xiaodouli, as well as several other sites excavated by the Hangzhou Municipal Institute of Archaeology, including the Kangling mausoleum from the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (907–979) and the official kiln of the Southern Song Dynasty at Laohudong. “I draw faster than an average person. I can draw 30 pieces a day for pottery that are complete but not so complex in patterns or forms. For ordinary specimens and broken pieces of an object’s mouth which require size measurement, I can draw more than 70 pieces a day.” This speed was committed under the circumstances that he kept sitting for drawing all day long and even ran to the toilet when needed. Archaeology believes in seeing people through things. Through the hand drawings by Fang Xiangming, we can see an archaeologist’s unique character of paying attention to details, handling artefacts with patience and endurance of loneliness. It seemed masochistic, somehow. Has Fang Xiangming gained happiness from doing so? “It is a pleasure to draw artefacts with beautiful lines,” he replied. For Fang Xiangming, it is a delight to draw the jade plaque, about the size of a palm of the human hand. It could be sewn on clothes, through the nostril-like holes on its back, looking like a brooch of the Liangzhu ancients. “The plaque had a unique contour resembling a swooping bird and the wide mouth with tusks was carved at the bottom edge of the curved artefact. The image and the contour of the artefact were distinguished with unique fine lines.” Fang Xiangming has gained greater happiness from comprehending the information revealed by the drawings. “The connotations of many images cannot be deciphered all at once, but you can get them through drawing.” There is also a “sequel” to the story of Fang Xiangming and his hand drawings of the eight sacred human–animal motifs on the king of cong. When drawing, he found that one motif had an extra finger. Represented by the Fanshan and Yaoshan ruins, the fundamental composition and elements of the jade carvings remained unchanged. The basic versions of the motifs had five fingers. This unusual change in style was uncovered by Fang Xiangming 5,000 years later. “The six fingers might be an ‘innovation’ by a Liangzhu craftsman who was tired of the routine.” That was by no means the end of the matter for Fang Xiangming. Later, he found another plane carved with a six-finger motif. “If it appeared on only one plane, we tend to view it as a low profile trick by a craftsman on a whim. But the six-finger motifs appearing on two planes made it an issue for serious consideration.”

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As he continued to draw, he found something unusual once again. The other motif had a snout in cluttered lines. “One motif had a finely chiseled snout whereas the other had a distorted flat snout. The non-standard snout shape revealed that the craftsman even didn’t grasp the fundamental rules of drawing.” All these unconventional signs and clues immediately reminded Fang Xiangming of issues, which are still controversial in the study of the Liangzhu Culture: Was a jade object like a cong-cylinder carved by one artisan or more? Was the master of the tomb also a jade maker? Had many people been involved in preparing the funeral for the king? Why were they invited to participate? “I think many artisans were involved in the working of this cong. It was natural to spot differences among 10 motifs drawn by one artisan, but the drawing of an extra finger makes it an issue (for consideration).” These issues would come to your mind one after another, only when you are in close contact with artefacts through hand drawing, “which is very helpful for us to analyze afresh the social organization and form of Liangzhu. Generally speaking, its social hierarchy consisted of the king, the elites and the commoners. In my opinion, the core complexity of analyzing the Liangzhu society came from verifying the identity of the ancients, though social ranking was one aspect of the issue. These symbolic jades like a cong-cylinder, a comb-head ornament and a three-pronged ornament, are far from enough for authenticating the identity of their masters. We still have no idea about the carriers for the small, bullet-like ornaments on the handles of the scepters. I think these small details are likely leading us to a breakthrough in identifying the tombs’ masters. There is still a lot to do and to get from studying the jades.” (Original title: “An Archaeologist and an Artist, He has Drawn Liangzhu Jades for Over 20 Years; With the Release of a New Book, He Met with Qianjiang Evening News Readers to Share the Beauty of Liangzhu Jades; He Drew the Motifs on the King of Cong with a Pen Thinner than Hair, Jun. 28, 2018).

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3.1 Liangzhu Discoveries Attest to 5,000-Year Chinese Civilization The year 2016 marked the 80th anniversary of the first excavation of the Liangzhu Ruins and also the 10th anniversary of the discovery of the Liangzhu Ancient City. A buzzword on social media, Liangzhu is becoming one of the top trending topics. Several news events related to Liangzhu occurred in a row in November. On November 25, the “Symposium on the 80th Anniversary of the First Excavation of the Liangzhu Ruins” opened in Hangzhou. The event was organized by the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, the Liangzhu Museum and the Yuhang Museum with the sponsorship of the Zhejiang Provincial Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Yuhang District government and the Hangzhou Liangzhu Archaeological Site Administrative District Management Committee. Nearly 150 archaeologists from archaeological institutions, museums and universities arrived in Hangzhou to attend the event. The archeological gurus included Yan Wenming, an 84-year-old senior professor from Peking University, Mou Yongkang, an 83-year-old Liangzhu archaeological pioneer and Wang Mingda, a 73-year-old archaeologist once interviewed by the “Cultural Pulse” column of Qianjiang Evening News. Yan Wenming, who delivered the final speech at the symposium, wrote an inscription for Liangzhu: “5,000 Years of Chinese Civilization—the Great Liangzhu”. Mr. Yan has focused on Liangzhu with a great passion: “Liangzhu remains as an exceptionally appealing subject for me. It is second only to the Yangshao (ruins) that have merited the most papers and articles.” On November 22, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage published on its official website the “Notice on Printing and Distributing the 13th Five-Year Plan for the Protection of Large Ruins”. Liangzhu was one of the five properties approved for inclusion on the list.

© Zhejiang University Press 2022 L. Ma, Liangzhu in the Eyes of an Archaeological Journalist, Liangzhu Civilization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-3792-7_3

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In early November, the Liangzhu Culture was written into the 2016 edition of the textbook Chinese History (7th grade, volume I). It was included in the Knowledge Development Column attached to Lesson 2—“Primitive Farming Life” of Unit 1—“Prehistoric Era: Human Activities in China”. Since 2017, this textbook has been introduced uniformly throughout the country. About 82% of junior high school students (about 14 million per year) read this textbook and learn about “the Liangzhu Culture”. Liangzhu has brought us amazing discoveries in the past 80 years. Between Dec. 1–10, Dec. 26–30, 1936 and Mar. 8–20, 1937, 24-year-old Shi Xingeng, on behalf of the West Lake Museum, carried out three-time trial excavations at six sites, including Qipanfen, Hengweili, Maoanqian, Gujingfen, the east foot of Xunshan Mountain and Zhongjiacun village at Changmingqiao. The excavations yielded numerous black pottery and stone artefacts. He also found over ten ruin sites scattered around Liangzhu. In 1938, Shi Xingeng stated in his archaeological report titled “Liangzhu”: We acquired significant material evidence for the ancient culture which once prospered but eventually sank into oblivion in Zhejiang. From the 300,000-square-meter palace zone to the 3 million-square-meter inner city, from the eight million-square-meter outer city to the 100 square-kilometer peripheral water conservancy system, the archaeological discoveries in and around the Liangzhu Ancient City over the past decade have upended the conventional cognition of the Liangzhu Culture by the academic community and attested to the 5,000-year history of the Chinese Civilization, step by step. In April 2016, the University of London held a conference on water management and world civilizations. The Liangzhu water conservancy system drew the attention of participants. Colin Renfrew, an archaeologist at Cambridge University, wrote an article titled “The Far Underestimated Neolithic Age of China”. Due to a series of important discoveries concerning the Liangzhu ruins in recent years, the world archaeological community began re-examining the history of China before the Shang Dynasty. As the number of discoveries increases, there come the changes in the people’s perception of the Liangzhu Culture. At the symposium held on November 25, several archaeologists raised a question of common interest: How can we introduce Liangzhu to young people after 80 years of research? In a PPT presentation, Deng Shu-ping, a research fellow from the Palace Museum in Taipei, showed a picture of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games medals inlaid with jade bi-discs. “Today, the circular bi-disc has still been viewed by the world community as a symbol of the Chinese culture.” Wang Renxiang, a research fellow at the Institute of Archaeology under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, interpreted the spiral patterns on Liangzhu pottery. He encouraged the audience to “think out of the box,” such as comparing the patterns on the Phoenix Satellite TV logo with the Liangzhu spiral patterns. Finally, he posted his official account on the Weixing WeChat, inviting subscribers to browse through a multitude of beautiful patterns on the Liangzhu pottery. His speech was greeted by a burst of applause from the audience.

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By coincidence, I went through Liangzhu—a Preliminary Report on Black Pottery Culture Ruins in the Second District of Hangxian County, written by archaeologist Shi Xingeng 80 years ago. In the report, Shi Xingeng said: “To understand clearly the origin, diffusion and evolution of the Chinese prehistoric culture, it would not be much more fulfilling should we confine our study to a rigid and narrow sphere. We need to expand the areas of field archaeology to open up vistas for this untapped academic field and establish a correct view of history based on the research of ruins in different regions, remains of different cultures and their intrinsic linkages. This should be the major mission of archaeology.” The forward-looking statement by Shi Xingeng in some ways echoed Wang Renxiang’s appeal for expanding inter-disciplinary research. No wonder, a book titled “An Overview of the Academic Achievements of China’s Famous Scientists in the 20th Century—Archaeology Volume (Volume I),” published in 2015, spoke highly of Shi Xingeng’s report: “It is a canonical report on early archaeological excavations to uncover the mystery of ancient cultures in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang region.” If we assume Shi Xingeng discovered the Liangzhu ruins 80 years ago by coincidence, then the discovery and authentication of the Liangzhu as an early state civilization and an origin of the Chinese Civilization has been an inevitable outcome of Chinese scholars going out of their “narrow circle” with generations of efforts to advance the research of the Liangzhu history and development of Chinese archaeology in the past 80 years. The significance of the Liangzhu state civilization is on a par with the Egyptian civilization. (Original title: Discovery of One or Two Black Pottery Shards 80 Years ago Opened Historical Chapter of Ancient Civilization; Archaeological Achievements in 80 years Attest to 5,000 Years of Chinese Civilization, Nov. 27, 2016).

3.2 No Imitations Could Excel Over the Motifs on Jade Cong When you pass by the Zhejiang Provincial Museum in Hangzhou City, you will find an ornamental statue standing by the gate that resembles the mask-like face of the sacred human–animal motif incised in the Liangzhu jade cong-cylinder (Fig. 3.1). This king of cong, buried underground for over 5,000 years, has established its links with the modern world in this unique fashion. Some might think the Liangzhu Culture, a prehistoric civilization in Neolithic China, has little to do with our life. But in fact, the jade cong and the motif designed by the Liangzhu ancients, the earliest original designers in China, remain active in our life in the form of creative design products. In Hangzhou, many flower beds on the roadside and bridge pillars are shaped in the form of cong-cylinder; the sacred human–animal motifs decorate the tourist boats docking at the Wulin wharf on the Grand Canal.

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Fig. 3.1 Standard version of the sacred human–animal motif on the Liangzhu jade cong

With the official nomination of the “Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City” as the 2019 World Cultural Heritage Declaration Project, the Liangzhu Culture is bound to be much better known and disseminated among the public.

3.2.1 The Logo of Liangzhu Ancients—Originality in Big Eyes For the first time in the excavations of the Liangzhu ruins, archaeologists unearthed intact sacred human-animal motifs incised on jade carvings, including congcylinders, cylindrical objects and huang-pendants at the Fanshan cemetery for the elites. On the motif, a grimacing figure wearing an elaborate feathered headdress rides on the back of a frightening monster—a sharp-clawed beast with bulging eyes and protruding tusks. The human’s hands bend inward, in a gesture to seemingly press the head of the crouching beast. This unique “logo” of the Liangzhu ancients appeared on many high-grade jades, but none was as sophisticated as the eight motifs carved on the king of cong, each with a size of 3 cm × 4 cm, almost as big as a matchbox. The arms of the mysterious character and the legs of the beast were incised with the finest lines that are almost unrecognizable by naked vision—three to five lines within a width of 1 mm only. How to interpret these motifs? Clever as they were, the Liangzhu people carved the motifs with bas-relief, emphasizing two key elements in the lower and upper parts: a pair of eyes of the beast composed of circular and arc triangle patterns, and a “hat”—the large, elaborate feathered headdress. It might be the source of inspiration for designing the feathered hat worn by Chinese actress Zhou Dongyu, who played the role of a high priest holding the Liangzhu theocracy in one episode of the documentary series titled “National Treasures” shown on Jan. 28, 2018.

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According to Fang Xiangming, the motif can be interpreted as a handsome warlord with a feathered headdress who was the anthropomorphosis of the solar deity. The rich details concerning the striking figure include the inverted trapezoidal contour of his face, a garlic-shaped nose and nostrils, teeth, etc.; the sacred beast has big eyes with bunches of lines inside, small sharp beaks on the eyes’ upper corners, crescent-shaped ears, a prominent nose, a wide mouth with tusks and armband-like protrusions on knees. Observing the motif carefully with a magnifying glass, you may notice the tricks in the big eyes of the beast. A double-layer circle with helix angles on both sides lies in the middle of the eyes, which looks like a small eye within a big bulging eye. Should it be applied to the decorative patterns for pillows and mobile phone cases, it could be simplified as a combination of circular and arc triangle patterns. Why did the Liangzhu ancients merit the title of the earliest original designers? They really knew well how to integrate the designs with ritual objects and daily necessities. No doubt, the sacred human–animal motif was their favorite design, and its elements were most frequently applied to decorations. For instance, the lacquer cup inlaid with jades, unearthed from the Fanshan royal mausoleum, also carried this sacred motif. “I later recognized that the patterns (on the cup) depicted the sacred beasts, with their big eyes as the theme of carving (bas- relief). This was the cultural creation of the time. The cup was not simply printed with a pattern, but carried a design featuring circles and spiral-shaped lacquer coating surrounding the ‘beads’. Looking carefully, you can recognize the images of the sacred human–animal motif. As a ritual object, designers of this cup had maximized the utilization of creativity to its extremes,” Fang Xiangming said, pointing to a restoration sketch of the cup (Fig. 3.2). The elements of the motif could also be combined with various objects in a multitude of ways and such originality was the Langzhu people’s forte. For example, the combinations of the motif and cong-cylinder: a vertical alignment of two continuous motifs on the longitudinal grooves of the king of cong; a horizontal display of two continuous simplified motifs on the planes of the cong; and some motifs arranged in a way to create a spiral rotational effect. Simplified motifs arranged in a tetrad were also carved on the four corners of the cong, supplemented with decorative bird patterns.

Fig. 3.2 Lacquer cup with inlaid jades and restoration drawing of the cup by Fang Xiangming

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Fanshan M12: 1 (upper left, upper right) Lacquer cup with inlaid jades after extraction. Fanshan M12: 1 (bottom left) Lacquer cup with inlaid jades before extraction. Fanshan M12: 1 (bottom right) Restoration drawing of lacquer cup with inlaid jades.

3.2.2 “Cultural Creations” of Liangzhu Imitated by Later Generations As a matter of fact, artisans in the later Chinese dynasties tended to imitate the design styles of Liangzhu artefacts rather than create new products by racking their brains. For example, Song Dynasty artisans applied the Liangzhu elements to producing vases in the likeness of cong. Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty, a great fan of the Liangzhu cong-cylinder and the sacred human–animal motif, possessed a large collection of Liangzhu jades. He personally authenticated most pieces for the palace treasury and even wrote inscriptions for many of them. Knowing little about the patterns and functions of the Liangzhu jades, the emperors and craftsmen subverted the utility of the Liangzhu Culture creations in a radical and sometimes weird manner. For instance, they attached an inner copper liner and a wooden pedestal to the cong, placing it upside down and using it as a flower vase. The Palace Museum in Taipei has many pieces of such imperial collections from the Qing Dynasty. It was quite possible that large numbers of Liangzhu jades were unearthed during the Qing Dynasty. While some craftsmen acquired considerable knowledge about decorative patterns on the jades, they started to “paint the lily.” The Beijing Palace Museum collected a squat column of a two-section jade cong from the Qing court, with a reversed inscription of Emperor Qianlong, which reads “Though it is said to be an ornament on a shoulder-carrying piece of a sedan chair…” It was no doubt that the cong was placed upside down and its sacred human–animal motif was obviously a supplementary carving from a later period. This indicated that in the Ming and Qing dynasties, a number of jade craftsmen who had some knowledge about the Liangzhu jades and their patterns started their imitations accordingly. According to Fang Xiangming, after the Liangzhu Culture, many areas throughout the Chinese history imitated Liangzhu artefacts for creations. The jade cong unearthed from the Shixia ruins in south China’s Guangdong Province was modeled mostly on its Liangzhu prototype. With a number of flaws in the design, the overall effect was nevertheless acceptable. The jade cong unearthed from the Guangfulin ruins in the Songjiang District, Shanghai, however, was a real failure. Carved with unevenly spaced horizontal lines and decorative patterns conveying no specific messages, the artefact was far inferior to its Liangzhu counterpart in both form and visual effect. The jade cong unearthed from the Dantu ruins in east China’s Shandong Province, had a motif with its eyes carved directly on a horizontal line, a sheer distortion of the originality of the Liangzhu cong-cylinder.

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Of course, there were real cultural creations. Decorative armlets unearthed from the Hutai ruins in Shandong Province had a circular hollow section in the center and a square outer contour with a groove. They pretty much looked like a jade cong viewed from the top. If cut into thin pieces, they could be worn on the upper arms. The excavation of the Jin State Marquis cemetery from the Western Zhou Dynasty in north China’s Shanxi Province yielded a cong-style pedestal with its inner hollow column attached with a bottom base. An imperial collection of the Qing Dynasty, the celadon-glazed cong-style vase produced by the Longquan kiln of the Song Dynasty was designed for floral arrangements.

3.2.3 Ways of Restoring the Past: Innovation and Invention “I am very keen on a jar unearthed from Liangzhu. It would be a choice should it be made into a vessel for drinking tea,” said Hang Kan, former dean of the School of Archaeology and Museology at Peking University. In 2015, he set up the platform of “wellspringchn.com” at Peking University for exchanging ideas on integrating elements from ancient cultures into modern designs. In recent years, he has been pondering over how to infuse archaeological knowledge and experience into daily life and to well integrate classical aesthetics with the needs of modern society. Scholar Li Ling said in his book “Revitalizing the Past and Casting the Present: Archaeological Discoveries and the Art of Restoring the Past”: Many innovations are still inseparable from tradition (at least not completely). Restoring the past is about both innovation and invention. In fact, it is “an invention of tradition”. “Archaeology is more than a study of ancient societies, as did the Renaissance to rediscover the humanistic spirit of ancient Greece and Rome and usher in the dawn of modern times. Nowadays, (cultural) heritages have enjoyed greater protection worldwide,” said Hang Kan. Britain has a textbook on cultural heritage—Heritage: Critical Approaches. Its author Rodney Harrison believes that the most important part of the heritage is not about the past, but about our relationship with the present and future. Heritage is not merely a passive preservation of antiquities, but is a process co-produced through an active interrelation between objects, places and practices. That was true with the evolution of primitive arts in Africa and those elsewhere including the Liangzhu Culture. “Science and technology are advancing, and this may not be the case with arts. Primitive arts were often much closer to the origin of life. For example, the Liangzhu sacred motif carried a distinctive feature with ‘big eyes,’ and so was the Mesopotamian civilization. Different civilizations had ‘big eyes’ with varied forms. Despite those differences, ‘big eyes’ formed a motif of visual culture shared by various civilizations in different parts of the world,” said Hang Kan. “With the same impulse of arts, we need a representational way to express the essence of life. In this respect, I feel that the primitive art from the Liangzhu Culture carried its own lifeblood, as it was a vital expression of instinct.”

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(Original title: The 5,000-Year-Old Sacred Motif on Liangzhu Jade Cong— Imitated but Never Excelled; Creative Designs of Liangzhu Ancients—Source of Inspiration for Modern People. Jan. 28, 2018).

3.3 Colin Renfrew Confident in Liangzhu Applying for World Heritage Status Liu He, director of the Zhejiang Provincial Administration of Cultural Heritage and a number of archaeologists and researchers from Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, and the Shanghai Municipality came to Liangzhu, Yuhang on the afternoon of Mar. 21, 2017. They were here for only one purpose—to attend an over three-hour lecture to be given by a world-renowned archaeologist. The 80-year-old speaker was Lord Colin Renfrew, a professor of archaeology at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of the British Academy, who also won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Second Shanghai Archaeology Forum. He wrote the book “Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice,” in collaboration with British scholar Paul Bahn. It has been republished seven times since its debut in 1991 and hitherto become one of the best-selling textbooks in archaeology, which details the practical and theoretical ways to explore the human past. Colin Renfrew has been fascinated by Liangzhu, and this was his second visit to the ancient city. On the morning of the day, he observed the newly discovered Laohuling dam and the Zhongjiagang excavation site, where human bones were unearthed. In the afternoon, he delivered a lecture entitled “The Liangzhu Ancient City Site in the World Context of Early Complex Societies”. What this rigorous scholar said during his speech gave encouragement to the audience, “I am very confident that the application of the Liangzhu ruins for an inclusion on the UNESCO heritage list will be a success.” (Fig. 3.3). Earlier on March 10, the Yuhang District government convened a meeting to mobilize efforts on launching the application of the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City for an inscription as a World Heritage Site and building a state park for the Liangzhu Culture. The meeting decided to work out action plans for the two projects. Fig. 3.3 Lord Colin Renfrew delivered a report on archaeology after visiting the Liangzhu ruins on Mar. 21, 2017

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From then on, the implementation of the application project had formally entered its final stage. The discovery of the Liangzhu ruins 80 years ago and the Liangzhu Ancient City 10 years ago had enabled archaeologists to figure out gradually a gigantic state polity in and around the area—the distribution of a palace zone, walls for an inner city and an outer city, a royal mausoleum, separate burial plots for the elites and commoners, observatories and jade workshops. The increasingly clear identification of these functional zones, step by step, presents profound and compelling evidence that the Chinese Civilization started 5,000 years ago, 1,000 years earlier than the widely recognized civilization of the Shang Dynasty around 1,600 BC. Then what was the status of the Liangzhu Culture in the world of ancient civilizations? Renfrew used the word “complex” taken from his speech title to address this question. Taking account of the development history of the world’s civilizations, Renfrew compared the Liangzhu Ancient City with other early state ruins and early ritual centers, including the Pyramids of ancient Egypt, Uruk of Sumerian civilization, Moen jo-Daro of Harappa civilization, Teotihuacan in Mexico, Mayan city states, Gobekli Stones in Turkey, Stonehenge in southern England, Caral of Peru and the Cross of ancient Greece. “Many ancient civilizations had established early ritual centers, and they evolved into early states later. As for Liangzhu, we have found that its evolution path did not match this model. I think Liangzhu may inspire archaeologists to generate new ideas about civilizations, about what a complex society might have been,” said Renfrew. Compared with civilizations of ancient Egypt and Maya, the Liangzhu Culture displayed some unique features. Renfrew gave several examples to explain them. In the Liangzhu Ancient City, inbound and outbound traffic for goods and passengers was materialized via water-borne transportation. “Such signs of civilization were rarely seen in the Mesopotamian civilization. It would be problematic if we use the terms in anthropology to depict Liangzhu, and we would be unable to find appropriate terms to classify the social hierarchy in Liangzhu. If we want to understand the status of Liangzhu in the world civilization history, we may use some new terms to discuss the systems and social hierarchy governing the Liangzhu society.” The Yuhang District government also briefed Renfrew on the Conservation Master Plan for the Liangzhu Archaeological Ruins. Renfrew commented: “With this highlevel preservation plan, construction activities around the property area are controlled effectively to protect the environment around the ruins. The Liangzhu ruins are a benchmark for the protection of major ancient ruins in China.” Renfrew expressed his confidence in Liangzhu’s application for inclusion on the World Heritage List. “The series of discoveries concerning Liangzhu are particularly important. First of all, it is important for studying the overall structure of the city walls, because they provide one of the most important proofs for confirming Liangzhu was a city. The excavation of residential areas and water channels, the study of the environment, and the excavation of animal and plant specimens would all reveal vital information. In

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addition, we have studied the water conservancy system with dating tests and this is very important, because it has expanded our areas of research,” said Renfrew. He praised the current progress in preserving the Liangzhu ruins several times: “We have put all the Liangzhu ruins sites under protection. This is very important, and it will also be conducive to future work. And, we have a very modern museum- the Liangzhu Museum. I believe it is one of the best ruins site museums in the world.” (Original Title: World-Renowned Archaeologist Visits Liangzhu Ancient City, and Delivers a Speech Expressing Confidence in Liangzhu’s Success in Seeking Inclusion on World Heritage List, Mar. 22, 2017).

3.4 Foreign Archaeologists Voice Support for Liangzhu “Where was the coast line 5,100 years ago?” “What was the estimated population size in the Liangzhu Ancient City?” “What was the purpose of storing so much water?” A series of incisive questions were raised and discussed at an international meeting of archaeological heavyweights held near the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City. Living in a regional state over 5,000 years ago, the Liangzhu ancients and their king could never have imagined that their culture and life have come under the international spotlight today. On Dec. 13, 2017, nearly 30 world-renowned archaeologists from China, Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Australia, Nigeria, Mexico, Israel and other countries gathered at Liangzhu to attend the international symposium on the water management system of the Liangzhu Ancient City, a sub-event under the Third Shanghai Archaeology Forum. Seven of the high-profile participants were members of science academies in relevant countries. A press conference was held concurrently to mark the 10th anniversary of discovering the Liangzhu Ancient City. These archaeological gurus arrived in Liangzhu after attending the Shanghai forum with the theme of “Water and Ancient Civilizations”. Notably, the Liangzhu ancient water conservancy system- the world’s earliest hydraulic dams built to hold back flooding water—caught the wide attention of the forum participants. It was for this reason that these archaeologists headed to Liangzhu to conduct a field study of the Liangzhu Ancient City and the dams built around it. “I came to Liangzhu in 2013. By that time, I did not realize the huge size of the ruins here. I am shocked (by what I have seen) this time,” said Professor Timothy R. Pauketat from the U.S. University of Illinois. “The Liangzhu civilization was so huge in size and its building of a water conservancy system was at such a rapid speed that they outstripped the Mayan civilization,” commented Professor Lisa J. Lucero from the same university. Such voices in support of Liangzhu have grown louder internationally. They prove that the important status of the Liangzhu ruins in the evolution of the Chinese Civilization and the world civilizations as a whole has been recognized by the international

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archaeological community. The Liangzhu ruins form a holy land that attests to the over 5,000 years of the Chinese Civilization.

3.4.1 World Acknowledgment of Liangzhu as a Symbol of 5,000-Year History of Chinese Civilization At the First Shanghai Archaeology Forum in 2013, the Liangzhu Ancient City was selected as one of the top 10 field archaeology discoveries. The list records worldclass archaeological findings. The Liangzhu Ancient City was highlighted again by the world-renowned archaeologist Colin Renfrew at the forum held in December 2017. Renfrew delivered a report titled “A Story of Two Symbols: Different Approaches to Studying Prehistoric Complex Societies” at the Shanghai Museum. He pointed out the significance of the Liangzhu Culture from a worldly perspective, comparing it with the Cycladic Culture from Greece. This excited a sense of pride among the experts from the Liangzhu Ancient City archeological team. Renfrew lauded the archaeological team led by director Liu Bin of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, saying their contributions put the Liangzhu civilization on a par with those of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia on the same timeline. Renfrew visited Liangzhu in the summer of 2017. Delivering a report, he raised the idea of “chiefdom”, pondering over whether Liangzhu was then ruled by a chief. Speaking at the December forum, he suggested Liangzhu be called an early state society, as it was more complex than the chiefdom of the Cycladic Culture. Renfrew pointed out the historic significance of discovering the Liangzhu ruins: it has proved that Liangzhu entered the stage of an early state civilization over 5,000 years ago. Renfrew indicated more state polities like Liangzhu might have existed in China in the contemporaneous period, but he cast no doubt that Liangzhu was the most brilliant and outstanding example, as it had demonstrated that the Chinese Civilization originated not only from the Yellow River Basin, but also the Yangtze River Basin. “The Chinese archaeologists have helped us know a prehistoric China. The jade cong with a sacred motif could be viewed as a direct symbol of the Liangzhu state,” said Renfrew. Generally speaking, it signifies the national emblem today. This, of course, was an exciting inference. In recent years, the Chinese archaeological community has corroborated that the Liangzhu ruins, with the ancient city site as its core, have testified to the 5,000-yearlong Chinese Civilization. And for the first time at the high-profile Shanghai Archaeology Forum, international archaeological gurus also made it clear that the Liangzhu ruins marked the inception of more than 5,000 years of Chinese Civilization. This shows the international mainstream archaeological community, in view of the discovery of the Liangzhu ruins, has begun accepting this new chronology of Chinese history, and that China has a civilization lasting over 5,000 years.

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3.4.2 Research of Liangzhu Rewrites the World History During the sub-event on Liangzhu, held during the Shanghai Archaeology Forum, “rewriting the history” was the most frequent term cited by experts. “I think the archaeological research of Liangzhu has not just changed the history of China, but also the world’s history. Large numbers of findings in architectural structures found here have begun shaping many ideas in archaeology,” said Professor Vernon Scarborough from the U.S. University of Cincinnati, who spoke highly of Liangzhu’s archaeological discoveries. Scarborough worked mainly in South Asia, the Central United States and Africa. Through his visit to Liangzhu, he came to realize that their past work tended to ignore water-abundant areas like Liangzhu, and things were changing. “Liangzhu came first with large-scale collective undertakings and landscape engineering projects (the water conservancy system), and later, state control (the kingship) emerged. Many other civilizations evolved in the opposite direction. It was quite interesting to know how the people were organized and assigned for the construction of these projects. This has further corroborated the idea that some worldviews or rituals had played an important part in allocating the resources, before the kingship emerged,” Scarborough commented. He indicated that as we live in a world full of complexities and uncertainties, we could learn a lot from doing archaeological research on the Liangzhu Ancient City. It would be very rewarding to ascertain how the Liangzhu ancients coped with the challenges and overcame the uncertainties. Professor Miriam Stark from the University of Hawaii at Manoa praised the beauty of Liangzhu jade artefacts and spoke highly of their status in the history of ancient arts. “The art of Liangzhu is world-class and is superior to, if not equivalent to, any Neolithic civilization. The jade artefacts look very beautiful, and the skills for making these functional artefacts were also very mature.” The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)1 also published a paper titled “Earliest hydraulic enterprise in China, 5100 years ago”, focusing on the Liangzhu water conservancy system. This was another proof that the Liangzhu hydraulic system had gained international recognition. Today, the excavation continues on the Liangzhu Ancient City and its flood prevention dams. On the future research direction for Liangzhu, Professor Lisa Lucero from the University of Illinois suggested more research could be done on the dams system. “We can study how it worked, why it was built and why the area attracted such a big population so quickly.”

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PNAS is published by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. It is one of the four most-cited multidisciplinary scientific journals in the world, including Cell, Nature, Science, PNAS.

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3.4.3 Liangzhu Ruins Are of World-Class Significance, Not Just for China Among the nearly 30 archaeological heavyweights attending the 2017 Shanghai Archaeology Forum, Professor Jessica Rawson from the University of Oxford and a fellow of the British Academy of Sciences was also an old friend of Liangzhu. She visited the ruins several times. I interviewed her on the sidelines of the forum. Journalist Ma Li: What was your impression on the Liangzhu ruins? Jessica Rawson: What impressed me the most was its large scale, and the complexity of its water management with a large number of dams connected with each other. It was a huge undertaking, implying a big population size of the time. Journalist Ma Li: What unique features did the Liangzhu ruins possess? Jessica Rawson: First of all, the Liangzhu civilization was based on rice cultivation, a clear characteristic of agriculture. Before discussing the ancient city and the palace zone, we should understand how large the area in Liangzhu was utilized in the water conservancy system. An analysis of the system alone showed it covered a very large area, for either irrigation or protection of the ancient city. Designing, planning and management had played a remarkable role. What mattered the most was that someone (the king) must have been the organizer of all these. He was in full control of this large society. One thing uncertain was what sustained the growth of the Liangzhu civilization. I think there could be two important factors: first, a very good food system, including fisheries; secondly, social or belief systems. Probably, jade was associated with such a belief system. Journalist Ma Li: What do you suggest about the future research direction for the Liangzhu ruins? Jessica Rawson: Archaeologists from Liangzhu may continue their research here for 20 years or more. In a very short timeframe, they have achieved very impressive results. We still need to collect more social science data and combine them with the existing archaeological data. It is very important to acquire detailed information, such as the number and location of settlements, the location, number and size of waterways, and the rise and fall in sea level. For example, the food residue on pottery can let us know the dietary structure of ancients and the differences between high elites and low elites.

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We need to recognize that the ruins are not only important to China, but also bear a world-class significance. Foreigners tend to underestimate the importance of the sites simply due to their massive scale. Just like a forest so vast that you have no idea when you are actually in it. I realize the exquisite beauty of the Liangzhu jades, only when I hold them. These fine details were beyond the imagination of those who have never been to China and seen them. (Original title: Nearly 30 Intl. Heavyweight Archaeologists Reach Concensus: Liangzhu Ruins Attest to over 5,000-Year History of Chinese Civilization; International Voices Supporting Liangzhu Grow Louder, Dec. 14, 2017).

3.5 Ancient City Nominated for World Heritage Status Jan. 26, 2018, marked a critical day for the Archeological Ruins of Liangzhu City applying for World Cultural Heritage status. On the day, approved by the State Council, the Secretariat of the National Commission for UNESCO of China sent a letter to the UNESCO World Heritage Center, officially recommending the “Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City” as the 2019 World Cultural Heritage Declaration Project. Meanwhile, Liu Yuzhu, director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage signed the official document on behalf of the Chinese government. With these procedures in place, the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City, on behalf of China, was formally nominated for a World Cultural Heritage status. The Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City was the center of power and belief of an early regional state, which flourished from approximately 3300–2300 BC in the Circum-Taihu Lake area on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin. It encompassed a series of sites including a gigantic ancient city, a peripheral water conservancy system with complex functions, and socially-graded cemeteries (including an altar), as well as a series of jade artefacts symbolizing a belief and ritual system. All of them revealed the existence of an early regional state governed with a unified belief system and social differentiation, and supported by rice cultivation in late Neolithic China. The Liangzhu Ancient City ruins, preserved so well to the present, attest to a prehistoric civilization, with rice cultivation as its economic base. It fills a vacancy on the World Heritage List for archaeological ruins from East Asia dating back to the Neolithic Age and provides a unique testimony to the 5,000-year history of the Chinese Civilization. On the afternoon of Jan. 26, 2018, the Hangzhou Liangzhu Archaeological Site Administrative District Management Committee met the press to brief on the latest developments concerning the application for the World Heritage status. The deputy directors of the committee, Chen Shoutian and Jiang Weidong took questions from reporters on some key issues concerning the process.

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Q1: What criteria should the Archeological Ruins of Liangzhu City meet to apply for the World Cultural Heritage status? Chen Shoutian: The Archeological Ruins of Liangzhu City meets the criteria (iii) and (iv) for the World Heritage status, set in the Operational Guidelines of the UN Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (Hereinafter referred to as the World Heritage Convention). The ruins have maintained a high degree of integrity and authenticity, and as a whole, they are in a wellpreserved status. It is for these reasons that the Archeological Ruins of Liangzhu City apply for inclusion in the World Heritage List. Q2: What are the details of Criteria (iii) and (iv)? Jiang Weidong: It is quite complex to present the details. In short, there are six criteria for the World Cultural Heritage, set in the Operational Guidelines of the World Heritage Convention. Criterion (iii), simply known as the value of testimony, refers to a heritage that bears a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization that is living or which has disappeared. The greatest value of the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City lies in that it attests to a regional state society in multiple dimensions for the more than 5,000-year Chinese Civilization. They include a gigantic ancient city, a complex water conservancy system, socially-graded tomb plots which mirrored a high degree of social differentiation, jade artefacts representing unified social protocols and beliefs as well as ricecultivating agriculture signifying great achievements in a prehistoric society, which existed in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China more than 5,000 years ago. Criterion (iv), normally known as the exemplary value, mainly refers to the exemplary and illustrative significance of a cultural ruins site to humanity. The planning and construction of the Liangzhu Ancient City displayed unique values from that period of human history. Therefore, we have generalized the values of the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City to win a state nomination for inscription on the World Cultural Heritage List, in line with the two criteria. Q3: The actual efforts for the application have continued for several years. What does today (Jan. 26, 2018) mean for this whole process? Chen Shoutian: A substantive launch of the application for the World Cultural Heritage Declaration Project came actually in 2012. Today, it has meant that China, as a State Party (to the World Heritage Convention) is scheduled to submit its recommendation to UNESCO. Jiang Weidong: We submitted declaration materials to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage in 2015, but as a State Party (to the Convention), China could recommend only one World Cultural Heritage Declaration Project to the UNESCO World Heritage Center in a year. Before a cultural property is recommended on behalf of China, it must go through a series of procedures: it first needs to pass an expert appraisal organized by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage; if approved, the

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agency and the National Commission of China for UNESCO would jointly submit all the candidate properties to the State Council for approval; and finally, one property is selected and recommended as the World Cultural Heritage Declaration Project in a specific year. In 2018, particularly on the day of Jan. 26, the situation was totally different for the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City. The local government submitted the declaration documents and the ruins were finally certified by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage as this year’s sole property from China applying for the World Heritage status. The signature by its director Liu Yuzhu on the declaration document has signified the official confirmation by China, a State Party to the World Heritage Convention. This indicates the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City has been approved by the Chinese government as the sole property applying for inscription on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List in 2019. Q4: The areas of the Archeological Ruins of Liangzhu City, which have been finally covered by the declaration project, include the City site, the Yaoshan site and 11 hydraulic dams. How do you interpret this outcome2 ? Jiang Weidong: The scope of the declaration project has expanded continuously as we gain more knowledge about the Archeological Ruins of Liangzhu City. A substantive application for the World Heritage status was initiated in 2012, when the Liangzhu Ancient City site was discovered, but not yet its peripheral water conservancy system. Though the application was launched in the name of the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City, it only covered the city’s core sites with a size of 8.81 square kilometers. With the discovery of the water conservancy system and growing knowledge about its value, many experts began realizing that its value might equal the City site itself. As the earliest large water conservancy system ever found in China to date and by far the earliest flood prevention dam system in the world, the Liangzhu peripheral water conservancy system carries a significant and unique value to the world. In March 2017, experts from the State Administration of Cultural Heritage requested, after serious discussions, to expand the areas listed in the state nomination to include the 11 dams of the peripheral water conservancy system, and the Yaoshan altar and cemetery site. Q5: It is our first time to access the declaration file today. Could you give a brief introduction about it? Jiang Weidong: The Operational Guidelines for implementing the World Heritage Convention, requests the submission of the declaration file and its explanatory attachments. We have submitted a 500-page declaration file (in English) and its attachments, which contain four parts of information: reports on archaeological excavation, 2

In 1987, an altar and a cemetery for the Liangzhu elites were discovered at the Yaoshan site, Yuhang District. In 2006, the Liangzhu Ancient City site was found. In 2015, a peripheral water conservancy system surrounding the ancient city was unearthed; it was the earliest water conservancy system in China, and the earliest hydraulic dam system in the world.

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supporting materials including laws and regulations on protection, overall planning and management planning, and a photo pamphlet related to the Liangzhu Ancient City ruins and cultural relics. A big cylindrical container with several major diagrams and maps has also been submitted. What you have seen today is a preview text of the declaration file submitted to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage on Sept. 12, 2017. The official version of this document has been in Beijing these days for signing by the Administration. Q6: What are the differences between the official and preview text documents? Jiang Weidong: After the preview declaration file was submitted to the World Heritage Center, experts there previewed its format and content, and sent us a preliminary feedback. We readjusted the format and content in line with their opinions. For the preview, we had prepared insufficient materials in some aspects due to problems linked with inconvenient working locations. For instance, we only provided a photo catalog in the pamphlet, but failed to put in a complete set of photos. In the official submission of declaration materials, we have provided a complete set of photos to accompany the revised version of the declaration file as well as revised attachments covering management planning for the entire Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City. Q7: What milestone events will come up next? Chen Shoutian: According to relevant requirements, State Parties must send their 2019 declaration project file to the UNESCO World Heritage Center in Paris before 5 p.m. GMT of Feb. 1, 2018. This is their deadline. After receiving the documents, the World Heritage Center will entrust a third-party advisory body—the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS)—to carry out professional assessments of the candidate properties recommended by State Parties. The evaluation will go through three phases. In the first phase, the declaration file would be e-mailed to the ICOMOS members to collect their anonymous evaluation and feedback. Their evaluation concentrates on checking the qualifications of nominated properties from relevant regions, including their universal value and the current preservation status. In the second phase, the ICOMOS will send one or two experts in the summer of 2018 to conduct a field assessment of the candidate property’s authenticity, integrity and efficacy of protection. In the third phase, the ICOMOS will work out an evaluation opinion at a conference to be held in the following months. Experts would give a final conclusion on whether to inscribe the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City on the World Heritage List by the end of 2018 or the beginning of next year. The conclusion will give grades at four levels of ABCD: A recommends an inscription; B requests further information; C means a deferral of declaration; and D suggests non-inscription. Our task in 2018 will be to facilitate the field appraisal of the ICOMOS. And the last milestone, between June and July 2019, is the 43rd session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which will review all the declaration projects to select one property for inscription on the World Heritage List.

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Q8: What are the next steps of your work? Chen Shoutian: First, we will protect the Liangzhu ruins according to law; secondly, we’ll carry out archaeological excavation and academic research in a systemic way, in order to support heritage protection and utilization; thirdly, we’ll display and interpret the heritage to help people understand its values; fourth, we’ll publicize the knowledge about the heritage and mobilize public support for its protection; and fifth, we’ll utilize the ruins rationally to ensure local people benefit from heritage protection. Our vision is to turn the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City into a pilgrimage site for the Chinese Civilization and an impressive landmark displaying the glamor of the Chinese Culture. We aim to make unique contributions to cultural construction in Zhejiang and the building of Hangzhou into a world-famous city. (Original Title: Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City Nominated for Application of World Heritage Status; The 43rd World Heritage Committee Session in 2019 to Decide on Inscribing a Property on the World Heritage List. Jan. 27, 2018).

3.6 Designing Souvenirs for Modern Customers Many visitors often feel a need to buy cultural souvenirs, with either interesting designs or practical applications, before concluding their museum tour. For cultural souvenirs marking the 5,000-year-old Liangzhu ruins, what kind of products do you want to buy? Are you willing to buy this basic combination of products: a bottle of mineral water, a key case and a canvas bag? This table lamp in the shape of a jade bird looks quite beautiful, but its designer charges a high price of 500 yuan; notebooks and bags are the must-buys to show your taste in arts when touring a museum; the Liangzhu ruins tour guide pamphlet, designed for kids, looks very lovely; and those jigsaws with a retro design are mindboggling (Figs. 3.4, 3.5 and 3.6). All the souvenirs came from the “Wellspringchn.com—Liangzhu Cultural Heritage Creative Design Contest”. The four-month-long event was sponsored by the Hangzhou Liangzhu Archaeological Site Administrative District Management Fig. 3.4 Jade bird-shaped table lamp

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Fig. 3.5 Mobile phone protective shell

Fig. 3.6 Souvenirs from cultural creative design space of Liangzhu Museum

Committee and held by the School of Archaeology and Museology of Peking University. By its conclusion in April 2018, the organizers received 55 entries and divided them into three design categories for expert evaluation: visual signs, daily life and knowledge diffusion. Experts finally selected 20 entries as prize winners, based on the scores they received. Many people anticipated an official logo for the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City. Was a visual design entry selected for the logo finally? The answer was no. Taking account of the Liangzhu ruins’ application for a World Heritage status and the long-term need of promoting it internationally, the organizers decided to leave vacant the first prize designated for a logo design, in order to give experienced designers more time to work out a logo that could best reflect the essence of the Liangzhu Culture. Due to the vacancy, they added one more prize of excellence for visual design to the existing four such prizes. The first prize was also left vacant for the daily life category. The judges believed that the first prize winner should be able to deepen public understanding of the major attributes of the Liangzhu Culture and use popular means to diffuse its outstanding universal values. They thought the designers of the entries still had room for improvement, before meeting the requirements set for the first prize. For these reasons, the organizers decided to leave the first prize vacant for the daily life category, and instead, they added two more third prizes for the entries, bringing the total number of such prizes to six (Fig. 3.7). Indeed, interesting stories or awkward situations accompanied the designing process of some mind-blowing souvenirs.

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Fig. 3.7 Entry in the “Wellspringchn—Liangzhu Cultural Heritage Creative Design Contest” awarded the prize for excellence in the visual designs category

Designing a perfect logo is often seen as a difficult job, as people tend to give it many meanings. Nearly half of the designers participating in the contest employed the deformations of the Chinese characters like “良” “玉” “器” “国” and integrated them with the contour of Liangzhu’s symbolic jade cong-cylinder. For Liangzhu archaeologists, they felt easy to distinguish any subtle and abnormal changes including errors in modern designs. They could easily tell whether a newly designed imagery representation of a fish matches the style of ancient Liangzhu, or whether the representation of the Liangzhu motif’s eyes should have a double or single eyelid, and even a corner. Many designers used the deformations of the Chinese character “良-liang”, while others named the cartoon hero “Little Liang” and “A Liang”. At first glance, it sounded fairly reasonable as the word “良-liang” was apposite to the subject. However, Wang Ningyuan, a research fellow at the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, voiced some moderate criticism, “It is funny that so many people have focused on the character ‘良-liang.’ In fact, the key message of Liangzhu is conveyed by ‘渚-zhu’, meaning islets in waters, which are fit for human habitation. Only those familiar with Liangzhu can comprehend that ‘渚-zhu’ refers to the terrain of the ancient city of Liangzhu.” This argument echoed the views of Mr. Shi Xingeng, who discovered the Liangzhu ruins over 80 years ago. He explained in his archaeological report: “渚-zhu” refers to islets in waters; “良-liang” means “good”. Impressive entries for preliminary evaluation also included a logo carrying a red square seal incised with a zoomorphic mask pattern. Fang Xiangming noticed a “bug” at the first sight, “This pattern has nothing to do with the sacred human–animal motif of Liangzhu, but resembles that on the jade cong unearthed in Jiangsu Province. If we use it as our logo, it rewards and promotes the prestige of others.” After sifting it out, he felt it a pity, “Should the designer use the right pattern, I might have chosen it as an entry.” Daily necessities accounted for most of the designers’ contributions. One designer even sent his product sample—a pair of chopsticks to the contest organizers. Though it looked ordinary, Wang Ningyuan could tell about its uniqueness with a touch,

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“Look, the chopstick holder is shaped like a jade bird. The upper end of chopsticks is decorated with a cong-style tube. It is a pretty good idea. It would look fine if it was made of high-grade materials.” It was obvious that the designer had put a great deal of effort into designing the product. A fish-shaped USB flash drive was deemed by many as beautiful and functional. “Only we know this is a Liangzhu-style ‘fish’!” Wang Ningyuan laughed. Ho Chunhuan, the former managing director of the shop and restaurant department of the Taipei Palace Museum, advised immediately, “This is an issue concerning the packaging design for the USB flash drive. It needs a short description about the source of inspiration, printed in Chinese, English and Japanese.” Some entries with exaggerated designs were intended for the general public, but experts felt not good at all when seeing them. During the preliminary evaluation, when a picture of a man’s underwear was put on the big screen, the judges tittered in embarrassment. The designer printed the humam–animal motif of Liangzhu in gold on dark gray underpants, from the side of the thigh to the back. A folding cup was modeled on the jade cong, squared on the outside, with a circular tube within. “How can we drink water, using a cup with such a square opening?” Everyone laughed. Zhao Ye, a researcher fellow of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, initially took it as a dustbin. “It sullied the image of Liangzhu. Actually, it is very difficult to work out the contour of a jade cong.” The panel discussion of entries reached its climax when it went to a flowerpot for succulent plants. Akin to a jade cong, the flowerpot consisted of an inner round tube to grow a succulent and an exterior square column to contain water. Though the pot’s overall design looked fine, it prompted long discussions among the judges. “I strongly disapprove of turning to forms indiscriminately without thinking deeply about the necessity of doing it. It is enough to make a flowerpot looking nice with simplicity. Why should we take the trouble to add a jade cong contour?” said Zeng Lingbo, deputy secretary-general of the Shenzhen City Association of Graphic Designs. Another expert echoed his view, “In fact, there is no need to water succulent plants this way and the newly designed function is superfluous.” From the perspective of design, Wang Yun, director of the Collaborative Innovation Center for Cultural and Creative Design and the Manufacturing Industry under the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts and President of the Institute of Industrial Design and Research, explained what caused these embarrassing cases: In ancient times, there existed a natural correlation between the types and shapes of objects; modernday designers might have only noticed their shapes but ignored their functions. Naturally, we feel uncomfortable with designs that have distorted the logic of usage scenarios and properties of objects. “I quite agree,” said Ho Chun-huan. She cited a very popular cultural and creative product being sold at the Taipei Palace Museum—a self-adhesive paper tape branded as “朕知道了—I, the Emperor know it”, which carried the handwriting of Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty. The product was developed when Ho Chun-huan was in charge of the souvenir department of the museum.

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Ho Chun-huan often visited gifts fairs in Hong Kong and Taiwan, to find potential suppliers for cooperation. One paper tape producer, which often printed slangs and newspaper one-liners on products, captured her fancy. Ho Chun-huan showed the producer an exhibition pamphlet of the Taipei Palace Museum, which was titled “知道了”. In the Qing Dynasty, the emperors would sign “知道了—know it” on the memorials to the throne, should he felt unnecessary to give specific comments after reading them. The producer was inspired to connect “朕” (used by Emperors as self-proclamations) and “知道了—know it” for creating a paper tape product. “In fact, the paper tape was not the key product of the company. They offered over 100 products, but only this one became a real hit. In Hangzhou, I saw a paper factory in Zhejiang printing “朕知道了” on its toilet roll paper.” Ho Chun-huan said with a tight smile. “It is a matter concerning the rationality of manipulating the one-liner. It would be easily acceptable to all should it retain a taste of witty humor. Making it part of a toilet paper definitely was not the original intention of the pitch. Could everyone be pleased with the daydream of being an emperor? That’s too ridiculous. It would not bother me if such things (“朕知道了” toilet paper) are just sold in department stores. Its penetration into museums is not allowed as they are the final line of defense for cultural exchanges, and we must hold the bottom line.” Ho Chun-huan said the designs of some creative products looked very cute, but they lost reverence and esteem for cultural relics, a radical departure from the original creativity. For example, when flip flops were all the rage, some manufacturers printed on the slippers a painting of Arhat by Ding Guanpeng, a court painter of the Qing Dynasty. Researchers of the Painting and Calligraphy Department told Ho Chunhuan that it was a mark of disrespect for religious figures. “For an imperial utensil, ‘pressing it to the ground’ messed up everything, ranging from standards that should be observed in the first place, followed by judgment and then, order.” Ho Chun-huan was outspoken in her criticism. When Ho Chun-huan studied at Columbia University, the first lecture given was entitled “high art, low art”. “Is there a distinction between high and low art? Of course, there is. But who will make a judgment on that? In the past, it was up to the kings. Nowadays, it would be a pity if we naively give up the height of culture for public attention and business opportunities. We need self-improvement and self-restraint in many aspects.” In Hangzhou, many flower beds, flowerpots, columns and bridge piers were decorated with designs that imitated the patterns on the jade cong and its motif of Liangzhu dated back to over 5,000 years ago. However, many patterned the nose and eyes upside down, while others appeared on dustbins or flowerbeds. An expert from the Liangzhu Museum passed by the Lanyuelow restaurant on the shore of the West Lake and saw several flowerbeds decorated with the replicas of the Liangzhu human–animal motif without distinctive eyes. The expert strolled further along the lake and found a decent flower bed near the Gushan Park (Fig. 3.8). “Its delicate ornamentation of two L-shaped patterns at the top and bottom was an intimation of the design of the cong-cylinder unearthed from Sidun tomb M4.” The expert praised the fine details of “the corner of the eyes” worked out by the designer.

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Fig. 3.8 A flower bed near Gushan, Hangzhou (Photo by Xia Yong)

The bulging eyes of the motif 5,000 years ago had a distinctive double-layer circle in the middle with side corners and spirals on each side, which looked like small double-layer eyes in the big bulging eyes. Looking on the bright side of this case, the aesthetic of the Liangzhu ancients, who were viewed as the earliest original designers in China, has not gone out of fashion even today. On the other hand, the Liangzhu archaeologists could not help complaining whenever they saw distorted versions of the human–animal motif from the jade cong or any other inappropriate applications. As the sole designated line drawing artist for Liangzhu jades, Fang Xiangming has photographed almost a full album of copycat and lousy creations of Liangzhu artefacts on the streets of the city. “Each time I saw the posts of street lamps in Hangzhou were decorated with motifs mistakenly having noses on the foreheads, I could hardly resist the impulse to break and renew them.” “Indiscriminate use of patterns and forms is not good. The sacred human-animal motif was originally designed for conducting rituals, but now it has to decorate dustbins or flower beds—it has been applied to inappropriate scenarios. Even when transformed into commodities, cultural products should be created properly to respect original themes and connotations,” said Wang Yun. For cultural products, the core of inheritance is the etiquette system that functions in a way like what a saying goes “carrying etiquette with objects.” “When there is ‘etiquette’, there is a life with relationships that foster cultural inheritance to get people educated or nurtured with moral rectitude. We Chinese refer to ‘a system’ with ‘form and structure’. If divested of this association, the utility of objects carrying significant symbolic meanings would become apparently superficial. We shall be vigilant against the phenomenon in design research or cultural promotion.” (Original title: Results of Liangzhu Cultural Creative Design Contest Were Unveiled, with the Prize for the Liangzhu Ancient City Logo Left Vacant; Creative Designers Should Focus More on “渚-Zhu” than “良-liang,” Apr. 18, 2018).

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3.7 Ten Years of Digging for Five Millennia In 2009, Liu Bin planted a creeper at the doorstep of his special home. Ten years later, it climbed up high along the walls of the building. It was not the home as we usually call it. There was no house number plate, and the navigation App reminded “you have entered an unmarked road.” Over one weekend in April 2018, Liu Bin and “his family members” removed a sign from the door of the home, which read: Liangzhu Ruins Archaeology and Preservation Center (Fig. 3.9). In 2009, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the Zhejiang Provincial Bureau of Cultural Heritage approved the establishment of the Liangzhu Ruins Archaeology and Preservation Center. The same year also saw the establishment of the Liangzhu State Archaeological Ruins Park, one of the first 12 state cultural heritage parks. The center had another more commonly called name: the Bajiaoting Liangzhu work station. On Apr. 16, 2018, the Bajiaoting Liangzhu work station was demolished and it would be moved to a new home 1.5 km away (Fig. 3.10). The site would be Fig. 3.9 Archaeological workers at Bajiaoting Liangzhu work station preparing to move to another location

Fig. 3.10 Bajiaoting Liangzhu work station in the process of moving to another location

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transformed into a lawn, part of the Liangzhu State Archaeological Ruins Park. It also aimed to facilitate the application of the Archaeological Ruins of Liangzhu City for the World Cultural Heritage status. “This had been basically a home for all of us,” said Wang Ningyuan. He and other members of the Liangzhu archaeological team lived here for 280 days per annum on average, while Liu Bin, director of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology had already lived here for 10 years. A few minutes of walk from the work station were the Damojiaoshan ruins—the Liangzhu palace zone. Over 5,000 years ago, standing on the hillside overlooking the whole city, the king of Liangzhu had never imagined that 5,000 years later, some 20 archaeologists moved into the heart of his kingdom and uncovered all of the secrets belonging to the remote past. The Bajiaoting Liangzhu work station is gone, but the history of ancient Liangzhu remains there; gone with the wind of this spring, the story about uncovering the lost part of history would be remembered forever; so does the former site of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Archaeology on No. 20, West Ring Road in Hangzhou. On the way to Bajiaoting, there is a vast expanse of grassland. In the past, fruit trees, mostly peach trees with pink blossoms, grew along a narrow and bumpy country road. Local people in the Yuhang District knew well this landmark Daguanshan orchard as its peaches were particularly sweet. It was not until 2007, when the discovery of the Liangzhu Ancient City was officially confirmed, people came to know that lying beneath this orchard was the ruins of the palace zone of the Liangzhu kingdom. In the following year, Liu Bin, together with Wang Ningyuan and three or four technicians, moved to Bajiaoting from their makeshift dormitory at the Liangzhu Ruins Management Office south of Fanshan, continuing to excavate in and around the ancient city. According to the plan, the staff dormitory would be pulled down after the Daguanshan orchard was relocated. However, Liu Bin proposed to the Liangzhu Archaeological Site Administrative District Management Committee to keep it for them, thinking the research on the Liangzhu Ancient City would need a fixed workplace to sustain the systemic project. For the archaeologists, the so-called “archaeological drift” is part of their daily work and life. In addition to special-purpose active excavations like those on the Liangzhu Ancient City ruins, archaeologists often work more with infrastructure construction projects to determine whether a construction site sits on historical ruins before it kicks off. They follow wherever a new highway or a railway extends and live with local families. After completing an excavation, they move on to a new place. As a result, they hardly have a sense of settlement and stability. Liu Bin had a somewhat different plan. He was keen in his judgment that the excavation and research of the Liangzhu Ancient City were far more complex than expected. What they needed was not a temporary encampment, but a home for the archaeologists working at Liangzhu. The Liangzhu management committee decided to keep the four buildings of the orchard for the archaeological team and fixed up the houses with air conditioning and walls. An old building, covered by sprawling creepers, was equipped with three living rooms assigned to Liu Bin, Wang Ningyuan and Zhao Ye, respectively, and

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one guest room that played host to many visiting experts from home and abroad, including an American correspondent of the magazine “Nature”. Being notified that the buildings were to be dismantled, many even wished to spend a night at Bajiaoting to keep the old good memory. Why was this place called Bajiaoting (meaning an octagonal pavilion)? Liu Bin explained that there was a temple here before the founding of new China, and Bajiaoting was supposed to be the name of a pavilion beside the temple. The temple, said to be very small, was demolished later. Then, local people called this place Bajiaoting. A vanished place could only be traced by old maps and memories of local people. However, with the Liangzhu archaeological team settling down here, Bajiaoting came back to life. “It’s a bit different from the common archaeological stations. I made it clear right from the outset that it should be fixed up as a home.” Liu Bin brought most of his belongings, not only books and daily necessities, but also a refrigerator and a washing machine to the work station. He grew flowers in the courtyard and furnished the room with antique furniture and tea sets. By the way, the tea made by Director Liu had a good flavor! Liu Bin stayed here for more than 300 days annually, while other archaeologists 280 days on average (Fig. 3.11). Liu Bin often told his team members, “Unlike a nine-to-five job that allows you to go home or back to the city after work, archaeological work means life, as indicated by an old saying shared within the community: archaeology is a way of life. As a modern researcher on ancient history, you need to keep yourself in such a state that you can actually enjoy the hardship that others prefer to avoid.” What is that lifestyle like? Walking into a low building, you will find it fully fitted with a row of small function rooms including a kitchen, a bathroom, a dining room, a living room and a conference room. Wang Ningyuan explained, “We do not serve fast food. Instead, we always eat Fig. 3.11 Group photo of Liangzhu archaeological team in front of creepers at the Bajiaoting Liangzhu work station

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Fig. 3.12 Digital Elevation Map

at a round table which is good for discussions. In this respect, we hardly need any formal meeting. Things are discussed or notified at the dinner table.” In other words, the lost parts of history might be recovered at the moment when a dish of boiled fish with pickled cabbage and chili is served, the most favorite culinary delight by the cook for the archaeological team. Wang Ningyuan once produced a digital elevation map, called “a digital elevation model of the Liangzhu archaeological journey”, which analyzes the geomorphic environment of the ancient city ruins, marks the location of the work station, and depicts its relationship with the ancient city. Between 1981 and 2018, several keywords had been defined for the positioning of Bajiaoting: the discovery of the outer city, the water conservancy system, the layout of the ancient city and its application of the World Heritage status as “the sacred place marking the 5,000-year history of Chinese Civilization”. “We have extracted real 3D information with high precision from this area, to ensure it exists forever in virtual 3D.” (Fig. 3.12). When the archaeological team first moved here in 2008, they had no idea where the outer city was. By synchronizing planning with excavation, the archaeological team kicked off, at the end of 2008, a large-scale exploration inside and outside the ancient city and had surveyed an area of nearly 20 square kilometers by 2019. When investigating the dams, Wang Ningyuan and his colleagues had acquired a satellite image taken by the United States in 1969, which might be useful to help find the missing dams in the high dam area. He shut himself up in the room upstairs for days, and kept clicking, zooming and checking the image. Once, he mistakenly set the focus on the southwest direction, but had reaped an unexpectedly good result—when he zoomed in, he found one of the low dams. From the 300 thousand square meters of the Mojiaoshan palace zone to the three million square meters of the ancient city, from the eight million square meters of the outer city to the 100 square kilometers of the peripheral water conservancy system, the archaeologists have constantly refreshed the academic and public perception of the Liangzhu ruins in 10 years of time, at this small and simple work station.

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Fig. 3.13 A couple of the post-90 s archaeologists who met each other, fell in love and got married at Bajiaoting

Ten years ago, only four or five team members stayed in Bajiaoting, including technicians. Today, the Liangzhu archaeological team has expanded to over 20 people, mostly the young, born in the 1980s and 1990s. As a daily routine after dinner, they cycle around the ancient city to inspect the north and west walls, or get onto the hillside of Damojiaoshan to enjoy the most beautiful sunset that can’t be seen in the urban areas. On the day of the interview, the team was moving house. Dishes, drawings and maps had all been packed separately for removal. I saw Song Shu walking in, arm in arm with Ji Xiang. Eating lollipops, they were taking a walk in a mess with a dog named “milk tea” hopping around them (Fig. 3.13). It was at Bajiaoting that the two post-90s archaeologists started their romance. They started a career at the work station in 2016, after graduating from universities. Song Shu came from northeast China’s Jilin Province, while Ji Xiang from Anhui Province in east China. The two newcomers chose to live in the station dormitories. “We didn’t rent an apartment when we came to work in Hangzhou. Actually, there is no need to do so, as we only have a few days to spend in the city. The work station is our home.” At the end of 2016, Song Shu booked an early morning flight back to her hometown for the Spring Festival holidays. As she needed to take a shuttle bus at 4 a.m. at Bajiaoting, she decided to stay up the night in the conference room at the corner of the second floor. Ji Xiang accompanied her and chatted away the night. Before leaving, he summoned up all his courage to ask, “How about we get together? Could you think it over when you get back home?”. After the Spring Festival, Song Shu met him at Bajiaoting and gave her decision, “Shall we have a try?”. “Well, what a young fellow when he just came here to work. This is his wife.” Wang Ningyuan pointed to Chen Quanhe and Li Hong who came to help move house. Chen Quanhe is a technician, responsible for excavations, and his wife Li Hong, a cook for the team. “He came from Shandong Province to work at Liangzhu in 2005. Now they have a son and live in a new apartment at Pingyao. Here at Bajiaoting, many of us have started a new direction in life.” The change in life has also molded someone’s personality.

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In 2013, after Chen Minghui, a post-80s young man, arrived at Bajiaoting, he was assigned to handle logistic matters by director Liu. “I didn’t feel upset. I started my career by cleaning the offices and desks. Later, I was also in charge of shopping and financial reimbursement. Though inexperienced, I made up my mind to take the opportunity to temper myself and would not let anyone down with the duties entrusted. Inarticulate and rather shy, I used to speak in muted voice or prefer staying mute in public. Now, I have to give introductions to visiting experts. It is a quite sociable job here, as I need to deal with all types of people, host meetings and make speeches on behalf of the leaders when they are away on work trips. Slowly and unexpectedly, I have developed communication skills. This is something I didn’t expect.” Now, he is the chief of the Liangzhu work station. “Bajiaoting is very important to us. Without the support from the work station, we might have not built up the Liangzhu archaeological team and fostered an atmosphere of sharing work and life together. Without the influence of such an atmosphere, our archaeological work in the past 10 years might have not progressed so fast,” Liu Bin said. In the summer of 2017, photographer Xiao Quan came to Hangzhou for his project of shooting pictures of 200 ordinary people. He came to Bajiaoting for taking a photo of Liu Bin. Standing on the Damojiaoshan to enjoy the clouds and sunset, everyone remained in silence. Back to the work station, we gathered at the round table for dinner. While eating noodles and dumplings especially recommended by Liu Bin, Xiao Quan suddenly came up with a unique thought, “In the past, I photographed culture and the intellectuals. In the future, I want to photograph civilization.” On the last day of moving house, Wang Ningyuan went to the gate of the courtyard as he thought there would be no dinner prepared for them. Other team members were also ready to leave after packing up. “Don’t forget to come back home for dinner. I have bought the foods!” As usual, Aunt Li, wearing an apron, came out and told them to come back for dinner. (Original title: Ten Years of Hard Work Leads to the Discovery of Liangzhu Civilization; Demolished Bajiaoting Work Station, once Home of Archaeologists, Records Glory of Liangzhu Archaeological History; Being Turned into a Lawn in the Liangzhu Ruins Park, It Continues Witnessing Liangzhu Culture Gaining International Prestige, Apr. 19, 2018).