The Realm of King and God: Liangzhu City 9811995141, 9789811995149

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Liangzhu Civilization

Xuefei Zhu

The Realm of King and God Liangzhu City

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.

Xuefei Zhu

The Realm of King and God Liangzhu City

Xuefei Zhu Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology Hangzhou, China Translated by Haiyan Xu Nanchang University Nanchang, China

ISSN 2730-6097 ISSN 2730-6100 (electronic) Liangzhu Civilization ISBN 978-981-19-9514-9 ISBN 978-981-19-9515-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9515-6 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 2023 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 marvelous. 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 the 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 the 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 5000 years ago was a special one. Globally speaking, the period 5000 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 5000 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 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 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

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Foreword: Liangzhu and Five Thousand Years of Chinese Civilization

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 5300 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 ornamental jade ware many people love, Liangzhu people’s jade ware was made not only 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, three-pronged 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 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 km2 , 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 the character system through which languages can be recorded and thoughts and 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 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: Liangzhu and Five Thousand Years of Chinese Civilization

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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 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, and its influence has spread all over the country—regional civilizations actually have a nationwide and even universal influence.

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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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Foreword: Liangzhu and Five Thousand Years of Chinese Civilization

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. Liangzhu, China May 2019

Bin Liu

Contents

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A Few Concepts About “Liangzhu” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The Cultural Location and Status of Liangzhu Ancient City . . . . . . .

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A Kingdom Established in a Central Place—Constructing the Capital City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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A Place of King and God—The Palace Area in the Center of the Inner City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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An Epitome of Watertown Life—A Major Discovery in Zhongjiagang Ancient River Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The Granary Bursting with Grain—The Remains of Grain in the Ancient City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The Walls Surrounded on All Sides—The Ruins of the City Wall of the “China’s First City” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Water Conservancy Projects Built Around—Discovery and Research of Peripheral Hydraulic Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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A Wonderful Place for Ritual Activities—Altar Ruins of Yaoshan and Huiguanshan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 11 The Realm of King and God, the Emergence of Civilization . . . . . . . 141 Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

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Chapter 1

A Few Concepts About “Liangzhu”

We relate “Liangzhu” in the hope that people will bear in mind the visual and palpable impression of the 5,000-year-old Chinese civilization. But what exactly is “Liangzhu”? Is the ancient city of Liangzhu exactly the Kingdom of Liangzhu? Is the Liangzhu Culture exactly the Liangzhu Civilization? “Liangzhu” is so famous, but why are important discoveries clustered in the town of Pingyao? Once we have clarified these concepts, we will get closer to Liangzhu and feel more cordial and comfortable with Liangzhu. The first concept is the “Liangzhu Site.” The concept of “Site” has very little connotation, but there are many types of sites, such as, a cemetery, an ancient village, an ancient battlefield, and the list goes on and on. The site is usually at a specific location, named after a local village, a town, a hilltop, a river, or an iconic building nearby so that people can easily know where the site is probably located. The Liangzhu Site, which was the collective name for a group of prehistoric ruins in the town of Liangzhu, was named after the town. At the time, there was a very dedicated staff named Shi Xingeng (Fig. 1.1) worked in the West Lake Museum of Zhejiang province (now the Zhejiang Provincial Museum). From December 1936 to March 1937, he found more than ten Neolithic sites featured by black pottery (Fig. 1.2) around his hometown Liangzhu, which are collectively called Liangzhu Site later. Specific to each site, there are also smaller places, such as Qipanfen, Hengweili, Zhongjiacun, etc. Shi Xingeng (1911–1939) was a native of Liangzhu town in Hang County of Zhejiang province. In 1931, he worked as an assistant officer in the Geology and Mineral Division of the Department of Natural Sciences at the West Lake Museum of Zhejiang province (the predecessor of the Zhejiang Provincial Museum). In 1936, he participated in the excavation of the Gudang Site in Hangzhou, and through the arrangement of artifacts unearthed at the Gudang Site, he was reminded of similar cultural relics in his hometown, which led to the archaeological investigations and excavations in Liangzhu town in 1936 and 1937. He fell sick from overwork and died young in 1939.

© Zhejiang University Press 2023 X. Zhu, The Realm of King and God, Liangzhu Civilization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9515-6_1

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1 A Few Concepts About “Liangzhu”

Fig. 1.1 Shi Xingeng

Then comes the concept of “Liangzhu Culture.” The word “Culture” here is not the same as what we usually mean when we say that a person is educated and knowledgeable. The term “Culture” is an archaeological concept that refers to the aggregate of distinctive material culture created by human activities within a given geographical area and a given time frame. When archaeologists discover some remains in an area that have the appearance of a similar material culture intensively and frequently, they usually name that archaeological culture after the first place of discovery. The scope of this region is, at times, very vast. For example, the area of Liangzhu Culture, covers almost the entire lower Yangtze River, and the sites around the Taihu Lake basin are the most densely distributed. In our knowledge, its age is about 5,300–4,300 years old, predating the Xia dynasty, which was established around 2070 BC. The living standard of Liangzhu people in this period were not as primitive as we think, and both agriculture (such as rice cultivation) and handicrafts were already fairly well developed. Stoneware (Fig. 1.3) and earthenware (Fig. 1.4) are the main tools for daily life, but the jade-making, carving, lacquer arts, and carpentry techniques have all reached a level that is breathtaking to people today. Judging by the grades of burial goods that exist in the various cemeteries, large or small, we can infer that the society of Liangzhu society had already been a hierarchical one at that time. Next, let’s talk about “Liangzhu Ancient City.” Liangzhu Ancient City located in the east of Pingyao town, north of the 104 national highway is one of the many sites of Liangzhu Culture. This site is unique in that it is a “Site Group” (Fig. 1.5), a collection of many ruin sites that have been gradually discovered and recognized. It consists of walls, gates, moats, palace areas, burial areas, handicraft workshop areas, and an outer wall ... It is not a single cemetery or settlement, but an aggregation of many sites with different functions, presenting the shape of an ancient city. It is called “Liangzhu Ancient City,” not because of its location in Liangzhu, but the cultural attributes of the ancient city—Liangzhu Culture.

1 A Few Concepts About “Liangzhu”

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Fig. 1.2 Liangzhu cultural artifacts excavated by Shi Xingeng. Black-skinned pottery Dou (top left). Double-nosed pot (top right). Stone adze (bottom left). Stone knife with slanted blade (bottom right)

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Fig. 1.3 Typical stone tools of Liangzhu Culture

Fig. 1.4 Typical potteries of Liangzhu Culture

1 A Few Concepts About “Liangzhu”

1 A Few Concepts About “Liangzhu”

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Fig. 1.5 The cover of The Liangzhu Site Complex, an archaeological report

In 2005, the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology published an archaeological report Liangzhu Site Complex, which brings together information of more than a hundred Liangzhu cultural sites in Pingyao and Liangzhu. Based on the concept of Liangzhu Ancient City, we have developed another concept—“Liangzhu Kingdom.” It’s a concept with the nature of a regime. This

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concept upgrades the Liangzhu Culture to a state under centralized rule. Of course, if Liangzhu Ancient City was the capital of the kingdom, it is still impossible for us to argue how extensive the direct rule of this kingdom is. We can compare it to the Warring States Period of more than 2,200 years ago, when some kingdoms were even smaller than today’s Zhejiang province. In fact, in today’s world, many countries are very limited in size. Thus, the direct sphere of the rule of the Liangzhu Kingdom may not have been large, and the boundaries are still vague. And all we can understand at this point is the size and scope of this kingdom’s capital city. But it is the discovery of Liangzhu Ancient City as a capital that leads to the birth of the early concept of the “Liangzhu Kingdom.” With an ancient city and a kingdom, the term “Civilization” is justified. The “civilization” here is not the “civilization” of “creating a sanitary and civilized city” in our daily life, but a key point in the process of social complication. There are a series of international criteria for determining whether a society has entered a civilized period, such as the emergence of cities and hierarchical societies, the beginning of the use of writing and bronze-wares, the appearance of complex ceremonial architectures, and so on. These criteria are the conclusions of the foreign archaeological circles on the evolution of human societies, which we have been copying and using for many years. However, these criteria have become a resistance to the understanding of the characteristics of our own civilizational forms. The discovery of Liangzhu Ancient City broke through the bottleneck of civilizational exploration. Its urban planning, social hierarchy, distribution of power, division system, organization and management, and unified belief are fully reflected in the making of jade ritual vessels, the building of walls and high platforms, and the construction of water conservancy facilities. Therefore, it can be argued that Liangzhu Culture represented by Liangzhu Ancient City is highly developed and enter into the period of civilization, whereby “Liangzhu Civilization” has become the evidence of the 5,000 years’ history of Chinese Civilization.

Chapter 2

The Cultural Location and Status of Liangzhu Ancient City

Pingyao town in Yuhang district is a geographic administrative location of Liangzhu Ancient City, but the cultural location, in addition to geographic location, also includes its location in the entire distribution area of Liangzhu Culture, the span of time in the entire Liangzhu Culture, the status in the prehistoric cultural system in China, and so on. In the late 1920s, the modern archaeology of China was born in the Yellow River Basin. Initially, our discussion of the prehistoric era resulted in the juxtaposition of two major cultural systems: the Yangshao Culture (Fig. 2.1) in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River, which is characterized by red and painted pottery, and the Longshan Culture (Fig. 2.2) in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, which is characterized by black pottery. The Yangshao Culture, dating back 7,000–5,000 years, named after the site of Yangshao village in Mianchi county Henan province, was mainly found in Central Plains, as well as the adjacent areas of the Central Plains, specifically, Shaanxi, Henan, Shanxi, Gansu, Inner Mongolia autonomous regions, etc. The methods of pottery making were mostly spiral-stack makings with clay bar, while the slow wheel finishing appeared much later. A lot of red potteries were produced in this period, and the craft of painted pottery was well developed. The most distinctive potteries include small-mouth bottles with pointed bottom, thin-neck jugs, gourd bottles, bowls, pots, jars, etc. For the pottery surface, the rope pattern and cord design were very popular at that time. To make painted pottery, the craftsmen painted various types of geometric decorative patterns or graphic patterns of figures and animals with natural mineral pigments on the polished and smooth orange-red pottery billet and then firing into the kiln. Common stone tools include stone axes, stone shovels, stone knives, stone chisels, etc. The distribution form of settlements was most notable for the centripetal layout of the half-slope type, with long houses and interconnected row houses appearing in the late period. The agriculture was mainly dry farming, with pigs, dogs, and chickens domesticated.

© Zhejiang University Press 2023 X. Zhu, The Realm of King and God, Liangzhu Civilization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9515-6_2

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Fig. 2.1 The Yangshao culture characterized by red and painted pottery

Of course, archaeologists soon discovered that the Longshan Culture was a culture that appeared between the Yangshao Culture and the Yin Shang Culture. Longshan Culture, later than Yangshao culture, on the whole, appeared around 4,600– 4,000 years ago. It was named after the Chengziya site of Longshan town in Jinan of Shandong province. Its distribution covers the whole Shandong province, northern Jiangsu and Anhui provinces, and parts of eastern Henan province. For Longshan Culture, gray pottery and black pottery were the two predominant ones, with a large proportion of polished pottery. Wheeling technology was widespread. The main vessel shapes of pottery were Ding (鼎, ancient utensils for cooking and storing meat), Gui (鬶, three-legged boiler with a hilt beak), Yan (甗, an ancient Chinese steam cooker), Dou (豆, a vessel for meat or other food shaped like a high plate in ancient times), high-handled cups, ring-footed plate, etc., while eggshell black pottery and white pottery were the most exquisite ones. The common designs of pottery surface were the patterns of chord line, basket stripe, additional pile stripe, incised line, openwork carving, etc. Stone tools were mainly stone axe, stone adze, stone chisel, stone sickle, stone knife, stone battle-axe, stone arrowhead, etc. In this period, beautifully crafted jade became popular, therefore, superb openwork carving and turquoise inlay techniques emerged, and metal smithing handcrafts appeared. Agriculture was well developed and rice was also being grown in addition to foxtail millet and broomcorn millet (Su and Shu are two different kinds of millet). There was a clear hierarchy among the settlements.

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Fig. 2.2 The Longshan culture characterized by black pottery

Against the academic background of the successive recognition of the Yangshao and Longshan Cultures, archaeological work in East China has gradually begun, opening up an exploration on the history of ancient cultural development in the Yangtze River Delta. In May 1936, while participating in the excavation of the Gudang site in Hangzhou (Fig. 2.3), Mr. Shi Xingeng thought of the black pottery and stone tools he had seen in his hometown Liangzhu. But at that time, black pottery was widely regarded as a relic of the Longshan Culture. Later, Shi Xingeng conducted some small-scale excavations on six sites, including Qipanfen, Hengweili, and Mao’anqian in Liangzhu, and he published the book: Liangzhu: The Preliminary Report on the Black Pottery Cultural Site in the Second District of Hang County (Fig. 2.4). However, at that time, in the article of Mr. Liang Siyong (Fig. 2.5) “Longshan Culture—One of the Prehistoric Periods of Chinese Civilization,” Mr. Liang pointed out that “Hangzhou Bay Area,” “Shandong Coastal Area,” and the “North Henan Area” remain together as the three major blocks of Longshan Culture. Liang Siyong (1904–1954), a native of Xinhui, Guangdong province, and the second son of Liang Qichao, graduated from the Preparatory Department of the

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Fig. 2.3 The excavation at the Gudang site

Tsinghua School in 1923 and received a master’s degree in archaeology and anthropology from Harvard University in 1930. After returning to China, he took a post at the Institute of History and Language, Academia Sinica. His most important contribution was putting forward the concept of “Hougang Three Overlapped layers,” that is, through the excavation of Hougang site in Anyang, he determined the relative chronological relationship between Yangshao culture, Longshan Culture and Yin & Shang culture for the first time.

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Fig. 2.4 The cover of Liangzhu: the preliminary report on the black pottery cultural site in the second district of Hang County

In 1953, the Ministry of Culture of the Central People’s Government established a task force on East China Cultural Relics to excavate the Laoheshan Site in Hangzhou (i.e., the Gudang Site). In the following years, the excavations of the sites, such as Xianlidun in Wuxi city of Jiangsu province, Zhucundou and Shuitianfan in Banshan town of Hangzhou city, and Qianshanyang and Qiucheng in Huzhou city of Zhejiang province, attracted scholars’ attention to the differences between the primitive culture in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the Longshan Culture. In 1959, Mr. Xia Nai (Fig. 2.6) formally proposed the name “Liangzhu Culture” to it. In the 1970s and 1980s, through the discoveries of Liangzhu aristocratic tombs at Caoxieshan Site and

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Fig. 2.5 Liang Siyong

Zhanglingshan Site in Wu county of Jiangsu province, Si Dun Site in Wujin district of Changzhou city in Jiangsu (Fig. 2.7), Fuquanshan Site in Qingpu district of Shanghai (Fig. 2.8), as well as the excavations of Weidun Site in Changzhou, lake Chenghu Site in Wu county Songze Site in Qingpu district of Shanghai, Quemuqiao Site in Jiaxing of Zhejiang, Qianjinjiao Site in Haining, and Pingqiudun Site in Pinghu city, scholars gradually recognized that the archaeological culture of the lower Yangtze River has its own unique genealogy. In the end, under the guidance of zone-type theory proposed by Su Bingqi (Fig. 2.9), the Taihu-Qiantang Jiang area became an independent cultural zone, and Liangzhu Culture became an archaeological culture with local characteristics. Xia Nai (1910–1985), a native of Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, was the key instructor and organizer of China’s archaeological work after the founding of PRC. He graduated from the History Department of Tsinghua University in 1934, then studied at the University of London from 1935 to 1939 and received his Ph.D. in Egyptian Archaeology. From 1950 to 1982, he successively served as the Deputy Director and Director of the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has made important contributions to Chinese Neolithic archaeology and Shang & Zhou archaeology, as well as to the histories of Sino-west communications and Chinese science and technology. He is the author of Collected Papers of Archaeology and Archaeology and History of Science and Technology, and his academic achievements are included in The Collections of Xia Nai.

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Fig. 2.6 Xia Nai

Su Bingqi (1909–1997), a native of Gaoyang in Hebei province, was also a key instructor of China’s archaeological work after the founding of PRC, and one of the founders of archaeology education in universities. In 1934, he graduated from the History Department of the National Beiping Normal University (now Beijing Normal University). From 1952 to 1982, he taught archaeology at the History Department of Peking University. Focusing on field archaeological investigations and excavations, he presided over the tomb excavations in the eastern part of Doujitaigou in Baoji, Shaanxi province, and the excavations along Zhongzhou road (Xigong section) in Luoyang, Henan province. He initiated the cultural zone-type theory of Chinese archaeology and his research on the origin of Chinese civilization has had a profound impact on academic circles. His major works include A Study on Wali (瓦鬲, Wali, an ancient tripod pottery without ears for cooking) and A New Inquiry into the Origin of Chinese Civilization. Compared with the high-ranking central settlements around the Taihu lake, such as Gaocheng Dun in Jiangyin city, Si Dun in Wujin district of Changzhou city, Caoxieshan in Wu county Fuquanshan in Qingpu district of Shanghai, etc., Liangzhu Ancient City, considered as at the present central settlement of highest rank in Liangzhu Culture, surprisingly dwells in an isolated basin at the foot of the southern mountains. This is different from the cultural distribution pattern in our perception:

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Fig. 2.7 The large tomb at Sidun Site, Wujin district, Changzhou, Jiangsu province

a centralized settlement with a concentric outward-spreading sphere of influence. The location of Liangzhu settlement should first and foremost be a choice based on resource advantages and geographic conditions. So, did the Liangzhu Ancient City rule the plains? Or in what way did the unified cultural outlook and belief system of these plain settlements be maintained? Or for Liangzhu Ancient city, was it necessary to maintain the rule with other geographical centers? Did Liangzhu Ancient City have to confront with other unfriendly regional cultures? These thought-provoking

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Fig. 2.8 The large tomb at Fuquanshan Site, Qingpu district, Shanghai

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Fig. 2.9 Su Bingqi

questions are inescapable while we are exploring the Liangzhu Ancient city with a kingdom system, and they also provide a new perspective for the future narrative of the Liangzhu story. The time span of Liangzhu Ancient City basically runs through the entire Liangzhu Culture. The Liangzhu people began to plan the living environment of this area 5,000 years ago, and built their capital here by constructing a series of large fortifications such as dams, waterways, and high platforms. At that time, the entire lower Yangtze River area might not have been included in the Liangzhu Culture. For example, the distinctive aboriginal culture in the northwestern part of Taihu Lake differs from the typical Liangzhu Culture. Till the late Liangzhu Culture, the growth

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Fig. 2.10 Niuheliang site, stone mound group

of population and the increasing amount of land used for housing in the ancient city resulted in the richest excavations of relics in the city. And at the time, settlements in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River used the tools of the Liangzhu Culture and practiced the system of the Liangzhu Culture uniformly, demonstrating the growing influence of Liangzhu Culture. During this period, there were no other central settlements in the Central Plains that could rival with Liangzhu Ancient City. Fortunately, the elements of civilization have already sparkled in the discovery of the Niuheliang Site of the Hongshan culture in the west of Liaoning (Fig. 2.10) and the Shijiahe Site of the Shijiahe Culture in

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Fig. 2.11 Shijiahe site

the Jianghan region (Fig. 2.11). It is believed that through future archaeological excavations and data integration, we will be able to witness the reappearance of the major regional civilizations born 5,000 years ago in China. The Niuheliang Culture dates back to 5,300–4,800 years ago, and its ruins are located in the valley of Nulu’erhu Mountain at the junction of Jianping county and Lingyuan city in Liaoning province, situated on a hillock with 10 km long from east to west and 5 km wide from north to south, where goddess temples, altars, and stone-piled tombs are regularly distributed, forming a large prehistoric sacrificial site group. Shijiahe Culture existed 4,600—4,000 years ago. It is a prehistoric city site located in the town of Shihe, Tianmen city, Hubei province, with an area of about 1.2 million m2 and a plane in the form of a slightly rounded rectangular. A rammed earth wall and moat were found on the city site. In the city, there are large sites, Dengjiawan, Tanjialing, Xiaojiawuji, Sanfangwan, Luojiabaling, and so on. And a large number of house ruins, tombs, ash pits, and some ritual remains were found there.

Chapter 3

A Kingdom Established in a Central Place—Constructing the Capital City

The idea that “the kings of the ancient times chose the centre of the world to establish a kingdom” probably sprouted when Liangzhu people built their capital city, which signifies the first qualitative change in the development of prehistoric society in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Liangzhu Ancient City was the first kingdom established among a variety of prehistoric cultures which had collided integrated and blossomed for thousands of years in the “starry sky.” The site of Liangzhu Ancient City (Fig. 3.1), located in the central part of Yuhang district, Hangzhou, straddling Pingyao town and Liangzhu street, situated in a Cshaped basin at the junction of the mountains of western Zhejiang and the Hangjiahu Plain. The north, west, and south sides of this site group are surrounded by Tianmu Mountain branches with rich resources; the East Tiaoxi River runs through the site from the southwest to the northeast generating a dense water network and scattered individual mounds. The C-shaped basin, a piece of low terrain, with direct access to Taihu Lake in the northeast, is a major external route and an important riceproducing area. The unique geographic location of the C-shaped basin creates significant resource advantages and a superior strategic position for Liangzhu Kingdom and lays the geographical foundation for Liangzhu Kingdom to establish its capital and found its state. At the same time, in order to regulate the water resources in the mountains and achieve flood control, transportation, irrigation, and other needs, Liangzhu people built the world’s earliest known large-scale water conservancy project in the northwest of the ancient city, directly controlling a vast area of nearly 100 km2 , including the ancient city. The Liangzhu Ancient City we now know mainly consisted of the “triple city” in the core area of the ancient city, as well as the ceremonial relics and water conservancy system outside the city. The range is roughly 3 km2 within the city circle, and 6.3 km2 if the outer city is included. The Ancient City directly controls a range of more than 40 km2 of the C-shaped basin. In this area, more than 100 Liangzhu Culture sites of different levels are centrally distributed.

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Fig. 3.1 Overall structure of Liangzhu ancient city

Liangzhu people’s pre-planning for their national capital was quite surprising. They made good use of the highland and water network conditions to plan residential terraces and waterway transportation routes, and combined the construction of a raised platform with the excavation of a waterway into one project; they also had a sophisticated understanding of how to use haul woods, how to use different construction materials with different properties, and how to maintain them as they were being built under different construction stages and conditions. Of course, the development of the ancient city is dynamic. Through drilling and excavation, the archaeologists found that the confirmed early terraces were mostly distributed within the city circle and on both sides of the riverway. In the early phase, the Ancient City (Fig. 3.2) had a dense network of rivers, but as time passed by, the rivers became clogged with domestic waste and the growing population. Therefore, to expand the land for residential use, people continued to pile up loess over silted rivers, creating new living quarters. In the late phase (Fig. 3.3), large areas of the ancient city were used for habitation, and the living space spread outward. The city walls began to lose their function and gradually reduced to a residential compound. With successive residential platforms built up outside the city, the core of the Ancient City (Fig. 3.4), a triple-city structure from inside to outside, was eventually formed.

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Fig. 3.2 The ancient city pattern in early phase

The center of the “triple-city” structure is the Mojiaoshan palace area, with an area of about 300,000 m2 . Outside the palace area is the inner city surrounded by a 6,000 m-long wall and the outermost is the outer city surrounded by terraces such as Biandanshan, Lishan, and Bianjiashan that form a triple structural system consisting of the palace city, the imperial city, and the outer city, similar to the capital cities of later dynasties. Standing on a platform in the palace area named “Major Mojiaoshan” and overlooking to the south (Fig. 3.5), we can see right in front another artificially elevated platform named Huangfenshan at a short distance, and the steeple top of Daguanshan in the distance. No archaeological work has been formally carried out at Huangfenshan, and apart from the excavation of a high-ranking noble tomb (Fig. 3.6), no other discoveries have been made. It can only be speculated that Huangfenshan was some kind of ritual and ceremonial architecture that corresponds with the Major Mojiaoshan. Major Mojiaoshan and it is just like the central axis in the old city, and

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Fig. 3.3 The ancient city pattern in late phase

although the division of functional areas within the city does not reflect an east-west equivalence, the importance of the central axis is displayed by the establishment of successive high-ranking places along the axis. Although this is not necessarily related to the symmetrical layout of the historical capitals, this kind of “centre-honored” city-building concept is not far from the city-building concept of later generations (Fig. 3.7). The height of the buildings throughout the core area also reflects this concept. From the base of Major Mojiaoshan palace, to the entire Mojiaoshan platform, to the city walls, and till to the living platforms of the outer city, the heights of these constructions decrease gradually, highlighting the supremacy of the central building of the palace area in the mountain basin. We can understand the design philosophy of Liangzhu people in the modern sense, that is, the “centre-honored” concept, which also corresponds to the hierarchical distribution of the city. For a long time, we had no concept of a state 5,000 years ago, and we thought that the prehistoric ancients were still progressing slowly with knotted records and slash-and-burn agriculture, however, beyond our expectation, the Liangzhu Kingdom had already risen up. It turns out that the unity of the ancient and the modern is so amazing and magical.

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Fig. 3.4 The structure of the core area of Liangzhu ancient city

Fig. 3.5 The overlook range to the south from Major Mojiaoshan

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Fig. 3.6 Huangfenshan M1

Fig. 3.7 A plane graph of Chang’an city in the Tang dynasty

Chapter 4

A Place of King and God—The Palace Area in the Center of the Inner City

Within the confines of the Ancient City circle, there is a distinctly raised platform in the center, locally known as Mojiaoshan, which used to be the peach forest of Daguanshan Orchard. Being a state-run farm, it was fortunate enough to avoid the fate of being reclaimed as farmland, or being excavated for making bricks. Seeing from the digital elevation model, we can visualize the Mojiaoshan elevated platform. It is almost a north-south oriented, rectangular, and bucket-shaped elevated platform with a very regular shape and three small rectangular earthen platforms on top. As early as the 1990s, archaeologists had already established that the Mojiaoshan elevated platform was stacked by hand. In order to further understand the nature of the plateau, the archaeologists did a partial dissection of the upper part and all the slopes of the elevated platform by means of trenching, as well as a comprehensive excavation of the upper small platform. Finally, based on the trenching results, the archeologists restored the architectural remains distribution of the Mojiaoshan elevated platform. From the distribution of remains in the palace area of Mojiaoshan (Fig. 4.1), we know that the base of the Mojiaoshan elevated platform is about 630 m long from east to west and 450 m wide from north to south. On top of the elevated platform, three abutments arranged in the shape of “品” were built up: the one on the east side is called “Major Mojiaoshan,” the one on the northwest side is called “Small Mojiaoshan,” and the one on the southwest side is called “Wuguishan.” On all three foundations, there would have been rows of house foundation. The platform surface of Wuguishan was badly damaged in the later period, therefore, no archaeological discoveries were made on it, but the house foundations of the Big and Minor Mojiaoshan were all arranged in an orderly manner. Between the three platforms is the Sand-Soil Plaza of approximately curvilinear shape, covering 70,000 m2 , and to the south and east of the plaza are the well-ordered house foundations. In addition, some intermittent stone wall foundations, stone dikes to consolidate the side slopes, intentionally placed filter drains, and remains were found locally on the elevated platform. In order to better understand the stacking process of the entire platform, with the help of the overall large section diagram (Fig. 4.2), we found that the topography at the base of the Mojiaoshan elevated platform is high in the west and low in the east, © Zhejiang University Press 2023 X. Zhu, The Realm of King and God, Liangzhu Civilization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9515-6_4

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Fig. 4.1 A relic distribution map of Mojiaoshan palace area

Fig. 4.2 Upper the overall east-west large section diagram of Mojiaoshan

and that the natural mountains in the west are the support for the stacked platform. The eastern half of the platform was built directly on the soft foundation of the marsh. When the foundation was first built, the green silt from the nearby marsh became the preferred building material for the embankment. In addition to the direct use of the dredged silt from the marshes to stack elevated platform, the straw mud stacking process was also used in some areas. The locations of three foundations were planned at the top of the platform. The foundations were pre-heightened and then further heightened to form the raised foundations. After silt extraction, the marsh was partially transformed into an artificial lake that could be connected to a river. The average elevation of the top of the foundation is about 12 m. The west side of the

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Fig. 4.3 The lower section of the loess-heaped layer block-ridge distributed on the eastern slope of Mojiaoshan (in this figure, west on the left, east on the right)

foundation takes advantage of part of the natural mountain; therefore, its artificial stacking height arrived at 2–6 m, while that of the low-lying eastern part could reach 10–12 m. The section of the loess-stacked layer (Fig. 4.3) on the eastern slope of Mojiaoshan shows that the loess-stacked layer is not the horizontally hierarchical structure we would expect, but rather a block-ridge-shaped layer on the green silt-stacked layer at the bottom. This suggests that the stacking process used here is somewhat similar to the rammed earth technique, in which the loess is stacked together into a ridge, and then each ridge is stacked into a shape in a limited way before proceeding to the next one. In the excavations on the southwest slope of Mojiaoshan, archaeologists discovered a more advanced mounding method, the straw mud mounding craft (Fig. 4.4), which was different from the block-ridge-shaped loess mounding method on the east slope of Mojiaoshan. The subsequent excavations also showed that this type of mounding method was commonly seen in the artificially constructed building platforms in Liangzhu Ancient City. The most iconic building material of the Ancient City—straw-baled mud was used in the mounding. Based on the excavated straw mud, we found that a single complete straw mud (Figs. 4.5 and 4.6) is typically 40 cm long, 10 cm wide, 8 cm thick, and weighed about 6 kg. Compared with the process of direct earth transportation and stacking, although there is an additional prefabricated work step, using “straw mud” as building material makes loading and unloading more convenient, the base more solid, and also facilitates the division of labor and improves work efficiency. Different from the simple earth mounding, the craft of straw mud (Fig. 4.7) is similar to the modern process of filling woven bags with soil. With this craft, the earth is mounded in a criss-cross way, which increases the strength of the dam and speeds up the consolidation process, facilitating fast construction and stability. It was inspected that the plant stems wrapped around the outside of the “straw mud” are composed of thatches of the Gramineae family, and that the inner soil samples contained wetland or shallowwater plants. According to the flowering and fruiting periods of thatch, we assume that the ancestors of Liangzhu connected mud from the nearby marshes in autumn and winter, wrapped it with thatch, and then tied it with bamboo sticks to make straw mud. The straw mud building type is a reflection of the superior city-building techniques of Liangzhu ancestors.

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Fig. 4.4 A large area of “straw mud” heaped layer found on the southwest slope of Mojiaoshan

Fig. 4.5 A single complete straw mud

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Fig. 4.6 An overall-extracted straw-baled mud

Fig. 4.7 A restored map of straw mud making process

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Fig. 4.8 Remains of scaffolding, boxes, and cages on the western slopes of Mojiaoshan

In the river mud at the bottom of the straw mud-stack layer on the western slope of the Mojiaoshan, the archaeologists also found three pieces of bamboo scaffolding with a total length of about 6.9 m, laid side by side (Fig. 4.8). Archaeologists speculate that its original function was similar to that of a pier bridge. Treading on the bamboo scaffolding, the craft men could stack straw mud with difficulties. The bamboo sheets were flanked by rows of wooden stakes, the bottoms of which were sharpened and inserted into the silted soil of the river. The top of the wooden stakes has a mortise and tenon structure, which is exquisitely made. The wooden stakes were used in the process of stacking straw mud. As the excavation progressed, the range of stakes uncovered expanded, showing a criss-cross frame structure. This structure is similar to the function of box and cage, which plays a role of reinforcement. The Sand-Soil Plaza distributed between the foundations in the shape of “品” in the middle of Mojiaoshan was rammed with an alternate layer of sand and soil (Fig. 4.9). Sand was mainly taken from river sand, mixed with soil and stone particles; while the soil is same as the loess with which the foundations were built. Being rammed with sand and soil layers, the ground of the plaza becomes very hard. Archaeologists dissected the Sand-Soil Plaza and found that it was built directly on the greenish-gray soil at the base of the foundation and was rammed to a thickness of 130 cm, with 5–25 cm of thickness for each layer. There are rows of pillar pits on the sandy soil surface (Fig. 4.10), which are presumed to be architectural remains. The remains of pillar holes, frequently found in pillar pits, are filled with loose, light-gray, and fine sandy soil, which should be the silt soil after the pillars were removed or the infiltrated soil after the pillars decayed.

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Fig. 4.9 Remains of rammed nests in the Sand-soil Plaza

The Mojiaoshan elevated platform was located in such a prestigious position in the ancient city that it must have been a place of activity for the rich and powerful. The most plausible explanation would be that it is something like a palace of later generations. For this reason, we also call the Mojiaoshan elevated platform the palace area. The largest earthen platform on the Mojiaoshan elevated platform is called Major Mojiaoshan (Fig. 4.11). It is also the highest place in the entire city, with an elevation of 18 m at its highest place, which is 6 m higher than the Mojiaoshan elevated platform. When you look around, the view is wide, and you have the feeling of being a monarch. The Major Mojiaoshan platform is a bucket-shaped cuboid, the base of which is about 175 m long from east to west and 88 m wide from north to south, covering an area of about 15,000 m2 . It is surrounded by a ditch of 180 m long from east to west and 110 m wide from north to south, with a total area of about 20,000 m2 . In the light of the anatomical excavation (Fig. 4.12), the greenish-gray earth at

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Fig. 4.10 Large pillar hole and auxiliary pillar hole in a pillar pit on the Sand-soil Plaza

the base of the earthen platform is covered with a layer of criss-cross square wood, which gives the platform of Major Mojiaoshan a sense of unity and balance. On the Major and Minor Mojiaoshan and around the Sand-soil Plaza, some square house sites were found built from the ground, but the house walls were long gone. We can only judge the size of the house by its foundation, which rises above the surface of the foundation. There are two rows of houses on Major Mojiaoshan, seven houses in total, and one row of houses on Minor Mojiaoshan, four houses in total. The large house site is over 900 m2 , while the smaller one covers 200–300 m2 . On the house bases, there are remnants of grooves, with some having rows of pillar holes in them. Based on the distribution of grooves and pillar holes, we can speculate the shape of the house and identify such structures as compartments, cornice corridors, and movable surfaces. The base of the F17 house (Fig. 4.13) is a rectangle which is 17.7 m long from east to west and 12.7 m wide from north to south, with an elevation of about 17 m at the top and a total area of about 220 km2 . And room-divided house site was found on the foundation, which is over 100 m2 and can be divided into east and west rooms, each surrounded by base grooves. Pillar pits in the grooves indicate

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Fig. 4.11 A restoration of the earthen platform of Major Mojiaoshan (drawn by Jin Xue)

Fig. 4.12 The Wood plank remains of the ditch around the southern slope and the foundation base on Major Mojiaoshan

the presence of in-wall pillars. The doorway faces west, and no remains of cooking pits were found indoors. The exact function of the Sand-soil Plaza is unknown, but judging from the arrangement of the surrounding houses, we find the center of the Plaza is very wide and covered with sandy rammed earth on the surface, which is not too muddy in the rainy south and suitable for holding large ceremonial events. This is in line with the function of the palace area.

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Fig. 4.13 Minor Mojiaoshan F17

Some of the wall blocks made from straw mud unearthed in the navigation section of the ancient river course on the northern side of the Mojiaoshan platform help us understand the specifications of the buildings within the kingdom. The wall block demonstrates in Fig. 4.14 looks very similar to that of today’s adobe house. The wall is hard and dry. Its exterior is coated with a fine, rinsed slump. The exterior wall surface is milky white and very flat and smooth after repairment. The undecayed thin bamboo poles are still visible on interior side of the wall, similar to the steel reinforcement in today’s concrete blocks that increase the strength of the wall. There are very few archaeological “hierarchical relationships” between the building remains on Mojiaoshan elevated platform. The three foundations in the shape of “品” are independent of each other. The house sites distributed on them are also almost independent of each other. With the exception of F20 built in the earlier phase on Minor Mojiaoshan, which is superimposed by the two later house sites, it is difficult to determine the sequential relationship between the buildings at the other house sites. In addition, the domestic waste produced by the ancestors while the houses were in use might have been disposed intensively, resulting in the absence of sufficient remains on the foundation of Mojiaoshan to determine the age of the palace buildings. This forced the archaeologists to look at the problem in a different way. Since the whole Mojiaoshan elevated platform was built with three foundations

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Fig. 4.14 A suspected wall block of a palace

with pre-planned positions, it can be assumed that the Mojiaoshan elevated platform was heaped up in order to construct palace buildings on more prominent foundations, and at the same time the palace buildings were arranged in an orderly fashion. This was a whole planned palace construction project that could be considered as being built at the same phase in the span of time. In that case, the construction time of the Mojiaoshan elevated platform should represent the construction time of the entire palace area. The archaeologists chose the eastern slope of the Mojiaoshan to do a trench exploration and dissection to the east, that is, from the foot of the eastern slope of the Mojiaoshan up to its eastern river course of Zhongjiagang (Fig. 4.15). Through dissection, we learned that the accumulation process of the eastern slope of Mojiaoshan and the ancient river course of Zhongjiagang can be roughly divided into four phases. The anatomical diagram in 2017, from the foot of the eastern slope of Mojiaoshan to the ancient river course of Zhongjiagang (image shows left east right west), vividly demonstrates the relationship between people building up their living space and the changes in river course, that is while water advances, people retreat; when water retreats, people advance. In the first phase, the profile shows the accumulation in ancient river course with few excavated remains. This was the period when the river was dredged here to form a canal, and silt was used to mound the Mojiaoshan elevated platform on its western side. It was the beginning of the construction of Mojiaoshan. Then in the second phase, people used the gray sand layer to heap up the west side of the Mojiaoshan elevated platform again. People lived on the platform and dumped household garbage such as broken pottery, lacquered woodware, and animal bones into the river course at the edge of the platform. Moreover, in order to expand the platform, the ancient

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Fig. 4.15 A structural anatomical diagram: from the eastern slope of Mojiaoshan to the ancient river course of Zhongjiagang

river course was cut off in the middle with gray silt mud and gray-yellow straw mud, thus linking the west side of the Mojiaoshan elevated platform with the platform on the east side. The above two phases were close in time, around 5,000 years ago. In the third phase, yellow clay was used to continue elevating the platform which links Mojiaoshan elevated platform on the west side to the platform on the east side. In the fourth phase, the linking platform continued to be constructed and widened, and its surface was repeatedly layered with sand deposits, possibly for building houses as a living area. The third and fourth phases were about 4,900–4,500 years old. With the help of C-14 dating technology and the excavated artifacts from the first and second phases, we can confirm that the construction of the palace area on Mojiaoshan was one of the projects planned by the Liangzhu people when they first built the Ancient City.

Chapter 5

An Epitome of Watertown Life—A Major Discovery in Zhongjiagang Ancient River Course

The life of the Liangzhu people 5,000 years ago was far more sophisticated than we can imagine today. In the fossil riverway of Zhongjiagang, on the east side of the palace area of Mojiaoshan, we discovered a large amount of physical evidences that can be used to glimpse various aspects of Liangzhu people’s life. Zhongjiagang ancient river course (Fig. 5.1) goes roughly from northwest to southeast, starting from Liangzhu port in the south and connecting to the inner city river in the north. It is the main road linking the north and south of the Ancient City together at the beginning of the construction of the Ancient City. The archaeological exploration confirmed that the total length of the Zhongjiagang is about 1,000 m, width about 18–80 m, and depth about 3 m. The excavation of Zhongjiagang ancient river course is divided into three areas: south, middle, and north. On both sides of the southern section of Zhongjiagang river course (Fig. 5.2), there are many artificially constructed terraces of the Liangzhu period. The formation of terraces is often a dynamic process. Through anatomical excavations and drilling, it was found that as the river silted up, people would dredge it periodically, and, after dredging the river many times, the terraces are gradually widened; while people living on the terraces dumped their household garbage into the river, and the river course became narrower and shallower. Excavations in the southern section of the river course revealed differences in accumulation between the east and west banks. On the west bank terrace, formerly known as Lijiashan, archeologists have found well-preserved remains of revetments near the river (Fig. 5.3). The remains of these wooden revetments are located on the edge of the Lijiashan terrace. The exposed section of the remaining is about 32 m long, orienting roughly 16°NW, with no end to the north or south, and composed of bamboo weavings and wooden stakes (Fig. 5.4). Among them, a total of 63 stakes were cleaned, and about 7 stakes are still pressed under the partition beam. Most of them are round stakes, and only two are square stakes. The diameters of these stakes are between 7 and 16 cm and they are spaced about 30–40 cm apart. The bamboo weavings are mainly cross-woven vertically with a large number of thin bamboos 1–2.5 cm wide and horizontally with © Zhejiang University Press 2023 X. Zhu, The Realm of King and God, Liangzhu Civilization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9515-6_5

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Fig. 5.1 The location of Zhongjiagang ancient river course

Fig. 5.2 The watertown life model manifested by the terraces on the two banks

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Fig. 5.3 The artificial wooden revetment remains on the Lijiashan terrace

1–5 cm thin bamboos. The weavings have a width of 50–80 cm, with some places up to 90 cm wide. The construction method of the revetments is clinging bamboo weavings to the earthen terrace, and then staking around the bamboo weavings. On the east bank terrace, formerly known as Zhongjia village, a large area of burned earth accumulation was found on the earthen terrace (Fig. 5.5), with a few pillar holes scattered inside and outside. From the perspective of the distribution shape and the relationship between layers, the burned earth accumulation should belong to the bedding layer of the building, which is convenient for uprighting pillars and constructing the wall. The archaeologists found many pottery shards, flint stone flakes, jade material, jade cores driller, stone cores driller, and semi-finished woodwares from the burned earth accumulation and the waste deposit at the edges (Fig. 5.6), which indicate that the Zhongjia village terrace was probably a handicraft workshop area. In Liangzhu Ancient City, where there were no metal tools, the micro-carving “artists” used these primitive carving tools to give us a glimpse into the spiritual world of the people at that time. The jade material with cut marks indicates that it would have been selected for making bar-type jadewares, such as cone-type jade vessels. There are also bank revetments remains discovered in other river course sections, such as the middle section of Zhongjiagang near Mojiaoshan elevated platform,

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Fig. 5.4 The details of wooden stakes and the bamboo weaving items between stakes

where two kinds of wooden bank revetments are found: scattered wooden revetments and rows of sheet pile revetments (Fig. 5.7). While in the northern section of Zhongjiagang, we also found revetments made directly from bamboo weavings (Fig. 5.8). From the distribution of terraces on both sides of Zhongjiagang river course and the large number of tools, semi-finished products, and waste materials related to the production of jade, lacquered woodware, stoneware, and bone and horn tools unearthed from the dumped wastes along the banks, we can assume that the two sides of the Zhongjiagang river course should be the main distribution area of handicraft workshops. In the northern section of the river course, we were also surprised to find many stone tool blanks (Figs. 5.9 and 5.10), including stone knives, stone hoes, stone battle axes, etc. These blanks were basically beaten into shape and awaiting further polishing. Among them, the stone battle axe blank roughly presents an irregular trapezoid, the top of which is relatively flat but narrow and thick, while the blade part is wide, flat, and thin, which is 17–23 cm long and 9–15 cm wide. In addition to jade and stone artifacts, some organic remains, semi-finished products, and blanks (mainly lacquered wood artifacts, and bone and horn artifacts) were also preserved, thanks to the air insulation provided by the fine silt soil in the river. Among them, the preservation of the large carpentry materials is the most surprising. They were unearthed in the middle section of the river course near the palace area of Mojiaoshan, where there was very little domestic waste and no large amount of discarded raw materials from the processing workshops. We speculate that it is due

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Fig. 5.5 Remains of the burned earth on Zhongjia village terrace

to the high rank of the people living in the palace area that there exists the possibility of centralized disposal of domestic waste. However, it was in the earliest river sediment layer of this river course section that several giant timbers were surprisingly found and cleaned. These included some timber components with drilled mortises (Fig. 5.11), which were 9.5 m long, with the intact roots (Fig. 5.12), the trunk 18– 30 cm wide and 18 cm thick, the roots 44–47 cm in diameter, the front face machined flatly machined with 39 drilled non-through square mortises (Fig. 5.13) and a square tenon cut into the tip. One of the two is 3.2 m long and 13–40 cm wide; the shortest one is 2 m long and 20 cm wide. The timber components with mortises were identified (Fig. 5.14) as oriental white oak (槲栎 hu li). There was also a group of giant timber components (Fig. 5.15), three of which were cleaned after discovery: two of them were halved, while the other retains the original shape of the log, with its uneven root at the southern end. Some bullnose grips were left on the wood for handling purposes (Figs. 5.16, 5.17, and 5.18). The hauled woods were 14.6 m and 17 m in length, respectively, and were identified as altingia, while the one that retained the original log shape was 17.2 m long and identified as a holm oak, which are common wood in the Liangzhu period.

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Fig. 5.6 Since flintstone is harder than jade, a flintstone driller would have been a tool for carving jade

1

Jade material with cut marks

2

Jade cores driller

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Flintstone driller

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Fig. 5.6 (continued)

4 Flintstone driller

Flintstone and flintstone tools

Around the time the construction of Mojiaoshan palace started, Zhongjiagang river course was almost a straight north-south waterway, which was the most conducive to the timbers being carried downstream to where they were mostly needed, and then processed. The archaeologists are wondering if there is a connection between these wood components and the palace construction. Unfortunately, based on the current conditions of these woods, the archaeologists are unable to determine what the wood was used for and they cannot rule out other possibilities why the woods were stranded here. The processing workshop of the small carpentry work should also be located on the bank not far from the river. We found some wooden basin blanks in Zhongjiagang (Fig. 5.19). These wooden basin blanks are mainly in a single circular shape (Fig. 5.20), and others are in conjoined shape. By comparison to the finished wooden basins unearthed (Figs. 5.21, 5.22 and 5.23), we speculate that it is very likely that the wooden basins were to be painted. Lacquerwares were found in many Liangzhu cultural sites, especially in large tombs, and those of high social status were often

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Fig. 5.7 Sheet pile revetments and the detail

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Fig. 5.8 Bamboo weaving revetments and the detail

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Fig. 5.9 The blanks of stone knives and stone hoes

Fig. 5.10 Unearthed stone battle-axe blanks

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Fig. 5.11 Wood components with drilled holes

buried with lacquerwares such as lacquered goblets or cups. Unfortunately, many of the lacquered objects buried have been rotten due to the environmental factors. It can be surmised that these lacquered wooden basins excavated in Zhongjiagang were also used in the daily lives of high-ranking dignitaries. The south section of Zhongjiagang river course T2732➅: 4, the wooden basin blank was irregularly circular shape and its perisporium is obliquely closed, with axe adze processing marks. The arc convex at both ends of the blank may be reserved for gripper and there are two concentric circle van lines in the front. The whole vessel is 24.2–28.0 cm in diameter and 9.2–11.6 cm in thickness. Unearthed in the northern section of Zhongjiagang, the wooden basin is round shaped with an open mouth, lacquered with vermilion paint overall except for the lower part of the basin bottom. Its exterior is painted with black colored geometric patterns. The mouth diameter is 20 cm, base diameter is 19 cm, height is 4.5 cm, and wall thickness is 0.6–0.9 cm. There are also a large number of artifacts unearthed in Zhongjiagang, such as vermilion-painted square perforated wooden trays, lacquered goblets (觚, gu), small woven rings, bamboo baskets, wooden ladders, and wooden shovels (臿, cha). The vermillion-painted square perforated wooden tray, shown in Fig. 5.24, was unearthed in the northern section of Zhongjiagang river course. The shallow square tray (square vessels were rare throughout the prehistoric period), with vermilionlacquered sidewalls, has a pair of olive-shaped perforations at each corner. It is 15 cm long, 14.5 cm wide, 4.8 cm high, and 1.3 cm deep. The lacquered goblet (Fig. 5.25), was excavated from the northern section of Zhongjiagang river course, and the whole goblet was squashed and broken into five pieces. It has an open mouth, pointed lips, corseted waist, and abdomen, with a through-hole at the bottom where the cork is placed. The belly of the goblet has two

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Fig. 5.12 A close-up of the root

sets of convex ridges; the upper set is coiled in a spiral shape and the lower set is horizontal. The surface and the mouth rim of the goblet are lacquered with vermillion, while the interior wall is blackened. The height of the goblet is 29.2 cm, the mouth diameter is 4.3–9.3 cm, and the base diameter is 4 cm. The goblet was a popular drinking vessel during the Bronze Age, and goblet-shaped earthenware vessels were already popular in Shandong in the earlier prehistoric period. In Liangzhu, goblets appeared mostly as lacquerware. The lacquer goblets, firstly, reflect the high rank of the vessel itself; secondly, they reflect the high rank of the users; and thirdly, they

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Fig. 5.13 A close-up of the mortises

Fig. 5.14 The microstructure of wood slice

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Fig. 5.15 Another set of giant wood component

reflect the fact that the goblets may have been used for activities such as drinking, which was a power enjoyed only by the upper class. The small woven ring shown in Fig. 5.26 is only 2.0–2.3 cm in diameter and about 1 cm in width, and its exact function is unknown. To Liangzhu people, this was not a treasure, but to us today, it is a valuable treasure that should be treated with care. As shown in Fig. 5.27, the remnant of a woven object has an irregular shape and its northern edge is nearly straight. It is well preserved. It is woven in a one-submerged and two-raised pattern with some parts of several layers. The residual length is about 90 cm and the residual width is about 75 cm.

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Fig. 5.16 A close-up of the gripper

Fig. 5.17 Threading rope in the gripper

The bamboo basket, shown in Fig. 5.28, is irregularly oval, woven in onesubmerged and three-raised pattern with a residual length of 55 cm and a width of 34 cm.

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Fig. 5.18 A close-up of the two holes at the north end of the oak wood

The ladder, shown in Fig. 5.29, was unearthed in the waste layer of the river course with its back side facing upwards. It was made of rough wood with branches and divided into four sections. The top section was broken and the distance between the two sections is 30–45 cm. The total length is about 170 cm, width is 8–16 cm. This type of wooden ladder was used by the ancestors since the time of the Hemudu culture more than 7,000 years ago, usually as a ladder leading to the ground from the living surfaces of stilt-style buildings. The wooden shovel (木臿, mucha, a wooden shovel-shaped tool), as shown in Fig. 5.30, has a tongue-shaped shovel blade, thin blade edges, a convex back, and a long T-shaped handle. The residual length is 67 cm, the blade length is 21.5 cm, and the blade width is 11.5 cm. The wooden shovel is an important tool for making straw mud. A shovel of mud is the amount of soil for one straw mud. Since no similar blanks have been unearthed yet, they cannot be assumed to be produced on both sides of Zhongjiagang river course, but more likely, they were the daily production and living quds. However, no matter where they were produced, they are typical representatives of the material culture of Liangzhu Ancient City and a reflection of the productivity of the Liangzhu people. Of course, pottery excavated in the river course was an essential part of the Liangzhu people’s everyday life. At present, we have found potteries from various periods in the Liangzhu Culture in Zhongjiagang river course, but the potteries that can be fully recovered are mainly from the late Liangzhu Culture (Fig. 5.31). The waterway transportation in Liangzhu Ancient City during this period was somewhat different from the one in the newly constructed period. The middle section of Zhongjiagang, where the large carpentry work was unearthed, had long been blocked, forming two cut-off creeks to the north and south. This might have been a passageway to the east of the Mojiaoshan elevated platform. In the late Liangzhu

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Fig. 5.19 The scene of wooden basin blank unearthed

Culture period, some waterways were diverted due to the construction of additional terraces. The reason behind this was the massive growth of the population, which enriched the variety of these daily-used objects. In addition to the typical Liangzhu cultural traditions, some cultural elements from neighboring areas also infiltrated. In addition, some relatively small fragments of bone horn products were also unearthed in the river, including arrowheads, hairpins, awls, chisels, bone ornaments, and so on. The processing methods of bone horn products are mainly smashing, sawing, and polishing. Among them, the finely polished and maturely shaped bone hook (Fig. 5.32) is very rare. It has a length of about 3 cm, a stiff hook body, and sharp

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Fig. 5.20 A blank of a single wooden basin

Fig. 5.21 Finished wooden basin with lacquered painting (remnant 1)

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Fig. 5.22 Finished wooden basin with lacquered painting (remnant 2)

Fig. 5.23 Details of lacquered painting (remnant 3)

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Fig. 5.24 Vermilion lacquered square perforated wooden tray

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Fig. 5.25 Lacquered goblet. Note Goblet, Gu (觚), a kind of wine vessel in ancient China

barbs. Although the fish bones excavated from the site are limited, the presence of bone hooks is the evidence that the abundant aquatic products could not escape from the recipes of Liangzhu people, who lived a watertown life. The existence of a large number of bone arrowheads (Figs. 5.33 and 5.34) also indicates that fish hunting was still one of the survival forms of Liangzhu people. A large number of animal skeletons unearthed in the river course (Fig. 5.35) indicate that, for Liangzhu people, besides eating fish, eating meat was also important. At present, the species identified include shark, carp, grass carp, catfish, snakeheads, soft-shelled turtles, tortoises, ring-necked pheasants, rats, dogs, tigers, wild boars,

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Fig. 5.26 A small woven ring

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Fig. 5.27 The woven fabric fragments and their details

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Fig. 5.28 A bamboo basket

domestic pigs, muntjacs, water deer, sika deer, buffaloes, etc. Among them, unearthed pig bones make up the largest portion of the mammalian skeletons, and it is likely that a significant portion of these pigs were domesticated by humans. Of course, meat and vegetables should always go together. By elutriating the soil samples retrieved from the Zhongjiagang river course, we obtained rich plant remains. The only crop was rice, which was a staple food of Liangzhu people. Fruit seeds account for a large proportion: a large number of Choerospondias axillaris and peach kernels, some plums, persimmons, bayberry, apricots, melons, cucurbits, kirilowii (栝楼, gualou), grapes, water chestnut, Euryale seeds (芡实, Qianshi, an

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Fig. 5.29 A single-wood ladder

Fig. 5.30 Wooden shovel

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Fig. 5.31 Potteries of the Late Liangzhu Culture period unearthed in Zhongjiagang

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Fig. 5.32 Bone hook

annual aquatic herb of the Nympheaceae family), radix Stephaniae tetrandrae (粉防 己, Fenfangji), rubus, and so on. Fruits and vegetables, such as the Choerospondias axillaris, peach, plum, and apricot, and the starchy plants, such as water chestnuts, Euryale seeds, and lotus seeds, were all edible plants selected and harvested by Liangzhu people (Fig. 5.36). The quantity of edible plants greatly exceeded that of inedible weeds, which the Liangzhu people picked a lot of fruits and vegetables in summer and autumn. Especially in the case of peaches, the peach kernels from the Liangzhu period are significantly larger than those from earlier prehistoric sites, and are very similar to the kernels of ament woolly peaches. Therefore, it is judged to be artificially activated. In addition, the plum, a close relative of the peach, is most likely one member of the artificial cultivation system. Since peaches had already been artificially cultivated in the Liangzhu period, the archaeologists wonder where is the exact place of the peach garden of Liangzhu people on this site. By such a historical coincidence, isn’t it the protection of the large peach orchard of Daguanshan (Fig. 5.37) that Mojiaoshan is saved? The archaeological excavation of Zhongjiagang river course began in 2016. In 2016 and 2017, the site was intensively excavated in conjunction with the heritage application project. Unearthed remains and soil samples are all collected and stored in the warehouse of today’s Liangzhu Archaeological and Protection Center. As the systematic sorting work has not yet begun, more remains in Zhongjiagang river course have yet to be carefully selected by the archaeologists, and we look forward to their discovery.

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Fig. 5.33 Bone arrowhead (I)

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Fig. 5.34 Bone arrowhead (II)

Fig. 5.35 1. T2833 ➆ E left Porcine mandible; 2. T2833➆D porcine atlas; 3. T2434➆B right Porcine radius

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Peach kernels

Plums

Water chestnuts Fig. 5.36 Peach kernels, plums, water chestnuts, and Choerospondias axillari

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Choerospondias axillaris Fig. 5.36 (continued)

Fig. 5.37 Photo taken in Mojiaoshan, Spring 2014

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Chapter 6

The Granary Bursting with Grain—The Remains of Grain in the Ancient City

Rice fields have not yet been found in the 6.3 km2 area within Liangzhu Ancient City, but we discovered several carbonized rice accumulations. As shown in Fig. 6.1, the stars in the figure represent the carbonized rice accumulations. The largest and most abundant accumulation of carbonized rice is in the site called Chizhongsi (池中寺) (Fig. 6.2). The name of the site suggests that there might have been a temple on the site in the late recent Neolithic period and the site would have been surrounded by water. Its exact location is just in the south side of the Mojiaoshan Palace, between Huangfenshan and Sangshutou, facing the southwest corner of Major Mojiaoshan. Such an important location is reminiscent of places like the royal granary where grain is stored. The discovery of Chizhongsi site was accidental with some legends. There used to be a children’s welfare home in Pingyao Town within the site boundaries. Now, the welfare home has been moved, but the buildings as a permanent workstation to support the archaeological work on this site on the ground still remain. Therefore, the archaeological team hoped to expropriate the buildings. It just needs to be simply renovated and decorated. They also planned to create new exhibition and experiential spaces in this place. This naturally requires archaeological exploration, because only if the exploration does not discover any remains, it is possible to continue the construction on the site. However, the news from the exploration is encouraging! The explorers found thick layers of the carbonized rice in most of the exploration holes in this area (Fig. 6.3). This is an important gain that should not be overlooked. In contrast, an ash pit on the eastern slope of Mojiaoshan with 26,000 kg of rice in it is a world of difference from the amount of rice buried here. After exploration, there is an artificially constructed causeway in the eastern part of Chizhongsi, between Huangfenshan, Maowulong, and Mojiaoshan Palace Area. The causeway runs north and south, about 220 m long and 20 m wide. The causeway serves as a linking passage between the Huangfenshan, Chizhongsi, Maowulong and Mojiaoshan, and at the same time through the impoundment of the causeway, a large reservoir with an area of about 34,000 m2 was formed between Mojiaoshan, Huangfenshan and Chizhongsi. It is presumed that the reservoir was an important © Zhejiang University Press 2023 X. Zhu, The Realm of King and God, Liangzhu Civilization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9515-6_6

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Fig. 6.1 The location and distribution of carbonized rice found in Liangzhu ancient city

water source for the palace area in the city. On the west and south sides of Chizhongsi, there were low-lying wetlands with large areas of water during Liangzhu Culture period. As a result, Chizhongsi site is a platform in the water, covering an area of approximately 12,000 m2 , and has been proven to be artificially constructed in Liangzhu period. The thickness of the platform is about 3 m, with a 2 m upper layer of yellowbrown mounded soil and a carbonized rice accumulation and greenish-gray mounded soil underneath. The carbonized rice accumulation (Figs. 6.4 and 6.5) is divided into two large areas: northern and southern areas. The rice accumulation is dark-gray in color and mixed with a large amount of charcoal ash and red-hot clay particles. The southern area is stacked under the Chizhongsi platform, covering an area of 6,700 m2 , with an accumulation thickness of about 70 cm in general and 120 cm locally; while the northern platform is partially stacked under the Chizhongsi terrace, with an area of 5,150 m2 , and a thickness of about 25 cm. The total volume of the two areas of the carbonized rice accumulation was about 6,000 m3 . Upon calculation, the amount of rice could exceed 195,000 kg!

6 The Granary Bursting with Grain—The Remains of Grain in the Ancient …

Fig. 6.2 The location of Chizhongsi site and its surrounding environment

Fig. 6.3 Rice accumulation layer in H11 on the eastern slope of Mojiaoshan

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Fig. 6.4 The specimen of the carbonized rice

Fig. 6.5 The wrapping rope among carbonized rice

Considering the large amount of buried carbonized rice and the environmental structure around Chizhongsi, which fits the conditions for a granary, we tentatively speculate that Chizhongsi might have housed a large granary of the Liangzhu Kingdom. However, at present, the archaeological work at this site cannot yet give much conclusive evidence for the existence of a granary, because the carbonized rice was buried very deep, and we know about the rice distribution and burial condition through exploration and local dissection, but it does not mean that we can learn anything about other remains around the same period as the rice, whether there are

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Fig. 6.6 An aerial view of Chizhongsi platform

house foundations of granary or not, and so on. Archaeology requires to uncover the remains from late period to early period, and it is precisely on the top of the carbonized rice accumulation that a 2 m accumulation was artificially added. This means, after the remains of the same period as the carbonized rice was abandoned, the land was used as residential terrace in the area. In accordance with the archaeological requirements, we carried out the excavation of the sub-surface of Chizhongsi (Fig. 6.6) by setting up square units of exploration, revealing and exploring the house foundations formed in the latter period. However, in order to preserve these remains, no downward excavation was carried out for the time being. We have made some speculations about the granary. The place has the conditions to build a granary, so, if this is really the location of the kingdom’s granary, what was the shape of the granary? How was the rice stored? Was the accumulation of these carbonized rice formed at one time or multiple times? Was it formed by accidental fire or by intentional burning? If there were no granary buildings here, why did the rice exist here? Because the excavations have not yet reached the depth of the rice accumulation (Fig. 6.7), many questions remain unanswered. We can only wait with these questions in mind for more in-depth work in the future to clarify them.

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Fig. 6.7 The burial depth of carbonized rice accumulation

Chapter 7

The Walls Surrounded on All Sides—The Ruins of the City Wall of the “China’s First City”

Before the walls were discovered, the site of Liangzhu Ancient City was well known for the site which had large elevated platforms and royal cemeteries like Fanshan. However, without walls, to call the site a city is always inconsistent with the concept of a city inherent in people’s minds. Here are the difficulties of excavating such a large earthen site: with farmhouses connected, fields criss-crossed, roads intertwined, who could have imagined how large the city circle would be? With those undulating small uplands which look irregular on the surface, who knows where the city walls would be? If you want to start looking for the walls, it is really a mess. However, opportunity always favors the willing minds. In 2006, in order to settle the relocated farmers in the core area of the site, an archaeological excavation was carried out on the west side of the plateau of Putaofan site in Pingyao Town (Fig. 7.1). Liu Bin, the leader of the Liangzhu archaeological team (Fig. 7.2), caught the opportunity of finding the ancient walls. At the time, he found a north-south trench with thick deposit of late Liangzhu Culture in it, and a plateau paralleled to the trench on the eastern side. In order to understand the relationship between the trench and the plateau, Liu Bin chose to do a partial dissection in a small gap between the private houses. However, it was through this dissection that a layer of stones was found at a depth of more than 3 m down from the surface of the plateau, and it was precisely this layer of stones that guided Liu Bin to finally find the walls enclosed on all sides. The general plan of the city circle is roughly square with rounded corners. Except for the northwest corner which was washed away by Tiaoxi River, the rest of the city circle has more or less elevated mounds of soil remaining on the surface. When selecting the site for the city circle, Liangzhu people intentionally took the advantage of two natural mountains, Zhishan (雉山, a mountain name) and Fengshan (凤山, a mountain name), as the northeast and southwest corners of the city, respectively. The city circle is about 1,910 m long from north to south and 1,770 m wide from east to west, with a total internal area of up to 3 km2 . Such a large area would have been unconceivable in prehistoric times. After detailed archaeological exploration

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Fig. 7.1 The Putaofan section of the western wall

and anatomical excavation, we found that stones were commonly laid at the bottom of the main body of the wall (Figs. 7.3, 7.4, 7.5 and 7.6), but we saw no stones under the rammed earth of the wall near the natural hill. The wall consists of the main body and the inner and outer horse-face-like mound platform as well as the revetment (马 面, “Horse face,” refers to the ancient city wall surface. In ancient China, in order to strengthen the defense ability of the city gates, many cities had two or more lines of gates to form the barbican. The walls have protruding rectangular abutments at regular intervals which is convenient to attack the enemy from the side. These protruding rectangular abutments are known as “horse face”). A total of 52 mound platforms were found, including 24 inner mound platforms and 28 outer mound platforms. The thickness of the horse-faces is not uniform, thus, the overall width of the walls is not uniform, ranging from 20 to 150 m wide. The highest residual wall is about 4 m in height, and the general residual height is about 2 m. The residual height of the north section of the west city wall is only about 0.3 m because this section was close to east Tiaoxi River, and the earth of the wall was dug and removed when the dike was

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Fig. 7.2 Liu Bin, who discovered the Liangzhu ancient city

Fig. 7.3 An anatomical exploring trench for wall body of north wall

built in its early years. In addition, the inner and outer city moats, eight water city gates, and one land city gate were discovered (Fig. 7.7). The north wall starts from the Tiaoxi dike in the west and reaches the Zhishan in the east. The highest part of the residual wall is about 4 m, with a total length of 1,156 m and a width of 25–150 m. The wall has mound platform-like projections facing inward or outward. The body of the city wall is made of rammed earth, and under the most of rammed earth are paved stones, with a width of 25–35 m. Natural

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Fig. 7.4 An anatomical exploring trench for wall body of east wall

Fig. 7.5 An anatomical exploring trench for the wall body of the south wall

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Fig. 7.6 The west wall excavation site of an anatomical exploring trench in the section of Baiyuanfan

Fig. 7.7 The outline of city circle and distribution of city gates

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mountains are used as the partial rammed earth, and no stones can be seen under it. The rammed earth is the dense grayish-brown clay or light yellow clay. The daily life accumulation of the late Liangzhu Culture was discovered inside and outside the wall. The east wall starts from Zhishan in the north, and the south end is connected with the south wall in a rounded corner. The length of the east wall from north to south is about 1,392 m, the width 22–91 m, the thickness of the rammed earth 1.3–6 m, and most of rammed earth way is paved with stones below. The south wall starts from Fengshan in the west and connects with the east wall at the east end. It is a well-preserved platform with intermittent surface. The length of the south wall from east to west is about 1,443 m, the width 20–40 m, and the thickness of rammed earth about 0.7–2 m. Most of the wall body rammed with earth is paved with stones below, and the width of the paved stones is 20–27 m. The west wall starts from Fengshan in the south and connects with Tiaoxi dike in the north. The plane is in an arc shape with a total length of 1,558 m, a width of 30–65 m and a rammed earth thickness of 0.2–2.2 m. There are ditches inside and outside the city wall, and stone slope protection is provided at the foot of the wall. The water gates are distributed on four sides, and each wall has two water gates. The river course inside and outside the city is connected through the water gates to form an internal and external water network and a waterway transportation system. The two water gates of the west wall are narrow, which may be due to the fact that they are facing the incoming water from east Tiaoxi River and the narrow gates are conducive to flood control. In the middle of the south wall, between the two water gates, there is a unique land city gate. Because of the uniformly planned ramming and paving behavior, the rammed earth and the bedding stones of the wall have the same characteristics: ramming and paving by setting up ridges in blocks. We can see this phenomenon that earth blocks of different colors were joined with each other in the plane sections based on the dissection of the wall body (Fig. 7.8). Each piece of evenly colored earth block was likely to be the same kind of mountain soil transported by a ship from the same place in the nearby mountain. Similarly, the bedding stones (Fig. 7.9) laid together in an area were likely to be collected from the same location by a ship. In the late Liangzhu Culture, the wide top of the city wall also began to become the place where people chose to live. In the eastern part of the north wall, there is a gap called Huoxitang (火溪塘, a kind of creek pond) (Fig. 7.10), where the water gate is located. It is 26–32 m wide from east to west, about 78 m long from north to south, and about 2–3 m deep, filled with blue gray silt soil. At the bottom of the city gate, there is a river silt accumulation with the thickness of 40–80 cm, where 7 wooden stakes were erected. The 7 wooden stakes tilt eastward as a whole, with a spacing of 50–100 cm. The wooden stakes are 8–10 cm in diameter and 40–60 cm in height. It should be some kind of wooden structure facility in the water city gate of Huoxitang.

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Fig. 7.8 An anatomical picture of rammed earth of east city wall

Fig. 7.9 The zoning phenomenon of bedding stones of south city wall

After the gate was silted up, people began to live on the city wall, and therefore a well of the late Liangzhu period was also found at the upper part of the gate (Fig. 7.11). The wellhead is nearly square with a length of 63–70 cm and a depth of 53–85 cm. Traces of wood frame remain on the four sides. The north-south wooden traces are 100–104 cm long and 6 cm wide, and the east-west wooden traces are 103–108 cm long, 6 cm wide, and 1 cm thick. In its surrounding area within about 80 cm is hard yellow-brown soil rust, with stones placed on the north and south edges. The bottom of the well is uneven, and there are traces of stacked bamboo boards on the four walls. The utensils unearthed in the well include jars (罐), pots (壶), wine bottles (樽), Dou (豆) (an ancient pottery food vessel, shaped like a high foot plate, or with a lid), and so on.

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Fig. 7.10 Huoxitang site, water gate of north city wall

Fig. 7.11 Wells in the late Liangzhu Culture at Huoxitang site

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Fig. 7.12 The wooden bank of Meirendi site

Inside the city circle are Mojiaoshan Palace Area, Huangfenshan elevated platform, the granary of Chizhongsi and the waterway transportation system of Zhongjiagang, as well as a high ridge, distributed with Fanshan royal cemetery and Jiangjiashan noble cemetery, which will be introduced in the next chapter. This is the pattern of inner city in Liangzhu Ancient City. Within about 3.3 km2 outside the city, the sites of Liangzhu Culture period are still densely distributed, and surrounded by man-made long-strip terraces such as Bianjiashan site in the south of the city, Lishan-Zhengcun site in the east of the city, and Biandanshan-Heshangdi site in the north of the city. Although these terraces are not intentionally built to form a city circle as the city wall, they also basically surround the wall to form the Kingdom’s outer wall. Between the outer wall and the city wall, there are also long terraces such as Meirendi (Figs. 7.12 and 7.13), Zhongjiacun, Zhoucun, etc. These long-strip-shaped terraces are usually mounded and built artificially on the marsh ground, with a width of 40–50 m and a height of 2–3 m, and facing water inside and outside. According to archaeological findings, these terraces are generally used as residential areas and cemeteries. Meirendi site is located in the northeast of the east wall of Liangzhu Ancient City. It is a long-strip-shaped earthen terrace, about 270 m long from east to west, 30–60 m wide from north to south, and 4–5 m above sea level. From March 2010 to April 2011, we conducted an anatomical excavation of Meirendi site, revealing such remains as well-made residential terraces, wooden river banks, and ancient river course, all of which show the life mode of the ancestors living near the river.

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Fig. 7.13 The daily used potteries unearthed in Meirendi site

Chapter 8

Water Conservancy Projects Built Around—Discovery and Research of Peripheral Hydraulic Systems

The time span from discovery to confirmation of Liangzhu water conservancy system can reach more than 20 years. In the 1990s, an east-west, about 5 km-long, artificial earth dike (in Chinese, tuyuan 土垣, a kind of earthen dwarf wall, here, according to the archaeological discovery, it is used as a water-retaining dam or dike) was found in the piedmont of the northern part of Liangzhu Ancient City. Archaeologically, it is called “Tangshan Tuyuan” (塘山土垣) (Fig. 8.1), and it might be a water-retaining dam. However, the question of how the dam works has puzzled many archaeologists. From the end of 1996 to 1997, through the excavation and anatomy of the “Tangshan Tuyuan” in the north of Liangzhu sites, and through the observation and analysis of many gaps and sections, we can preliminarily confirm that Tuyuan (土垣), which stretches about 5 km from east to west with a width of 20–50 m and a height of 3–7 m, is constructed artificially, and we found a small number of broken pottery pieces of Liangzhu Culture in the accumulation of Tuyuan (土垣). In the trial excavation of the eastern end of the Tuyuan site near Lucun Village, archaeologists found a large number of Jade materials with processing traces of Liangzhu Culture (Fig. 8.2) and two large-scale tombs of Liangzhu Culture (Fig. 8.3). The discovery of tombs and Jade materials shows that the Tuyuan site was also used as a residential terrace in the late Liangzhu Culture. Therefore, it has different functional divisions such as tomb area and Jade workshop area. This is in line with the population increase within the ancient city in the late Liangzhu Culture. By 2009, the understanding of this piece of Tuyuan had finally begun to change. In this year, we excavated Ganggongling in Penggong District to obtain soil (Fig. 8.4). Its section shows the characteristics of artificial mounding with green silt at the lower part and loess at the upper part. This mounding method is the same as the one of many terraces in Liangzhu Ancient City. We preliminarily judge that Ganggongling should have been artificially heaped up during the Liangzhu Culture period, and like the Tangshan Tuyuan it may have the function and property of a dam. And then, in 2010, we got the dating data of Ganggongling: it was about 4,900 years old, which was very exciting. Since then, the investigation of the water conservancy system in the upper reaches of Liangzhu Ancient City has been officially launched. By 2014, © Zhejiang University Press 2023 X. Zhu, The Realm of King and God, Liangzhu Civilization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9515-6_8

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Fig. 8.1 The position of “Tangshan Tuyuan” relative to the Liangzhu ancient city

Fig. 8.2 Jade materials of Liangzhu Culture unearthed in Tangshan Tuyuan

together with the Tangshan Tuyuan found in 1996, 10 dams have been found, which constitute the water control system outside Liangzhu Ancient City (Fig. 8.5). Ganggongling Dam and other dams were built in a similar way to Mojiaoshan, with green silt at the lower part and pure loess at the upper part. The total amount of artificially mounded soil of the whole dam system reached 2.88 million m3 , and the amount of mounded soil of Tangshan Tuyuan alone reached 1.98 million m3 , which was the largest dam system in the world and also the largest public project of its time.

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Fig. 8.3 Liangzhu Culture M1 of Tangshan Tuyuan (Jincun Village section)

Fig. 8.4 The section graph of Ganggongling after being damaged by soil sampling

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Fig. 8.5 Distribution of water conservancy system around Liangzhu ancient city

At present, 11 dam sites have been found, mainly built at the mouth of the valley between the two mountains. They can be divided into two groups: the south low dam group composed of Tangshan, Shizishan, Liyushan, Guanshan, Wutongnong, etc., and the north high dam group composed of Ganggongling, Laohuling, Zhoujiafan, Qiuwu, Shiwu, and Mifenglong, which constitute front and rear two protective systems. Among them, the west section of Tangshan long dike (Fig. 8.6) in the north of Ancient City has a rectangular single dam structure, and the middle section of the dam body has a double-layer structure, between which there is an east-west channel, with the north dam slightly higher and the south dam slightly lower. The east end of the double-layer dam is connected with a watershed extending southward from Dazheshan Mountain. The east of the watershed is the eastern section of Tangshan Dam, which is also with a single dam structure and is connected to a group of densely distributed suburban village sites such as Luocun, Gejiacun, Yaojiadun, etc. Tangshan Tuyuan (Tangshan long dike), the largest monomer in the water conservancy system, is located 2 km north of Liangzhu Ancient City, with a total length of about 5 km and northeast-southwest trend. With Dazhe Mountain Range in the north, the long dike is about 100–200 m away from the foot of the mountain. Located on the southwest extension line of the Tangshan long dike are the four low dams (Fig. 8.7) connecting the isolated Hills on the plain. They are 35–360 m in length, about 100 m in width, with an elevation of about 10 m at the top of the dam, and a thickness of about 10 m of artificial mounding. The six high dams (Fig. 8.8) are located 8–11 km northwest of the Ancient City. The dams are 50–200 m long and

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Fig. 8.6 The structure diagram of Tangshan long dike

Fig. 8.7 Current situation of low dams on southwest side of the ancient city

about 100 m wide, with a thickness of about 10–15 m of artificial mounding. The six high dams can form two groups of reservoir areas: Ganggongling, Laohuling, and Zhoujiafan constitute a reservoir area with the dam crest 25–30 m above sea level; Qiuwu, Shiwu, and Mifenglong constitute the other reservoir area with the dam crest 25–30 m above sea level. The reservoir area between the High Dam and the Low Dam is slightly triangular, and the terrain of the reservoir area is very low, therefore, it is still a flood discharge area today.

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Fig. 8.8 Current situation of east group high dam on northwest side of the ancient city

According to the estimation of the spillway location by water conservancy experts, the whole water conservancy system forms a water storage surface with an area of about 13 km2 in the north and northwest of Liangzhu Ancient City, with a water storage capacity about 2.75 million m3 . The stacking and constructing crafts of Mojiaoshan Palace Area and the city wall in Liangzhu Ancient City have already been inconceivable, not to mention the water conservancy facilities more than 10 km away from the City. Many people doubt the date of the dam’s construction, but no one can tell clearly when and by whom they were built. Nor is there a single word about it in the historical literature. Using the concepts of relative age and absolute age, archaeologists have proved that the dams are the masterpiece of Liangzhu people. The relative age is to know in which period the dam body was overlapped by the remains through the overlapping relationship between the remains units, therefore, we can know that the lower age limit of the dam body is no later than the age of the remains overlapping it. According to the section structure diagram of Laohuling Dam (Fig. 8.9), we can find that, before the construction of Laohuling Dam, straw mud made of green paste mud mixed with silt was first paved on the bottom of the valley as the foundation (Fig. 8.10), and the green floury soil was piled on them. Then, straw mud made of loess was stacked near the upstream surface of the north side of the dam, intermixed with yellow loose soil inside, covered with yellow-brown loose soil for slope protection, and brown soil on the top. The building craft of Laohuling Dam is the same as that

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Fig. 8.9 The section structure diagram of Laohuling Dam ➀ brown soil ➁ brown loess ➂ Weed loess wrapped in loess ➃ green floury soil ➄ silt weeds wrapped in silt

Fig. 8.10 The stacking situation of straw mud on the section of Laohuling Dam

of Mojiaoshan earthen platform, which is also an important evidence to judge that the dam is part of the Liangzhu Ancient City. From this section, we can clearly see that, like the mounded earth and cushion stones of the city wall, the straw muds are also stacked with obvious zones and blocks. This should also be a reflection of the stacking process. The straw muds of similar color should come from the same transport ship. When being transported here, the straw muds are directly stacked in one place, which is simplifying the stacking process, and improving the stacking efficiency. Through archaeological anatomy by breaking Laohuling Dam body, the ash trench G3 (Fig. 8.11) was explored and typical pottery pieces of Liangzhu Culture (Fig. 8.12), belonging to the late Liangzhu Culture, were unearthed, such as T-shaped

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Fig. 8.11 Layer relation diagram of G3 and the dam body

Fig. 8.12 The relics of late Liangzhu Culture in G3

tripods (T形鼎), side flat tripods (侧扁形鼎), and He (盉) pots. After that, G3 itself was broken by trench G2 of the Maqiao culture period. This is the most commonly used stratigraphic method in archaeology to determine the relative age of remains. It is very likely that ash trench G3 belongs to the late Liangzhu Culture, which can at least explain that the relative age of the dam body is no later than the late Liangzhu Culture, that is, it is no later than about 4,500 years ago. The absolute age of dam construction can be relatively known by C-14 dating. At present, the dating data shows that the dams are all 5,100–4,700 years ago, belonging to the early and middle period of Liangzhu Culture, which is basically consistent with the age of the Mojiaoshan platform and the age of the Fanshan king mausoleum. The whole water conservancy system may have the functions of flood control, transportation, water use, irrigation, and so on. Tianmu Mountain Range is one of the rainstorm centers in Zhejiang Province; therefore, mountain floods are common in summer in this area, posing a direct threat to Liangzhu site group located in the

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downstream plain. Through the high and low dams of the water conservancy system, a large amount of incoming water can be stored in valleys and lowlands to relieve the flood threat. At the same time, the Tianmu Mountain Range can provide rich stones, wood, and other animal and plant resources for the site group. The reservoir area formed by damming and storing water can create a water transportation network connecting various valleys.

Chapter 9

A Wonderful Place for Ritual Activities—Altar Ruins of Yaoshan and Huiguanshan

Speaking of the altar, many people may think of the Temple of Heaven and the Temple of Earth in Beijing for at once, which are the places where the supreme rulers of the Ming and Qing Dynasties offered sacrifices to the gods of heaven and earth. Or, we’ll also think of the mysterious and bloody sacrificial ceremonies in some legends of ancient folk customs. Indeed, among national affairs, sacrificial activities have long occupied the first place in the ancient people’s mind. There are numerous and complicated categories of sacrificial objects, sacrificial contents, sacrificial forms, and venues to meet the needs of various aspects of production and life. While identifying prehistoric sites, we usually classify some unknown sites as the sites of the sacrificial activities. In fact, this is not unreasonable, because we don’t know how and where the ancients, especially the prehistoric ancestors, held sacrificial activities. In the absence of empirical knowledge, we can only temporarily judge some unusual relics as sacrificial relics, waiting for being further determined. On the periphery of the site of Liangzhu Ancient City, there are two such relic sites, Yaoshan and Huiguanshan (Fig. 9.1), both of which were built on small hills. In addition to the orderly arranged high-grade noble cemeteries in the two remarkable relic sites, the sites possess the “回”-shaped gray-soil frame structure on which the graves rest, which is more intriguing. Yaoshan is a natural hill with an altitude of about 35 m, located about 5 km northeast of Liangzhu Ancient City. To the West of Yaoshan is Fenghuang Hill, to the South is Mantou Hill, to the East an originally connected hill excavated during the opening of stone mines, and to the North is a branch of the continuous Tianmu Mountain. In 1987, during the archaeological excavation on the top of Yaoshan (Fig. 9.2), the remains that may belong to altar-like structures were first discovered. After excavations in 1996, 1997, 1998, and 2017, the shape of the Yaoshan Altar was finally confirmed. The main body of Yaoshan Altar is built with the sandy red soil at the top of the mountain, which is a rectangular bucket-shaped earthen platform with stonecovered edge. The earthen platform is in due south-north direction, about 40 m long from east to west and about 19 m wide from north to south. The height of © Zhejiang University Press 2023 X. Zhu, The Realm of King and God, Liangzhu Civilization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9515-6_9

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Fig. 9.1 The locations of Yaoshan Altar and Huiguanshan Altar

Fig. 9.2 A distant view of Yaoshan site (from southwest to northeast)

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Fig. 9.3 Existing stone ridge in the northwest corner (picture taken in 2017)

the remaining stone ridge (Figs. 9.3 and 9.4) at the northwest corner of the earthen platform is nearly 1 m. The mountain body below the earthen platform is also built with stone ridge according to the situation, in order to strengthen the side slope or trim the movable plane. In the center of the western half of earthen platform, there is a “回”-shaped gray earthen frame, about 9 m from east to west and about 11 m from north to south (Fig. 9.5). The sharp contrast between the interior and exterior soil colors makes this structure particularly prominent on the top of the mountain. Such a deliberate arrangement must have served some purpose. However, the rowed burial in the noble cemetery on the top of the mountain broke the “回”-shaped earthen frame structure, which seems to mean that the “回”-shaped earthen frame structure was no longer in use or in effect when the dead were buried. The situation of Huiguanshan is similar to Yaoshan. Huiguanshan is located about 2 km northwest of Liangzhu Ancient City, with an altitude of about 22 m. Archaeological excavations in 1991 revealed a surprisingly similar top structure (Fig. 9.6) to that of Yaoshan. The plane of the altar on the top is also chiseled from the natural mountain, which is 45 m long from east to west and 33 m wide from north to south. About 2.2 m below the top surface is a man-made outward extension of the ground, therefore, we speculate that there should have been an open platform for ceremonies around the main body of the altar. Similarly, to the west of the top of the altar, there is a “回”-shaped gray-soil frame. In addition, it was also in the southwest of the altar that a cemetery of Liangzhu Culture with the remaining four large tombs was discovered.

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Fig. 9.4 Stone ridge on the south slope under the altar (from west to east)

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Fig. 9.5 The planar structure of the top of Yaoshan Altar

Fig. 9.6 A restored map of Huiguanshan Altar

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Fig. 9.7 The orientation diagram of sunrise and sunset at Huiguanshan Altar at the time of vernal equinox, autumnal equinox, summer solstice, and winter solstice

If such a special relic phenomenon is only discovered occasionally, it is difficult to even judge the era of the altar on which the cemetery relies, because the altar remains are very pure and clean, with no artifacts or C-14 samples to be dated. However, the same remnant phenomenon appeared repeatedly in Yaoshan and Huiguanshan, which shows that the construction of Liangzhu Noble Cemetery and the construction of altar have a close relationship though they cannot be judged to be the activities of the same period. Among them, the noble cemetery is an important clue. Because, in the period of Liangzhu Culture, choosing the place of the noble cemetery was by no means hasty. The fact that these two sites were chosen for burial of these high-ranking figures suggests that the sites themselves have a sacred status. In addition, the open mountain top platform and the orientations of the four corners of the gray-soil frame cannot help but remind people of the four directions, four seasons, and other contents in the ancient sacrificial activities. Then, considering from the perspective of our ancestors observing the astronomical phenomena and telling the seasons and time, we can very probably find the answers to the function of the altars of Yaoshan and Huiguanshan (Figs. 9.7 and 9.8). Through 2 years of field observation, we find that the sunrise direction at the time of winter solstice is exactly the same direction as the southeast corner of the two altars, and the sunset direction is exactly the same direction as the southwest corner of the two altars; at the time of summer solstice, the sunrise direction is exactly the same as the direction of the northeast corner of the two altars, and the sunset direction is

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Fig. 9.8 The orientation diagram of sunrise and sunset at Yaoshan Altar at the time of vernal equinox, autumnal equinox, summer solstice, and winter solstice

exactly the same as the direction of the northwest corner of the two altars; the sun at the time of the vernal equinox and autumnal equinox just rises from the due east direction of the two altars, and then sets from the due west direction of the altars. If the gray-soil frame is shifted, you can’t see the sunrise and sunset at the same angle because the mountains block them. Such an accurate pattern is obviously not an accidental coincidence. The agricultural achievements of Liangzhu Civilization can be seen from the situation of grain storage in the ancient city. It would be inconceivable if there were no complete calendar practice to guide agricultural activities. Therefore, it is reasonable to speculate the roles of Yaoshan Altar and Huiguanshan Altar from the perspective of our ancestors observing the images and telling the seasons and time. After all, the sun, moon, and stars are very important for the ancients to master the phenological changes. However, as to the specific content of observation and the form of sacrificial activities, we still cannot know the details.

Chapter 10

Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System

From the perspective of the whole distribution area of Liangzhu Culture, tombs are often the most common discoveries in Liangzhu cultural sites. We have discovered many tombs sites of the Liangzhu Culture, but complete village sites of tombs are very rare. Tomb, a kind of relic unit which is specific to individuals, could have direct relations with Liangzhu people among all kinds of relics. Therefore, through the study of tombs, we can directly grasp the hierarchical structure of the society in the period of Liangzhu Culture, so as to understand the complexity of the society at that time. Inside and outside Liangzhu Ancient City (Fig. 10.1), there are a large number of cemeteries in the period of Liangzhu Culture. In terms of locations, there are cemeteries in the city and cemeteries outside the city; in terms of ranks, there are cemeteries of king’s mausoleum, high-grade family cemeteries, general civilian cemeteries, etc. According to the features and ranks of these cemeteries, they can be roughly divided into the following categories: first, the large altar cemeteries, Yaoshan and Huiguanshan; second, the royal mausoleum of the kings living in the palace city, Fanshan; third, the cemetery of the noble living in the palace, located in Jiangjiashan; fourth, the outer city cemeteries, including Wenjiashan, Zhongjiashan, and Bianjiashan; and fifth, the cemetery outside the city, such as Huanglutou, which has been systematically excavated. There are scattered tombs of Liangzhu Culture found in many locations outside the city, but no large-scale burial site has been uncovered. In addition, in the late period of Liangzhu Culture, the original design pattern of the ancient city has disappeared to a certain extent, and only some small tombs of the late period can be seen near the palace area and on the dam. The altar tombs are built outside the city, and there is a certain distance from the center of the ancient city. Among them, Yaoshan Cemetery belongs to the early Liangzhu Culture, so does the earliest and large tomb on Huiguanshan. From this, we speculate that the altar cemetery was put into use at the time of the construction of the ancient city, and those who were buried on the sacred altar should be the supreme ruler of that time. This means that they are likely to be the builders of

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Fig. 10.1 The distribution of excavated cemeteries inside and outside the Liangzhu ancient city

Liangzhu Ancient City. Thanks to the foresight of these generations of former rulers and kings, Liangzhu Ancient City was finally located in the midst of these mountains. The panorama of Yaoshan Cemetery is shown in Fig. 10.2. Thirteen tombs of Liangzhu Culture were excavated in the western part of Yaoshan Altar. Some of them do not possess the design structure formed by the gray-soil frame, which indicates that the construction of the tombs should have begun after the function of the graysoil frame was abolished. The cemetery is arranged in orderly rows from north to south, with men buried in the south row and women buried in the north row, and those in the middle row have the highest status. This may directly reflect the status of the tomb owners before their death. Yaoshan M7 (Fig. 10.3) is located at the center of the male tombs in the south row. Judging from the burial objects, we can speculate the tomb owner of M7 happens to be the highest ranking male. The tomb is 3.2 m long and 1.9 m wide with the existing depth of 1.3 m. The decayed marks of the skull and teeth are seen in the southern part of the tomb bottom, indicating that the head is in the south. The burial potteries are placed around the feet of the tomb owner. They are common funeral utensils (冥 器), such as Ding (鼎), Dou (豆), and jars. And the Jade articles are spread all over the body of the tomb owner. There are a large number of decorative jade articles and complete sets of Jade ritual vessels, such as Jade Cong (琮) and jade Yue (钺), which are enjoyed by high-grade aristocrats (Table 10.1). Adjacent to the pottery is a jade-inlaid lacquer ware, with 13 small Jade grains distributed in a concentric circle, and vermilion paint marks in between. Unfortunately, this lacquer ware cannot be restored.

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Fig. 10.2 The panorama of Yaoshan Cemetery

Yaoshan M11 (Fig. 10.4) is located in the center of the female tombs in the north row. It is the highest ranking female tomb, and the burial time is earlier than M7. Therefore, when excavating the M7 tomb pit and digging the northwest corner, we broke the southeast corner of M11. The tomb pit is 3.15 m long and 1.7 m wide, with an existing depth of 1.58 m. The human bones have decayed and disappeared, and the traces of board ash can be seen at the bottom of the tomb. It should be the position of the coffin, and all the burial objects are placed in the coffin. Although there is no bone remains to judge the gender, the burial objects (Table 10.2) can still reflect the distinct gender indication. For example, the pottery filter, Jade Huang, and the Jade spinning wheel belonging to the spinning wheel tools are all wares used for burial in the female noble tombs. We did not see Jade Yue or Stone Yue common in the male tombs, which is also an important circumstantial evidence of the female tombs. Of course, we don’t know the exact relationship between the tomb owners of M7 and M11 only based on this rowed burial method alone. The burial rule, that male and female tombs were arranged in different rows, at present, was only reflected obviously in Yaoshan Cemetery; therefore, it is difficult to learn and understand this burial method from other sources. But we can imagine a number of relationships: they might be in-laws or blood relatives, or they might just be rulers who took turns in power. Here, it is necessary to make some generalizations on how to judge the

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Fig. 10.3 The panorama of Yaoshan M7

gender of tomb owners: at present, in most Liangzhu tombs, the bones and skeletons have long been decayed; therefore, the judgment of gender stems from the induction of the characteristics of burial objects in a large number of prehistoric tomb cases which have determined the sex of tomb owners. Generally speaking, the male tomb owners are wearing tri-forked jadeware, with the burial objects of weapons or royal symbols, such as stone Yue, Jade Yue, as well as the tools such as stone adze, stone chisel, while the female tomb owners wearing Jade Huang, with the burial of spinning wheels and ceramic filters. Let’s talk about the cemetery of Huiguanshan. The location of Huiguanshan M4 (Fig. 10.5) is close to the west side of Yaoshan M11, where the gray-soil frame was broken. The tomb pit is 4.75 m long and 2.5 m wide. Inside, there are an inner coffin (棺, guan) and an outer coffin (椁, guo) as burial utensils. They once had coffin covers and base plates, which have decayed. The head of the tomb owner is in the south, with burial pottery in the outer coffin, while jade articles such as jade Cong, jade Bi, jade Yue, jade bracelet, coronet, and 48 pieces of stone Yue are placed closely to the body in the inner coffin.

Jade Yue (玉钺) unearthed in M7(M7:32)

Jade Cong (玉琮) unearthed in M7 (M7:34)

Category of jadewares Feature

(continued)

Full length 16.3 cm The body of this vessel is flat and thin, the plane nearly trapezoidal, the flat top having broken gaps and the blade arc shaped. There is a round hole drilled near the top (a hole drilled in two opposite Width 10.3–13 cm Pore diameter 1.5 cm directions), and, respectively, arranged on both sides of the hole is a group of fine line marks extending to the top angle, which should be the binding marks while the handle was attached to the Jade Yue. When the Jade Yue unearthed, there were Jade Yuemao and Jade Yuedun to form a set

Full height 4.4 cm The vessel is a low-bodied single-node Jade Cong, the inner hole wall of which is nearly circular, the outer wall slightly arced and bulging, and the cross-sectional square with arc edges. The Ray-path 7.5 cm Pore diameter 6.4 cm convex blocks at four corners take the turning angle as its central axis. Each block is engraved with the animal face of the God Emblem and the God simplified into two string strips on the upper part

Size

Table 10.1 Part of jadewares unearthed from Yaoshan M7

10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System 107

Jade Yuedun (钺镦) unearthed in M7 (M7:33)

Jade Yuemao (钺瑁) unearthed in M7 (M7:31)

Category of jadewares

Table 10.1 (continued)

(continued)

The cross section is olive shaped, and the bottom is stepped. An oval tenon is provided in the place where the handle is attached. The surfaces of the Yuemao and the Yuedun are all covered with fine engraving lines, and the patterns and structures sculptured in Yuemao and Yuedun are the same which echo each other up and down

Its shape is taken from half of a coronet, and the top of it shows the side image of the divine crown in a step shape. The bottom of Yuemao is provided with a tenon, and a straight groove is cut in the middle of the tenon

Full height 6.7 cm Width 7.7 cm Thickness 1.5 cm

Full height 3.5 cm Width 7.5 cm Thickness 3.4 cm

Feature

Size

108 10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System

Tri-forked jadeware unearthed in M7 (M7:26)

Jade coronet (冠状饰) unearthed in M7 (M7:63-27)

Category of jadewares

Table 10.1 (continued)

The left and right forks are even and of the same height, and the middle fork is lower. A vertical through drilling hole is arranged at the top end of the middle fork. The front is engraved with a complete God Emblem pattern, and the back is plain without patterns. The most creative point is that the face of the divine man is divided into two parts and carved on the left and the right forks, respectively. The middle fork is carved with the beast face and the feather crown of the divine man retained on it

This jadeware is in the shape of a thin plate with an inverted trapezoid. The top is a concave with a convex in the middle part, and an oval perforation is arranged below the convex. The two sides are in concave arc shape. There is a flat tenon at the bottom with two small holes drilled in opposite directions. When this coronet was unearthed, there were 26 small jade grains scattered around it. The jade grains should have been inlaid in some decayed organic crown with the coronet

Full height 3.3 cm Width 5.4–7.2 cm Thickness 0.2 cm

Full height 4.8 cm Width 8.5 cm Thickness 0.8 cm

Feature

Size

10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System 109

110

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Fig. 10.4 A panorama of Yaoshan M11

At present, within the control of Liangzhu Ancient City, the only cemetery which has the similar rowed burial method to Yaoshan and Huiguanshan is the Fanshan Cemetery. The most important feature of these cemeteries is that the tomb owners are of the same social class, that is, the people buried in the whole cemetery are all aristocrats, and there are no people of other classes. Only the number of jade articles buried with them can reflect the difference of status between aristocrats. The Fanshan Cemetery (Fig. 10.6) was excavated in 1986 and shot to be world famous while in excavation. However, it was not until 2007, when the site of Liangzhu Ancient City was confirmed, that we finally realized this noble cemetery of the king’s mausoleum level was located in the northwest corner of the ancient city, close to the palace area of Mojiaoshan. In this way, we have known clearly the status of Fanshan king mausoleum. It not only occupies the most central position, but also has the highest ranking among cemeteries of the same period in the whole Liangzhu Culture distribution area. Fanshan is a rectangular mound completely stacked by man, 120 m from east to west, 80 m from north to south, and 5–6 m above the surface. Archaeologists excavated and cleared two rows of 11 high-grade tombs of Liangzhu Culture in the

Jade Huang unearthed in M11 (M11:84)

Jade Huang unearthed in M11 (M11:83)

Category of jadewares

Full height 4.8 cm Width 12.7 cm

(continued)

It’s in semi-Bi shape with a pair of round holes at both ends drilled in opposite directions. The techniques of openwork carving and shade-line carving are adopted on both sides to represent the more abstract beast face patterns

Feature It’s in semi-Bi (璧Bi, a round, flat jade with a hole in the center) shape with a pair of round holes at both ends drilled in opposite directions. An openwork is carved in the upward half opening of Bi with inward arch tips on both sides, and two small drilling holes are arranged (an upper one and a lower one) at the positions close to the hole wall on one side

Size

Full height 7.45 cm Width 15.8 cm Thickness 0.4 cm

Table 10.2 Part of burial objects unearthed from Yaoshan M11

10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System 111

Jade spinning wheel unearthed in M11 (M11:16)

Jade bracelet with twisted wire pattern unearthed in M11 (M11:68)

Category of jadewares

Table 10.2 (continued) Feature

Diameter 4.3 cm Thickness 0.9 cm Pore diameter 0.6 cm Rod length 16.4 cm

The spinning wheel is in the shape of a round cake unearthed in combination with a long-strip rod that passes through the middle hole. One end of the rod is in pointed cone shape, with a small hole drilled in opposite directions, while the other end is blunt, with a half hole left. Although this set is not a practical device, the shape originates from daily life, which helps us understand the usages of ceramic and stone spinning wheels, which existed in large numbers in prehistoric times

Full height 2.3 cm This bracelet is in the shape of a broad ring belt. The inner wall is flat and straight, and the outer wall is carved with a circle of parallel oblique convex edges to form a pattern of twisted filaments. Diameter 6.5 cm Pore diameter 5.7 cm This kind of jade bracelet is a rare and the only piece in Liangzhu Culture

Size

112 10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System

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113

Fig. 10.5 The Panorama of Huiguanshan M4

cemetery of more than 600 m2 at the top of Fanshan. More than 1,000 pieces of exquisite jade articles (such as the coronets shown in Fig. 10.7) were buried with tomb owners, as well as nearly 100 pieces of pottery, stone tools, and lacquer wares. The special features of the coronets lie in their uniqueness (only one piece in one tomb) and universality (common in high-grade tombs). Each of the 11 tombs in Fanshan has a piece of coronet, which is different from jade Bi that shows wealth by quantity, and different from jade Cong that indicates status by quantity, size, and weight, or different from a tri-forked jadeware that distinguishes gender by function, or jade Yue that marks the holding of military power. The coronet is probably an identity label that both male and female leaders need to wear. It symbolizes the divine crown in the image of the divine crown, and the person wearing it also enjoys the attributes of the Divine Man. The tomb pit of Fanshan M12 (Fig. 10.8) is 310 cm long, 165 cm wide, and 110 cm deep. It is located in the middle of the south row and the owner of the tomb possesses the highest rank in the whole Fanshan Cemetery. It is in Fanshan M12 that the King of Jade Cong (Fig. 10.9), featured in CCTV’s “National Treasures,” was

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Fig. 10.6 The panorama of Fanshan Cemetery

excavated. When unearthed, this jade Cong was located above the left shoulder of the tomb owner. The whole body of it is pumpkin yellow with irregular purple flaws. It consists of two sections, with a height of 8.9 cm and a weight of about 6.5 kg, deserving the name of the King of Jade Cong. The four corners of King of Jade Cong and the straight grooves in the middle of its four sides are carved with the image of God Emblem, respectively. The God Emblem pattern is carved with two techniques, bas-relief and fine line carving, which is extremely elaborated. At the corners of each section, the carvings of upper and lower parts form the group patterns which just echo the complete “God Emblem” in the straight groove. The connotation expressed by the patterns is the same as that of the God Emblem. In addition, a large number of other exquisite jade articles were unearthed in M12 (Fig. 10.10). Presumably, the tomb owner must have enjoyed the noblest glory before his death. Unfortunately, the noble body sleeping on the coffin bed has long returned to dust, leaving his gorgeous crown, hat and clothes, ceremonial jade and valuable utensils, the power staves, and so on, to amaze us 5,000 years later. Mao (瑁), Dun, and Jade Yue were unearthed in a set. Mao and Dun are 70 cm apart, and the distance between them is suspected to be the length of the original handle. Yue is an important symbol of military power, and Jade Yue, as the scepter of a leader, stands for the special status of the tomb owner as a military monarch. Fanshan M20 (Figs. 10.11 and 10.12) is located in the center of the north row. The tomb pit is about 4 m long from north to the south, nearly 2 m wide and about 1.35 m deep. Its ritual Jades are in complete set and extremely luxurious, with 43 pieces of jade Bi, 24 pieces of stone Yue, showing amazing financial resources. Some of the

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Fig. 10.7 The coronets unearthed in Fanshan Cemetery

(M22:11)

(M15:7)

(M17:8)

(M16:4)

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Fig. 10.8 A panoramic view of M12

Fig. 10.9 Front view and side view of King of Jade Cong M12:98

utensils were unearthed at a higher position from the bottom of the tomb, which may be placed on the outer coffin cover while buried. In M20, like M12, funeral jade Yue and tri-forked jadeware are buried as the symbols of male identity and power. According to the evolutionary sequence of Jade Cong, M20 was built a little later than M12. This successor of his ancestors also ruled the country as a king of Gods. In his view, in addition to the supreme theocracy and kingship, wealth should also be brought into the eternal world after death.

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Fig. 10.10 A restored image of jade Yue with a handle M12:100

Fanshan M23 (Figs. 10.13 and 10.14) is a female tomb, located at the eastern end of the North Row. The tomb pit is about 3.9 m long from north to south, nearly 2 m wide and about 1 m deep. The bottom of the tomb is built with a concave arc coffin bed, in which a large number of Jade Bi are buried (Fig. 10.15), totaling 54 pieces. On the right side of the tomb owner’s head in M23, a headdress containing coronet was unearthed, which is similar to the male tomb. Unlike the male tombs, there are no tri-forked jadewares in M23; instead, there is a Jade Huang (Fig. 10.16), which can also be seen in ornaments. Another major difference from the male tombs is the absence of Jade Yue, a symbol of military power, but there are some textile-related appliances in M23 (Fig. 10.17). We’re not sure if she is the spouse of any king of Gods. Maybe she’s a king of Gods at the top of power herself. Jade Huang is in semi-Bi shape, with an arc convex front face and a relatively flat back, as well as a pair of drilled small holes in the middle of both sides. A simplified bas-relief of God Emblem pattern is in the middle, and a relief bird pattern around the two holes. The body width is 13.88 cm, with the thickest part reaching 0.8 cm. There are three groups of finials, which are stacked under the Jade Bi in the north part of the tomb when unearthed, basically maintaining the original placement

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Fig. 10.11 A panoramic view of Fanshan M20

Fig. 10.12 The excavation scene of Jade Cong and Jade Yue in the middle of M20

10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System

Fig. 10.13 A panoramic view of Fanshan M23

Fig. 10.14 The excavation scene of coronet and Jade Huang

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Fig. 10.15 The excavation scene of Jade Bi in Fanshan M23

Fig. 10.16 Jade Huang unearthed in M23 (M23:67)

Fig. 10.17 Loom finials in Fanshan M23:151–156 (from left to right)

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Fig. 10.18 Unearthed filter in M23 (M23:208)

position. Three pieces at each end, one to one in correspondence. The pair of finials in M23:151 and M23:152 is made of two pieces of components. M23:151 is 4.7 cm in height and 1.1 cm in thickness; M23:152 is 4.35 cm in height and 1.1 cm in thickness. They are trumpet shaped, with the oval section, and the top ends of the two components of each piece are, respectively, provided with a small mortise. M23:153 is 3.05 cm in height and 0.7 cm in thickness; M23:154 is 2.95 cm in height and 0.7 cm in thickness. They are horseshoe shaped, with the oval section, and the top ends are, respectively, provided with a small mortise. M23:155 is 4.35 cm in full height, 1 cm in thickness; M23:156 is 4.35 cm in height, 0.9 cm in thickness. They are nearly rectangular, with one side slightly convex in arc, and the top end provided with two small mortises. Compared with the gorgeous jade articles buried in the tomb, the pottery in the tomb was often damaged and rotten to the point of being difficult to extract. Judged from the restoration situation, the burial pottery of high-grade noble tombs is mainly made of funerary wares, which is not very different from that of civilians. There are a little more kinds of burial pottery in Women’s tombs, including a pottery filter (Fig. 10.18) developed from the Songze Culture, which seems to be exclusive to women. However, the small filter holes at the bottom of the upper tray have disappeared, which indicates that, as a burial object in the tomb, the filter has lost its original function. In the winter of 2015, another noble cemetery was discovered in Jiangjiashan, just in the south of Fanshan Cemetery and due west side of Mojiaoshan Palace Area. And at Sangshutou site, some 200 m south of Jiangjiashan Cemetery, jade Bi and other

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Fig. 10.19 A plane graph of Jiangjiashan Cemetery (male graves in black and female graves in red)

Liangzhu jadewares were also unearthed in 1970. In connection with the discovery of this series of cemeteries, the layout of Liangzhu City is gradually becoming clear, and we suddenly realize that the distance between life and death is so close. Jiangjiashan site is located in the west of Mojiaoshan platform, separated from Mojiaoshan by a river ditch of Liangzhu Culture period. The plane of the whole Jiangjiashan terrace is roughly rectangular, about 270 m long from east to west and about 220 m wide from north to south. It covers an area of more than 50,000 m2 and the highest point is about 14 m above sea level. Jiangjiashan earth terrace relies on the natural hill, heaped up by artificial stacking, with a thickness of 2–5 m. Through two excavations in 2013 and 2015, it is confirmed that there are two different functional divisions in Jiangjiashan terrace, east part and west part. The higher eastern part was a residential area in the late Liangzhu Culture, while the western part is a gentle slope, which is a burial area in the early Liangzhu Culture. From 2015 to 2016, a total of 14 tombs were excavated and cleaned up in Jiangjiashan (Fig. 10.19). The east–west arrangement of the tombs is similar to that of Fanshan, and the age of the cemeteries is close to that of Fanshan. However, the population structure of the tomb owners in this cemetery is essentially different from that of Fanshan. In addition to the noble tombs such as M1, M6, and M8, there are also tombs of ordinary residents. One of the main characteristics of the cemetery is that tombs of different genders are in interspersed distribution. In addition to the differences in burial objects, the

10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System

123

Fig. 10.20 A panorama of Jiangjiashan M1

orientation of the head is also an important difference. Most of the tombs show the rule that male heads in the south and female heads in the north. Jiangjiashan M1 (Fig. 10.20) is an aristocratic tomb with the most abundant burial objects compared to other tombs in Jiangjiashan Cemetery, and it is provided with the outer coffin and inner coffin. From the burial objects, we can speculate that the tomb owner is a male, with his head in the south (the upper part in Fig. 10.20 is the south). Among the unearthed utensils (Figs. 10.21, 10.22, 10.23, 10.24, 10.25, 10.26 and 10.27) in M1, the Jade ritual vessels include Jade Cong and Jade Bi. Although no Jade Yue was discovered, 9 stone Yues were buried in it. The decorations symbolizing divinity include coronet; tri-forked jadeware; grouped tapered jade vessels; and a large number of jade pipes, beads, and other accessories. The tomb owner of jiangjiashan M8 (Fig. 10.28) is a woman, with her head in the north (the upper part in the picture is north). There is only one piece of jade ritual vessel, Jade Bi, among the unearthed utensils (Figs. 10.29, 10.30, 10.31, 10.32, 10.33, 10.34, 10.35, and 10.36). In addition to the characteristic ornaments of women, Jade Huang and Jade spinning wheel, there are coronet, Jade bracelets, and so on. The burial pottery includes Zeng, Ding, Jars, Dou, and filters, which are also characteristic pottery assemblages for identifying women. Wenjiashan site is located in the southwest of Liangzhu Ancient City, relying on the natural hill with an altitude of 7.1 m. In the rescue archaeological excavation

124 Fig. 10.21 Coronet M1:2

Fig. 10.22 Tri-forked jadeware M1:3

Fig. 10.23 Jade Cong M1:26

10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System

10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System Fig. 10.24 A group of tapered jade vessels M1:13

Fig. 10.25 Stone Yue unearthed in M1

Fig. 10.26 Jade Bi unearthed in M1

125

126

Fig. 10.27 Pottery Ding M1:62 Fig. 10.28 A panoramic view of Jiangjiashan M8

10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System

10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System Fig. 10.29 Coronet M8:15

Fig. 10.30 Jade Bi M8:32

Fig. 10.31 Filter M8:54

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Fig. 10.32 Jade bracelet M8:30

Fig. 10.33 Dou M8:53

carried out in November 2000, we found a long-lasting Liangzhu cultural cemetery. A total of 18 tombs were cleaned out and more than 300 artifacts were unearthed. Wenjiashan M1 (Fig. 10.37) is located in the southwest of the cemetery and has the highest rank among the existing tombs in the cemetery. There are 106 burial objects (Fig. 10.38), all of which are placed in the coffin bed. Stone Yue and pottery are mainly put in the north part of the M1, with a large number of stone Yue, up to 34 pieces. In the south are mostly jade articles, but two pieces of Jade Bi were found at the foot of the tomb owner in the North. There are traces of funeral tools like wooden coffins. According to the unearthed Jade Cong and Jade Bi, there should be tombs of dignitaries with higher ranks than M1 or the noble tombs of different periods, but unfortunately, they have been destroyed in the early years. Bianjiashan site (Figs. 10.39, 10.40 and 10.41) was originally a long-strip village site, and was included in the outer wall system of Liangzhu Ancient City in the late period, becoming the main body of the south wall of the outer city. The site is a long strip in the east-west direction, about 1,000 m long and 30–50 m wide, and 1–2 m higher than farmland. From 2003 to 2005, a cemetery of Liangzhu Culture

10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System Fig. 10.34 Zeng and Ding M8:54, 63

Fig. 10.35 Ring foot jar M8:55

129

130 Fig. 10.36 Huang and pipe string M8:8

Fig. 10.37 A panoramic view of Wenjiashan M1

10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System

10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System

131

Fig. 10.38 Jade and stone tools unearthed in Wenjiashan M1

was excavated in the north of the excavation area, two large-scale ash trenches in the middle and late period of Liangzhu Culture excavated out in the middle part, and water ports and wooden docks of the late period of Liangzhu Culture dug out in the south. In the summer of 2017, eight tombs of Liangzhu Culture were excavated out to the west of the original excavation area. The cemetery has been in use for a long time and basically runs through the whole developing process of Liangzhu Culture. There is little difference in the grades of these tombs, with an average of seven burial objects per tomb. Most of the jade articles buried in each tomb are ornaments, and there is basically no ritual jadewares. Many tombs retain wooden fibers of burial utensils, and some tombs also retain bone fragments which can tell the human figures. Children’s tombs account for a certain proportion, and the number and types of burial objects are equivalent to those of adults. The tomb pit is 230 cm long and about 70 cm wide. The burial utensils of the cemetery have got decayed but the wood texture remains. The shape of human bone residue is messy, which is suspected to be a second burial. Among the burial objects were the rare jade coronet in the cemetery, with no other ritual Jade. Judged from the burial spinning wheel in pottery and the absence of Jade Yue among jade and stone wares, the tomb owner should be a woman. The burial utensils of this tomb are well preserved, with a circular arch cover on the top and a concave arch bottom board on the bottom. The exposure of the southern half tomb reveals part of the leg bone residue, pottery Ding, pottery Dou, pottery spinning wheel, Jade awls and Jade pipes, and visible traces of lacquered goblets.

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Fig. 10.39 A panoramic view of Bianjiashan M46

There are very few human bones preserved in Liangzhu Culture around Taihu Lake, which makes the skeleton of M49 very precious. This is a woman who has no burial objects and belongs to a lower rank of civilians in this cemetery. The burial objects in the tombs of these common people are mainly pottery. This kind of pottery is fired at a low temperature and made irregularly, specially used for burial. The combination of Ding, Dou, pot, and jar is quite commonly seen in these tombs (Figs. 10.42, 10.43, 10.44, 10.45, 10.46, 10.47, 10.48 and 10.49). The Huanglutou site (Fig. 10.50) is located outside the Ancient City and at the eastern end of the Tangshan dike in the north of the city. However, the high ridge on which the Huanglutou site is located is greatly related to the city, because the high ridge extends to the south into the ancient city, that is to say, Huanglutou site is on the same high ridge with the following city cemeteries, such as Fanshan, Jiangjiashan, and Sangshutou. In addition, at many places on this high ridge, such as Wangjiadun, Ludouwan, Shengjiacun, Huangnikou, Huangnishan, and other places, jade and stone tools have been unearthed or are rumored to have been unearthed in the early years. Therefore, these places are described as if there were cemeteries. Based on this information, we believe that Liangzhu people may have consciously

10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System Fig. 10.40 A panoramic view of Bianjiashan M61

Fig. 10.41 A panorama of Bianjiashan M49

133

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Fig. 10.42 Ding M9:6

Fig. 10.43 Ding M15:7

chosen this high ridge as a burial place, perhaps because of its slightly higher terrain, or some geomantic considerations we do not understand for the time being. From 2016 to 2017, we excavated the Huanglutou Cemetery, and a total of 33 tombs from the late Songze Culture to the early Liangzhu Culture were cleaned out. The excavation area is about 600 m2 . The endogenous soil in the excavation area is higher in the north and south, lower in the middle, with a thick accumulation of Liangzhu Culture in the middle. Most tombs were opened under the second layer of soil, by breaking through the artificially piled loess layer. Most of the tombs belong to Liangzhu Culture, except for a few of them belonging to Songze Culture. No burial

10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System

135

Fig. 10.44 Pot M9:8

Fig. 10.45 Pottery Dou M9:5

utensils and human bones were found in the tombs, and less than 10 pieces of burial objects were discovered in each of the half of the tombs, and 10–20 pieces of burial objects in each of another half of the tombs. The burial potteries are all small funerary wares; the stone tools are mainly stone Yue, and occasionally stone adze and stone arrowhead are seen; except for a Jade Yue unearthed in M26 and a coronet unearthed in M21 (Fig. 10.51) as ritual vessels; and the rest are mostly jade ornaments such as conical vessels, pipes, and beads (Fig. 10.52). In addition, referring to Jiangjiashan Cemetery, in Huanglutou Cemetery, the head orientation of tomb owners also differs according to the different genders.

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Fig. 10.46 Wide handle cup M62:3

Fig. 10.47 Double-nosed pot M5:4

From the series of cemeteries, such as Yaoshan, Fanshan, Jiangjiashan, Wenjiashan, and Bianjiashan, we can see the difference of the identity and status of the tomb owners by observing the possession of jade ritual vessels of the tomb owners and the construction methods of the tombs. Therefore, we can speculate that the society in Liangzhu Ancient City can be divided into at least three classes. In the highest ranking cemeteries where aristocrats were buried, the owners of the tombs belong to the class of the bigwigs or can be regarded as the ruling class, that is, the king. In addition to the complicated jade ornaments, jade ritual vessels in

10 Houses of the Dead—A Hierarchical Burial System

137

Fig. 10.48 Basin M9:7

Fig. 10.49 Ring foot jar M15: 8

series were buried with the owners of the tombs. In the secondary cemeteries where a small number of nobles and common people were buried, the owners of the tombs are more like a group of people related by blood or marriage. In the cemeteries of low level, such as Bianjiashan, the gap between the rich and the poor among the tomb owners is smaller, and the Jade articles buried with them are mostly small ornaments with less ritual vessels. Drawing on the experience of other sites, we can find that there are cemeteries of even lower level, which embody some sense of killing or mass burial. The most

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Fig. 10.50 The location of Huanglutou site Fig. 10.51 A panorama of Huanglutou M21

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139

Fig. 10.52 Coronet and tapered jade vessels unearthed in M21

Fig. 10.53 The social hierarchy structure reflected by Liangzhu ancient city

significant evidence is a cluster of burial tombs at the Zhaolingshan site in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province. There are no burial pits that could be clearly recognized in the tombs, and abnormal death phenomena commonly existed, such as body being bound, limbs incomplete, body and head separated. Although such cemeteries have not yet been discovered in the Ancient City, some human bones unearthed in the riverways of Zhongjiagang with the traces of numerous hackings, cuts, and even drilled holes suggest the inhuman abuse these people suffered. In general, these four social classes (Fig. 10.53) are sufficient to reflect that the highest power in Liangzhu society has been concentrated in the hands of a few people.

Chapter 11

The Realm of King and God, the Emergence of Civilization

So far, archaeological discoveries and archaeological interpretations have presented us with the capital shape and image of Liangzhu Kingdom. This is a super-large settlement in China 5,000 years ago. It is the earliest in terms of age; it is the largest in terms of area. In the subsequent historical period, even the Forbidden City of the Ming and Qing Dynasties was only a quarter of Liangzhu Ancient City. A regime with such a large city is a kingdom, a state. Although it is still difficult for us to rank the king’s lineage by virtue of the existing conditions of the tombs of Fanshan and Yaoshan, the existence of the Kings is beyond doubt. However, there is no shortage of prehistoric large tombs in archaeological history, and the polarization between the rich and the poor has occurred far earlier than we can imagine. For example, earlier than the Liangzhu Culture period, the Songze Culture rose rapidly on the north side of Taihu Lake Basin and along Ningzhen Mountain Range. The large tombs of the late Songze Culture found in Dongshan Village site in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu Province (Fig. 11.1) and Lingjiatan site in Hanshan, Anhui Province (Fig. 11.2) all show the accumulation of a large amount of wealth and the control of power. The division of social hierarchy reflected by them is basically close to that of the Liangzhu Culture period. The owners of these tombs in the Songze Culture period seem to have the identity of being kings. However, in the period of Liangzhu Culture, the accumulation of natural wealth cannot reflect the privileged position of the upper ruling class of Liangzhu as a country. At this time, when the Kings of Liangzhu built the capital, they also created a set of unified beliefs to standardize the people’s thoughts, and the materialized expression form of the beliefs was Liangzhu’s God Emblem. The relatively complete God Emblem pattern is usually finely carved on highgrade jade ritual vessels such as Jade Cong and Jade Yue, and the identification of the God Emblem pattern (Fig. 11.3) has gone through more than 10 years since the confirmation of Liangzhu jade articles in the 1970s. It was not until 1986, when the king of Jade Cong was excavated that archaeologists were able to understand the complete composition of the God Emblem: the image of a man wearing a feather crown in the upper part, the face of a fierce beast with round eyes and tusks in the © Zhejiang University Press 2023 X. Zhu, The Realm of King and God, Liangzhu Civilization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9515-6_11

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Fig. 11.1 The large tomb of Songze Culture in Dongshan Village M98

middle, and the claws of a bird in the lower part. This composite image formed by man, beast, and bird fully reflects Liangzhu people’s concept of creating Gods. This carving pattern with the divine man and the beast face, together with the images of divine birds on the left and right (Fig. 11.4), tells us about Liangzhu people’s view of God creation and cosmology. Different from the fragmentation of many prehistoric art images, God Emblem is not an impromptu carving on high-grade jade ritual vessels. After careful observation, we can find that it appears on almost all kinds of jade articles with various complicated or simple looks, and it has become the most important and common theme of the few jade decorative patterns. The carving of the God Emblem uses the techniques of micro-engraving and intaglio, matching with relief, or with the engraving hole, or with the jade modeling. The more changes are made, the more the belief of God Emblem is deeply rooted in the concept of Liangzhu people, which lasts for more than 1000 years. We see that the tomb owners in Fanshan king mausoleum dressed themselves up with jadewares from head to toe in order to be looked like the gods in their minds. Since they had enjoyed the honor and power of kingship given by Gods in life, they were to bring the Gods’ care into the afterlife and join the ranks of the gods with their forefathers.

11 The Realm of King and God, the Emergence of Civilization

Fig. 11.2 The large tomb of Songze Culture in Lingjiatan 07M23

Fig. 11.3 The line graph of Liangzhu God Emblem

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Fig. 11.4 Stylized God Emblem with birds on both sides

From the ruler to the capital, from the material life to the spiritual world, Liangzhu Culture presents us with a relatively complete collection of civilization factors. The Liangzhu Ancient City surpasses other archaeological sites in the same period of prehistoric times, for they only have fragmented ruins which are bursting out with the spark of civilization. Liangzhu Civilization is well deserved. It is for the first time that China has raised the starting point of civilization to more than 5,000 years ago. It is also the first civilized country which has been completely discovered and reproduced from unknown to known by the unremitting efforts of the archaeological workers. To prove and demonstrate the 5,000-year Chinese civilization has been the most important historical significance and social value of Liangzhu Ancient City. However, from the perspective of archaeologists, the significance of discovering Liangzhu Ancient City can go far beyond that. First of all, the site of Liangzhu Ancient City put forward a subversive understanding of the scope of prehistoric settlement sites. Before the confirmation of Liangzhu Ancient City, our understanding of settlements was often limited to the settlements of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of square meters, with the ring trench or city wall as the symbol of the settlement boundary. However, the discovery of Liangzhu Ancient City tells us that the prehistoric city site is likely to be too large to imagine. Outside the city wall and the ring trench, there are still a large range of sites, which are inseparable as a part of the whole settlement. Ceremonial buildings, urban defense facilities, etc. are more likely to be located in the piedmont about 10 km away from the settlement center. When these understandings become our experience, we can pay more attention to the relationship between some close sites when we inspect some sites at ordinary times. When being considered separately, the site may only reflect the value of the remains of the site itself, but when considered together, they can reflect more content, thus opening up our thinking. Secondly, the confirmation of Liangzhu Civilization has changed the mode of thinking in exploring the source of civilization. Historically, under the deep-rooted concept of the civilization of the central Plains dynasty, we always have some stereotypes in understanding the Chinese civilization. The key words, such as great unity, fighting for the central Plains, and centralization, have become obstacles to our thinking, and, at the same time, they have also become the problems that need to be faced in the process of the recognition of the concept of Liangzhu Civilization. Archaeologists must also make reasonable answers to the questions of whether Liangzhu Civilization is Chinese civilization and whether Liangzhu Civilization is

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likely to evolve into a unified and centralized country. In fact, it’s easier for archaeologists to understand this problem. Since the Neolithic Age 10,000 years ago, the development of culture has always been a regional evolution process. China’s vast territory and diversified physical and geographical units have given birth to different cultural features in various major regions. Liangzhu Civilization represents the civilization of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. From the Majiabang Culture of more than 7,000 years ago to the Songze Culture of more than 6,000 years ago, with the continuous development of cultural sequences, the social complexity of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River has deepened rapidly. As a result, the social nature of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River has undergone a qualitative change, giving birth to the earliest civilization form that can be identified at present. Of course, Liangzhu Civilization is not equal to Huaxia Civilization. It is a regional civilization, marking the beginning of civilization in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River more than 5,000 years ago. This fact changes our perspective of exploring the source of civilization: from the search for the overall definition of civilized country to the pursuit of regional civilization forms such as the Yangtze River Basin, the Yellow River Basin, the Western Liaoning Region, and the Hetao Region. Such a research model has been already bearing fruit. In the continuous exchange and collision, dissemination and inheritance of the diversified regional civilizations, the wisdom of our ancestors has been passed on from generation to generation, and finally condensed into the soul of the Chinese Nation.

Epilogue

It is very lucky for us to do archaeological work in Liangzhu. The protection area of more than 40 km2 not only protects the site, but also ensures the steady and orderly development of archaeological work. In contrast, in many other regions, many significant discoveries have been made in rescue excavations of infrastructure projects, which still need to be mediated between site reservation and economic construction. Many key parts of the site are likely to disappear when the excavation period is limited; the excavation area is limited; the excavation funds are limited; and the site protection area is not built or not built in place, which makes many archaeological workers feel powerless. Therefore, Liangzhu’s archaeological work mode is not only the efforts of the archaeological workers, but also the efforts of the local government attaching great importance to heritage protection by continuously creating good conditions for archaeological work. Before the spring of 2018, the archaeological team of Liangzhu Ancient City was stationed next to Major Mojiaoshan, the highest palace district. This is the place that the archaeological team workers, as well as many experts and scholars in the archaeological field, are reluctant to leave: a few small buildings, a pool of water, and a small piece of vegetable patch. In the archaeological workstation full of cats and dogs, the archaeological team workers are writing the story of the past and present lives for the Liangzhu Ancient City in the alternating seasons of winter and summer year after year. Team leader Liu Bin said that archaeological work sometimes requires a little imagination. Every time he strolled out of the yard gate toward Major Mojiaoshan, the highest point in the center of the Ancient City, he felt as if he could talk to the ancients. He often wondered where Liangzhu people lived in the Ancient City, where they held ceremonies, how the navigation was conducted, where the wharfs were located, and how the construction of the heaped platform was carried out. He keeps hypothesizing and keeps proving. In light of more and more clues and signs, we correct our own understandings and give birth to new understandings.

© Zhejiang University Press 2023 X. Zhu, The Realm of King and God, Liangzhu Civilization, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9515-6

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Octagonal pavilion workstation of Liangzhu archaeological team

Workstation covered in winter snow of early 2018

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The courtyard full of cats and dogs, a powerful army

The three siblings of the orange-cat family

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The sunset glow at workstation

The heavy snow around our workstation

Today, the archaeological team has been stationed in the new archaeology and protection center of Liangzhu site, located outside the south gate of the Ancient City.

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With the new office, the new laboratory, the new dormitory, and the new warehouse, this brand-new workstation is more conducive to the development of daily work, and it is more convenient to do the cooperative research and exchange visit activities here. However, the archaeological team workers miss the small courtyard at the original site, although it’s very inconvenient to get in and out there, sometimes water is cut off and power shut down. Perhaps, this is a little sense of nostalgia of the archaeological workers.