The half century or so since the founding of the People's Republic
of China in 1949 has seen unprecedented economic development. And
hand in hand with the major construction projects have gone
tremendous achievements in archaeological fieldwork. Historic
treasures that might have been lost have instead been saved for
future generations.
1955 saw a major project to harness the Huaihe River. It was
accompanied by the discovery of the burial of Marquis Cai. Dating
back to the later years of the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476
BC), the tomb turned out to be a treasure trove of ancient
bronze-ware. It was to add much to the body of knowledge on the
history and culture of the remote days of the Dukedom of Cai.
Alongside the construction of the Sanmen Gorge Reservoir on the
Yellow River, archaeologists excavated the Shangcunling site in
Sanmenxia city, Henan Province between 1956 and 1957. Their find of
a burial ground from the time of the Dukedom of Guo in the early
years of the Spring and Autumn Period helped unveil the
long-standing mysteries of this ancient kingdom.
Over 30 years' of archaeological surveys and excavations in the
Danjiangkou Reservoir area in Hubei Province have produced a wealth
of important finds. The area has yielded 23 ancient cultural sites
and some 200 tombs. There were finds of fossilized dinosaur eggs
over 60 million years old and the sensational Paleolithic Yunxian
skull dating back allegedly 800,000 years.
Other discoveries have included a major graveyard used by the
nobility of the State of Chu in the Warring States Period (475-221
BC), an imperial clan cemetery of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and a
major complex of buildings from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) in Mt.
Wudang. These finds have resulted in many academic publications
such as The Xiawanggang Site in Xichuan County, Henan
Province, Graves of the Spring and Autumn Period at Xiasi
Site in Xichuang County, Henan Province and The Yunxian
Man. One particular success has been the re-location of a stone
built palace from the Yongle era of the Ming Dynasty in Mt. Wudang
to a higher site.
The discovery of a number of important sites was associated with
the construction of the Xiaolangdi Reservoir on the Yellow River in
the 1980s. These included the ancient city of Yuanqu in Shanxi
Province. This was only the fifth townsite of the early Shang
Dynasty (about 16th-11th centuries BC) ever to be found in China.
Then there were Neolithic settlement sites in Bancun, Zhouli and
Yandong, all in Henan Province. Here the detailed investigations
were to mark a change in emphasis away from a more traditional
archaeology based on classifying artifacts according to their shape
and the levels at which they were unearthed in favor of a
reconstruction of primitive settlement patterns.
2001 was a good year for archaeological discoveries linked to
modern building works:
- Major construction works in Henan Province produced the
foundations of a palace and extensive rammed earth ruins belonging
to Shangyang the ancient capital of the Dukedom of Guo.
- Digs at sites dated from the Later Tang (923-936) in the time
of the Five Dynasties (907-960), through to the Qing (1644-1911)
came as the result of site excavation works covering some 1,900
square meters in Shijiazhuang city, Hebei Province.
- At a construction site in Chengdu city, Sichuan Province, the
workers were amazed to find themselves uncovering countless ivory,
stone, jade and bronze artifacts. Nine months of careful
archaeology were to provide a glimpse into the life and times of
the inhabitants of the ancient city of Jinsha. According to the
historians, some 3,000 years ago Jinsha may have been the political
and cultural center of the State of Shu, a regional kingdom on
southwest China's Chengdu Plain. The discovery ranked among China's
top ten archaeological finds for that year.
- In Xingtai city, Hebei Province pieces of pottery and bronze
farm implements from Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) burials, shed new
light on the development of agriculture and pottery firing
techniques of that period.
The following year, 2002 was to bring further discoveries:
- Tombs from the Warring States Period with their delicate bronze
mirrors and fine examples of the ceremonial jade bi (that
carved Chinese discus with its pierced center, so often used as a
symbol of power in antiquity) together with copper seals and gilt
iron buckles.
- At the beginning of the year, when the civil engineers started
work on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the archaeologists got on track
too. Following the route of what will be world's highest and
longest railroad, they carried out a three month survey on the
Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. They found microlithic artifacts between
10,000 and 30,000 years old and a group of 1,000 year old graves.
The discoveries are expected to provide a significant missing link
in the understanding of that ancient crescent of emerging cultural
development that once ran all the way from Hailar in Inner Mongolia
to Nyalam in Tibet.
- In April a project to extend Exhibition Hall Road in Changsha
city, Hunan Province was to result in the discovery of the largest
Chu grave ever found in the area. The rich find of over 100 ancient
artifacts included jade, bronze and pottery relics together with
lacquer-ware worked on both bamboo and wood. Most strikingly of all
the finds was a bronze spear. The surface of the bronze is
embellished with a diamond pattern virtually identical to previous
finds from the Wu and Yue. These ancient states were in the region
of present day Zhejiang, Jiangsu and southern Shandong provinces.
The new find demonstrates that this remarkable alloying technology
was widely known as early as 2,500 years ago.
- In July during the construction of the Heluo Center Square in
Luoyang city, Henan Province no fewer than 279 Eastern Zhou Dynasty
(770-256 BC) graves were discovered together with 10 chariot pits.
So far on this 6,000 square meter site 19 small tombs have been
excavated together with two aristocratic burials each with a
passage leading to the coffin chamber. A chariot pit on a truly
grand scale has also been excavated. At over 40 meters long and 5.6
meters wide it is the largest ever found in this ancient capital.
The finds are of significant value to the study of the burial
customs of the period.
- Also in July 2002, road construction workers found a Western
Han Dynasty (206 BC-AD 25) tomb in Lianyungang city, Jiangsu
Province. For 2,000 years it had been the unseen resting-place of
what would become only the third Han Dynasty mummy ever to come to
light. The two previous finds were in Changsha, Hunan Province and
Jingzhou, Hubei Province. These were both south of the Yangtze, but
the new mummy is to the north of the demarcating line of the river
adding to the air of mystery that surrounds the mummification
practices of ancient China.
Over the years archaeology has often benefited from being closely
coordinated with construction works. Other good examples from the
1980s and 1990s are the well known excavations of Han graves at
Mawangdui in Changsha, Hunan, the Western Han tomb of King Nanyue
in Guangzhou, Guangdong and the ruins of the Yuan Dynasty
(1279-1368) city gate in Beijing.
Since work began on the Three Gorges area on the Yangtze River it
has attracted the attention of the world as the world's largest
hydropower project. Now the work of heritage protection running
alongside construction is also attracting worldwide interest in its
own right as it too has turned out to be the biggest ever of its
kind.
By
June 10, 2003 the water level in the Three Gorges Reservoir had
risen on schedule from its downstream starting level of 66 meters
above sea level to the 135 meter mark. Back in June 2000, the State
Council's Three Gorges Project Construction Committee had approved
a massive rescue operation to save the important archaeological
sites lying below the 135 meter level.
Over the past five years, at some 120 sites, nearly 100
archaeological teams drawn from over 20 provinces and cities in
China have taken on the Herculean task of covering a tract of land
more than 660 km long before it disappeared below the waters of the
reservoir. An area of some 5 million square meters has been
investigated and of this, more than 1 million square meters have
been excavated. The work has saved some 6,000 precious relics and
another 50,000 artifacts of a more commonplace nature for the
benefit of future generations.
Discoveries of several Old Stone Age sites at Gaojiazhen and
Yandunbao in 1999 pushed back the known dates of Paleolithic
culture at the Three Gorges from 50,000 to 100,000 years ago.
Recent work has also revealed more than 80 settlement sites
established around 5,000 years ago together with early Neolithic
remains at the Yuxi site in Fengdu County, Chongqing Municipality,
which date back some 7,000 years or so.
At
the Shaopengzui site in Zhongxian County, Chongqing Municipality,
archaeologists found artifacts attributable to the Daxi, Qujialing
and Shijiahe cultures. These had once been widely distributed over
Hubei and Hunan provinces. The finds demonstrate that the
prehistoric inhabitants of the Three Gorges area had already carved
out a cultural corridor with links to other ancient peoples spread
along the Yellow River and Yangtze River valleys.
The now long-gone Ba people were an ethnic group living in the
Three Gorges area during the times of the Xia (c.21st-16th
centuries BC), Shang (c.16th-11th centuries BC) and Zhou
(c.1100-221 BC) dynasties. The latest archaeological findings from
over 100 relic-sites and tombs left by the Ba have revealed an
uninterrupted cultural sequence stretching from the Shang down to
the Warring States Period (475-221 BC). The door has now been
opened for some serious research into the mysterious Ba
Culture.
Other important discoveries in the Three Gorges reservoir area have
included:
- Shang and Zhou city sites in Wuling Town, Wanzhou County,
Chongqing Municipality.
- Eastern Zhou buildings at the narrows of the Xiling Gorge.
- Western Han bamboo writing slips unearthed at the Jiuxianping
site in Yunyang County, Chongqing Municipality.
- Han Dynasty (206 BC-220) stone reliefs which served to decorate
ancient tombs at the Mafentuo site in Yunyang County, Chongqing
Municipality.
- Han stone statues of the Buddha at Caofanggou site in Wanzhou
County, Chongqing Municipality.
- Han stone carvings, which stood in front of the temples and
tombs at the Wuyang site in Zhongxian County, Chongqing
Municipality.
- Chinese chessmen from the Han and from the Wei (220-265) which
followed, at the Laoguanqiu site in Wanzhou County, Chongqing
Municipality.
- A city site of the Song (960-1279) in Badong County, Hubei
Province.
- Another Song city site in Fengjie County, Chongqing
Municipality.
Thus like so many other major construction projects in China, the
mighty Three Gorges Project has been accompanied by important
archaeological discoveries. The finds have furnished a wealth of
evidence about long gone environmental changes and the founding of
ancient civilizations in an area now slipping beneath the rising
waters.
(China.org.cn, translated by Shao Da, July 1, 2003)