The Three Gorges area on the Yangtze has long attracted
international attention as the site of the world's biggest ever
hydropower project. Now the eyes of the world are turning towards
the massive rescue operation necessary to save the area’s many
cultural relics before they are lost below the rising waters. The
work of heritage protection is turning out to be the largest of its
kind worldwide in its own right.
Literally thousands of pottery, lacquer-work and bronze-ware
artifacts have been unearthed at the Three Gorges. They demonstrate
an unbroken chain of cultural development stretching right back to
those distant days of the Old Stone Age.
By June 2003 the waters will have crept up to 135 meters above
sea level. Back in June 2000, the State Council's, Three Gorges
Project Construction Committee approved a massive rescue operation
to save the important archaeological sites below the 135 meter
mark. The committee allocated a full 1 billion yuan (about US$125
million) to fund the Three Gorges Relics Rescue Program. This makes
provision for the protection of 1,074 historical sites and relics
in the area prior to the completion of the Three Gorges Dam
scheduled in 2009.
This major project has seen nearly 100 archaeological teams
drawn from over 20 provinces and cities in China. They have
actually been working day and night at some 120 of the sites. They
have taken on the Herculean task of covering a tract of land more
than 660 Km long soon to disappear below the waters of the
reservoir.
Most of the archaeological work at important historical sites
situated below the 135-meter waterline has already been completed.
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 50,000 more
commonplace artifacts for future generations.
Now the archaeologists are turning their attention to sites at
higher levels up to the eventual 175 meter mark. They are planning
the relocation and protection of 100 or so endangered sites of
historical importance such as the 1,700-year-old Zhang Fei Temple.
It was originally constructed in honor of General Zhang Fei during
the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280) on the southern bank of the
Yangtze River in today’s Yunyang County. It is being moved brick by
brick to a new higher site. Another prime example is Shibao Village
on the northern bank of the Yangtze River in Zhong County. Built in
the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and dubbed the world’s most complex
wooden structure, it is being encircled by a protective dyke to
hold back the rising waters.
Archaeological discoveries in recent years have shown for the
fist time that the Three Gorges area should be recognized as the
birthplace of Chinese civilization. This serves well to explain
both the significance of and the necessity for the world’s largest
cultural relics protection project now well under way there.
Discoveries of several sites of the Old Stone Age 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 with
origins around 5,000 years ago together with early Neolithic
remains dating back 7,000 years or so in areas of the Ba and Shu
peoples. Such discoveries have laid a solid foundation for an
understanding of development in the Three Gorges during those far
off proto-historic times, just before the historical record
begins.
In addition, archaeologists have made unexpected discoveries in
Zhong County, Chongqing Municipality. There they found artifacts
attributable to the Daxi, Qujialing and Shijiahe cultures that were
once widely distributed over Hubei and Hunan provinces. These
demonstrate that the people who lived in the Three Gorges area in
prehistoric times had already carved out a cultural corridor with
links to other ancient cultures spread along the Yellow River and
Yangtze River valleys.
The now long-gone Ba people were an ethnic group noted for their
valor, singing and dancing. They lived in the Three Gorges area
during the times of the Xia (2100-1600 BC), Shang (1600-1100 BC)
and Zhou (1100-221 BC) dynasties. The secrets of their magnificent
culture have long remained a mystery in the pages of Chinese
history. But now the latest archaeological findings from over 100
relic sites and tombs left by the Ba people have revealed an
uninterrupted cultural sequence from the Shang Dynasty down to the
Warring States Period (475-221 BC). Bronze-ware in large
quantities, architecture, smelting remains and kilns unearthed from
archaeological sites including Shuangyantang in Wushan County,
Shaopengzui in Zhong County and Lijiaba in Yunyang County are
opening the door to serious research into the mysterious Ba
Culture.
All this is indicative of a new wealth of archaeological
findings filling the gaps in our understanding of the past in the
Three Gorges area. A host of city sites, settlements, graves,
buildings, kilns and agricultural remains belonging to the Qin
(221-206 BC) and Han (206 BC-220 AD) dynasties have furnished
abundant evidence of environmental changes and the founding of
ancient civilizations in the Three Gorges area.
Significant clues to the colorful lifestyles of people in
ancient times have come to light in the form of their cultural
relics. These have included the Han Dynasty stone reliefs that
served to decorate ancient tombs, bamboo writing slips, statues of
the Buddha, stone carvings erected in front of temples or tombs and
Chinese chessmen.
In addition, a number of important architectural discoveries
such as buildings from the Shang and Zhou dynasties in Wanzhou,
Chongqing Municipality and city sites of the Song Dynasty
(960-1279) in Badong County and Fengjie County have contributed
significantly to the study of ancient cities in China.
There is something that stirs the soul about this race against
time to save the memory of the ancient peoples of Three Gorges.
Many advanced techniques have been applied in the huge project to
rescue their cultural relics. These have included
thermoluminescence, accelerator mass spectrometry and
energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence. Digital technology has also
been brought into play to support field excavations in the
reservoir area and fieldwork management software has facilitated
the handling and sharing of archaeological data.
The measures for the protection of the famous carved low-water
markers at Baiheliang (White Crane Ridge) are both unique and
technically demanding.
Baiheliang is a 1600-meter-long rock formation lying in the
Yangtze River to the west of Fuling City. Its hydrological
inscriptions dating back some 1,200 years have led the United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)
to recognize it as “the world’s only well-preserved ancient
hydrological station”.
Experts from the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy
of Social Sciences used resilient ethyl silicate for the first time
to reinforce the carved stone and adopted high-tech materials such
as polyester adhesive-bonded fabric to protect the inscriptions
from erosion.
Specialists also designed a computer-aided three-dimensional
model of the carved stone so that the different preservation plans
that had been proposed could be better evaluated and compared.
Inspired by the design concept of an on-site unpressurized
viewing facility, some experts put forward a plan to construct an
ancient hydrological museum below the new water level at Baiheliang
itself. This was most highly thought of by the parties concerned.
Now the idea of the underwater museum has been accepted unanimously
and work is already moving forward into the planning and
implementation phases.
(China.org.cn, translated by Shao Da, April 9, 2003)