During the Spring Festival, the Baoji Bronze Ware Museum, known as the House of Bronze Ware, held the first exhibition of historical relics discovered in the Zhou Gong Temple site in recent years. There were various newly-excavated precious pieces, including inscribed tortoise shells.
The Shaanxi Zhouyuan area was the birthplace of the Zhou civilization (1121 B.C. to 249 B.C.). Since the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. to 220 A.D.), tens of thousands bronze pieces have been unearthed in Zhouyuan. This area, known as Home of the Bronze Ware, leads the country in the number of West Zhou (1121 B.C. to 771 B.C.) bronze ware excavated.
In 2004, the Zhougong Temple excavation team, composed of archaeologists from the School of Archaeology and Museology of Peking University and Shaanxi Archaeological Research Institute, began a large-scale archaeological survey, drilling exploration and rescue excavations on the Zhougong Temple site. They have discovered 22 West Zhou graves of high-ranking aristocrats, bronze ware mills, more than 700 pieces of bones and tortoise shells, and nearly 500 inscribed characters.
The exhibition displayed three pieces of bones and tortoise shells recently unearthed at the Zhou Gong Temple site. These bones and shells have more than 30 inscribed characters. Also on exhibition are bronze pots, bronze lances and bronze goblets with beautiful unique decorative lines. Organizers said the exhibition was an experiment in exploring new ways of combining archaeological work with relics exhibitions.
(Chinanews.com February 21, 2005)
