The Liangzhu Ruins in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, show the Liangzhu Culture, which was active between 5,300 and 4,300 years ago. This culture is considered to be the earliest state form in East Asia and testifies to the 5,000-year Chinese civilization.

  On July 6, 2022, with the opening of the Laohuling Ruins Park in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, this marked the completion of the "last display board" of Liangzhu Ancient City. Together with the park, it constitutes a complete display system of the world heritage value of Liangzhu Ancient City.

  The column "Beauty of Civilization Seeing the East" launched by The Paper, Ancient Art recently visited some Liangzhu sites in Zhejiang and Shanghai.

  The Liangzhu Culture is an archaeological culture in the late Neolithic Age in the Taihu Lake Basin in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in my country.

Measured by carbon fourteen, 5300-4300 years ago.

The Liangzhu Culture evolved from the Majiabang Culture 7,000 years ago and the Songze Culture 6,000 years ago, with distinct characteristics of the Yangtze River Basin.

The Liangzhu culture has developed rice farming, advanced handicrafts, unified religious beliefs, and left behind a variety of relics such as grand palaces, ancient cities, and the world's earliest water conservancy system, which proves that an early country has emerged here.

It has been more than 80 years since the discovery of the Liangzhu site.

Newly displayed water conservancy system outside the ancient city

  The peripheral water conservancy system of Liangzhu Ancient City is the earliest large-scale water conservancy system discovered so far in China, and the earliest flood-damping dam project discovered so far in the world.

The Laohuling Dam belongs to the Gukou high dam system of the peripheral water conservancy system of Liangzhu Ancient City.

On July 6, 2022, the Laohuling Ruins Park in Hangzhou, Zhejiang was opened, which also represented the world's earliest dyke system to meet the public.

  According to Wang Ningyuan, a researcher at the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the head of the Liangzhu Ancient City and Water Conservancy System Archaeology Project, the opening of Laohuling Ruins Park marks the completion of the "last display board" of Liangzhu Ancient City. The museum, Liangzhu Ancient City Ruins Park and Yaoshan Ruins Park together constitute a complete display system of the world heritage value of Liangzhu Ancient City.

  It is reported that Laohuling Ruins Park is located in Penggong Village, Pingyao Town.

During the construction process, the original appearance of the dam and its surrounding ecosystems was maintained to the greatest extent possible.

As the earliest known large-scale water conservancy system in China and the world's earliest flood-damping dam project, the Laohuling Site Park of the water conservancy system outside the ancient city of Liangzhu is the only site in the Liangzhu site that displays the cross-sectional structure of the water conservancy system.

  The Laohuling Dam belongs to the Gukou high dam system of the peripheral water conservancy system of Liangzhu Ancient City. The dam is 140 meters long and more than 100 meters wide.

At present, the main display is the section of the Laohuling Dam site. It has been confirmed by archaeology that the section here has an obvious structure of grass and mud, and its paving method is staggered.

The reason for using straw-wrapped mud is the same as the straw bags used for water conservancy repairs. Increase tensile strength, not easy to collapse... It fully reflects the ability of Liangzhu ancestors to understand and utilize the seasonal changes of water level and the characteristics of plant materials.

  In 2019, the ruins of the ancient city of Liangzhu were successfully included in the World Heritage List. The overall value of the heritage is combined by the city site, peripheral water conservancy system, graded cemeteries (including altars) and unearthed artifacts represented by Liangzhu jade artifacts. bear.

Liangzhu Ancient City Ruins

  Liangzhu Ancient City Ruins is the capital of Liangzhu Culture and the center of Liangzhu Ruins.

The Paper learned that Liangzhu Ancient City Ruins Park is a park built on the original site of Liangzhu Ancient City. It shows the audience the three-fold centripetal structure of Liangzhu Ancient City - the palace area, the inner city and the outer city.

  Wang Gang, general manager of Liangzhu Ancient City Culture and Tourism Group, told The Paper, "The entire ancient city site is an earthen site. So after the archaeological excavation, we covered the ancient city with soil. Because the appearance of the site after being covered with soil is not good, we chose Plants are used for display, and plants are used to identify different areas. During the whole process of protection and display, we mainly do it with the concept of protecting the site. The advantage of covering the original soil site with plants is that it interferes with the cultural layer of the site. smaller."

  There are a total of 9 city gates in the inner city of Liangzhu Ancient City, including 8 Shuicheng Gates and 1 Lucheng Gate.

The park marks the location of the city gate with specific sculptures.

The only Lucheng Gate is located in the middle of the southern city wall, consisting of 3 independent platforms and 4 doorways in the east, middle and west.

Visitors enter the inner city from the footpath of Luchengmen.

  The inner city of the ancient city site is enclosed by four walls.

The ridge of earth ridges meandering in the wilderness forms the city wall enclosed on all four sides of the inner city.

It is reported that the perimeter of the city wall is nearly 6,000 meters, the relative height of the existing better sections is about 4 meters, and the general residual height is about 2 meters.

Wang Gang told reporters, "In the entire ancient city, part of the southern city wall is really exposed, and the section of the city wall shows the structure of the city wall."

  The palace area is located in the center of the city site, and the terrain is the highest. With the help of mounds and slopes, it is more than 10 meters above the surface, forming a large-scale platform of 30 hectares, including the Mojiaoshan platform, the Huangfenshan platform and the Chizhongsi platform, with an area of ​​39 hectares.

There are three independent Damojiao Mountains, Xiaomojiao Mountains and Wugui Mountain terraces and sand squares, large granaries and 35 house foundations built in the palace area.

Now, at the highest point of the Mojiao Mountain platform, you can see the sand table of Liangzhu Ancient City specially built by the park, and on the side is the house foundation marked with different colors of soil, showing the layout of the houses in the Liangzhu Palace District.

  Not far from the palace area, there is a display of the anti-shan ruins.

In 1986, archaeologists from the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology discovered the cemetery of the royal family during the Liangzhu Culture period not far from the west side of Mojiao Mountain. "Anti-Mountain King Mausoleum".

Archaeologists have cleaned up 11 tombs of Liangzhu Culture in an orderly arrangement within an area of ​​more than 600 square meters. Except for 2 tombs that were damaged due to external factors, the remaining 9 are well preserved.

The burial includes more than 1,200 pieces (groups) of precious cultural relics such as jade, stone, ivory, and jade-inlaid lacquerware.

Among them, jade wares accounted for more than 90%. The quantity, high specification and exquisite craftsmanship were not seen in other Liangzhu cultural relics at that time, and it is difficult to compare until today.

  It is reported that the heritage area of ​​Liangzhu Ancient City Site is about 14.33 square kilometers, and the buffer area is about 99.8 square kilometers.

Since the opening of the Liangzhu Ruins Park in 2019, in October 2021, the Yaoshan Ruins Park, located about 5 kilometers northeast of the ancient city of Liangzhu, was officially opened to the audience.

  The Yaoshan site is built on natural hills, including an altar and a group of high-grade cemeteries. The known burial area is about 300 square meters, and the altar area is about 800 square meters.

It was built around 3300 BC, belonging to the early Liangzhu culture.

The Yaoshan site has the structural characteristics of an altar and tomb, and the altar was built before the cemetery.

The top surface of the altar at the Yaoshan site is square, facing north-south. From the inside to the outside, there is a triple structure of laterite platform, lime-soil enclosing ditch and gravel surface. Color difference.

  Regarding the future archaeological planning of Liangzhu, Wang Ningyuan, a researcher at the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the head of the Liangzhu Ancient City and Water Conservancy System Archaeology Project, told reporters that he hoped to use new technologies to find more structural areas in recent years.

"Because we are not sure whether the large structure of Liangzhu is completely within the protected area, we need to find the surrounding sites. At present, we suspect that there may also be an ancient city in Liangzhu Town in the east, which also needs to be confirmed. In the ancient city of Liangzhu , we will do some fine work. Many places in the ancient city have not yet been excavated, and we will gradually study the functions and historical changes in the ancient city."

Liangzhu ruins around the ancient city

  Of course, the site of Liangzhu Culture is not only the ancient city of Liangzhu.

The Liangzhu culture is widely distributed, mainly in the Taihu Lake Basin, with the sea in the east, Qiantang River in the south, Maoshan Mountain, Yili Mountains and Tianmu Mountains in the west, and the Yangtze River in the north, covering an area of ​​more than 36,000 square kilometers.

The excavation of these sites is not only the map of Liangzhu Culture, but also the archaeological history of Liangzhu Culture.

  From the 1960s to the early 1980s, experts carried out a series of archaeological excavations in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai for the Liangzhu culture.

In 1973, during the excavation of the Caoxieshan site in Wuxian County, Jiangsu Province, for the first time, ritual objects such as jade cong and jade bi were unearthed in typical Liangzhu culture tombs, and Liangzhu jade objects, long regarded as "Zhou and Han ancient jade", were returned to the Neolithic. The chronological coordinates of the Liangzhu culture of the era.

  The excavated sites such as Zhangling Mountain in Wuxian County, Sidun in Wujin and Fuquan Mountain in Qingpu in Shanghai further confirmed the inseparable connection between jade and Liangzhu culture, and enriched people's understanding of Liangzhu culture.

In 1981, the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology established the Wujiabu Workstation, conducted two purposeful archaeological surveys in Liangzhu, Pingyao towns and Anxi Township, and discovered more than 30 prehistoric sites. The distribution of Liangzhu sites in the region has a basic understanding, but the concept of Liangzhu sites has not been proposed at this stage, and its particularity and importance have not been recognized.

  Since the mid-1980s, archaeologists from the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology have successively discovered Fanshan cemeteries in Liangzhu and Pingyao areas, altars and cemeteries in Yaoshan and Huiguan Mountains, and the foundations of giant buildings in Mojiao Mountain. Tangshan "Tuyuan" and other large-scale sites, as well as more than 100 Liangzhu cultural sites and cemeteries.

Together, they constitute a group of sites with dense distribution, many types and high specifications.

The discovery and excavation of the above sites not only gave people a new understanding of the Liangzhu site, but also pushed the study of Liangzhu culture to a new climax, and the Liangzhu site has since become the center of Liangjie culture research.

From 1997 to 2002, Liangzhu Workstation organized forces to conduct a comprehensive survey of the site, increasing the number of sites within the site from more than 50 to 135, including Miaoqian, Tangshan, Yaojiadun, Wenjiashan, Bian. The excavation of different types of important sites such as Jiashan has improved people's further understanding of the Liangzhu culture and the scope of the site.

So far, experts' exploration of the Liangzhu site is still going on.

  Recently, staged results of archaeological excavations at the Zhelin site in Fengxian, Shanghai have preliminarily confirmed that the Zhelin site was a small settlement near the sea during the Liangzhu culture.

It is reported that the Zhelin site, as a small seaside settlement site in the eastern part of the Taihu Lake Basin, is located on the ancient coastline.

The tombs discovered so far are arranged in an orderly manner, the human bones are well preserved, and the burial objects are rich, adding new materials for the study of the settlement structure and social form of Liangzhu culture.

Display and dissemination of Liangzhu culture

  A few kilometers southeast of Liangzhu Ancient City Ruins Park is the Liangzhu Museum.

As a window to show the Liangzhu site and Liangzhu culture, the importance of the Liangzhu Museum is self-evident.

  As early as 1994, the Liangzhu Cultural Museum was completed. In 2008, the Liangzhu Cultural Museum was conceptually designed by the British design firm David Chipperfield. Falling on the earth" design concept, it was rebuilt into the Liangzhu Museum.

After 2010, under the planning of Gao Menghe, a professor of the Department of Cultural Relics and Museology at Fudan University, the Liangzhu Museum has been remodeled again.

  The Liangzhu Museum currently has three exhibition halls: "Water Town and Zeguo", "Civilization Holy Land", and "Jade Soul and National Soul".

Walking into the museum, you can see the combination of physical exhibits and auxiliary exhibits: bamboo rafts and canoes used by Liangzhu ancestors, Liangzhu ancestors were made of wood, dressed in animal skins, and surrounded by bonfire scenes. One by one is presented in front of the audience; in the second exhibition hall, there are 3D printed houses, villages, and reproductions of tomb pits of Liangzhu culture, which restore the Liangzhu civilization with multi-angle display.

  Jade ware is one of the most prominent material achievements of the Liangzhu ancient city site, reflecting the superb art of Liangzhu culture in terms of quantity, volume, type and craftsmanship.

Among them, the most representative are Cong, Bi and Yue.

Among the exquisite ornaments on jade wares, the god-human-beast-face pattern is the most distinctive ornament of Liangzhu culture jade. Generally, the upper part is the image of a man wearing a feather crest, the middle is the face of a beast with round eyes and fangs, and the lower part is the sharp claws of birds. .

Through several different techniques such as relief, openwork and inscription, it is basically found on all the shapes of unearthed jade wares. It has been found in the ancient city site of Liangzhu and other Liangzhu cultural sites, and the shape is fixed. It should be Liangzhu people. The highest status and the only deity worshiped together in our hearts signified that the society at that time had a highly consistent spiritual belief.

In the center of the exhibition hall, the audience can see the "three major pieces" of Cong, Bi and Yue displayed separately.

  The responsibility of the Liangzhu Museum is to promote the dissemination of Liangzhu culture.

In recent years, the museum has launched a series of exhibitions, including the Palace Museum's "Liangzhu and Ancient China - An Exhibition of Five Thousand Years of Civilization Displayed by Jade Artifacts", which also appeared at the second CIIE.

In addition, the Liangzhu culture is also displayed through digital means, so as to promote the live display of Liangzhu culture and increase the affinity and penetrating power of Liangzhu culture.

  Regarding the planning of the museum, Xu Tianjin, director of the Liangzhu Museum, said in a recent interview, "We must focus on Liangzhu, and we must continue to introduce new things, and we must combine those related to Liangzhu and do some new content."

  When talking about the ideal of a museum in his mind, Xu Tianjin said, "All archaeological pictures and photos should be there. This museum can be like a library, and an ordinary person can borrow and read. We should have such a place. , education is also needed, research is also needed, social sharing is also needed, and cultural creativity is even more needed. This will also have relatively high requirements on the quality of the public. It will take a long process of development.”

  (Part of the content of this article refers to the relevant information of the Management Committee of the Liangzhu Site Management Area in Hangzhou and previous reports by The Paper)