Located at the eastern foot of Taihang Mountain, the Xiaotun Village area in Anyang, Henan Province is where the Yin Ruins are located.
The Shang Dynasty established its capital here more than 3,300 years ago. With the demise of the Shang Dynasty, the Shang capital was gradually abandoned and turned into ruins and submerged underground. It was called the Yin Ruins in history.
Traveling westward for more than 20 kilometers from Yin Ruins, you will see undulating mountains. The low hills extending from the foothills are like the outstretched arms of the Taihang Mountains, forming a skip-shaped basin. Yin Ruins is located at the exit of the basin, facing the endless plains of northern Henan. .
Yin Ruins is also nestled against the Huanhe River, a small water system in northern China.
As the first capital site of the late Shang Dynasty in Chinese history with documented documents and confirmed by archaeological excavations, Yin Ruins is also the ancient capital site with the longest archaeological excavation time, the most frequency, and the largest area in China.
Standing on the banks of the Huan River and looking around, people see a glorious and magnificent civilization.
In the Yin Ruins, the prosperous urban civilization, the complete civilization of rituals and music, the world-famous oracle bone inscriptions, and the highly developed handicraft industry jointly constructed the splendid era of early China; The beautifully decorated carriage is a vivid interpretation of the Yin Shang civilization more than 3,300 years ago.
Walking into the new Yinxu Museum, the high wall standing in front of you is engraved with the nine characters "Gou Ri Xin, Day Day Xin, and Day Xin". This sentence comes from the motto on the soup plate of the founding king of the Shang Dynasty. It shows visitors the history of a nation since ancient times. Today’s innovative stance.
Tang, which means Tang, is the founding monarch of the Shang Dynasty. The inscription is a motto engraved on the utensils to warn oneself.
"This sentence is a motto carved on the bathtub by Shang Tang. It means that if you can get rid of the old and renew every day, you must persevere and remind yourself to reflect in time and constantly innovate." Li Xiaoyang, director of the Anyang Municipal Cultural Relics Bureau, said that the ancients bathed themselves and Yude, this is an innovative gesture.
"The Shang Dynasty was a very innovative dynasty. It was precisely because of the continuous innovation and inclusiveness of Yin merchants that the Yin Ruins reached the glorious stage of the early civilization of the Chinese nation." said He Yuling, deputy director of the Anyang Work Station of the Institute of Archeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
The innovation, enterprising and eclectic nature of Yin merchants are increasingly confirmed by archeology.
In the museum, a large number of bronze wares unearthed from the Yin Ruins are on display. Various wares are exquisitely made and decorated, representing the level of the heyday of China's Bronze Age.
In the great Shang Civilization Exhibition Hall, a Simu Xin tripod with four legs and two ears is particularly eye-catching.
This is the largest bronze vessel in the collection of the Yinxu Museum. The inner wall of the tripod is engraved with the inscription "Simu Xin" on one side. It was a tripod made by the son of Queen Fuhao of the Shang Dynasty in memory of her.
"The Yin merchants inherited the Xia technology in bronze casting, and through innovation and improvement, they developed the block mold method, making the mold closing technology more complex, the casting shapes more diverse, and the cast bronzes larger in size. In addition, in the bronze decoration , created Kui dragon patterns, bird patterns and other patterns, and pioneered expression methods such as ground patterns, three-dimensional animal heads, and multi-layered patterns, which together formed complex and gorgeous bronze decorations and formed the bronze civilization in its heyday." Executive Director of Yinxu Museum Deputy Director Zhao Qingrong said.
In the special exhibition hall of carriage and horse relics, 23 carriages are lined up in sequence. This is the earliest carriage unearthed in China. Traveling through more than 3,000 years of time, you can get a glimpse of the magnificent scene of the carriages and horses.
He Yuling introduced that according to oracle bone inscriptions and existing archaeological excavations, horse-drawn carriages had been widely used in transportation, military and sacrificial activities in the late Shang Dynasty. The popularity of horse-drawn carriages in the late Shang Dynasty could not have appeared suddenly, but must have occurred after a long period of technological accumulation.
"The horse-drawn carriage was an important means of transportation in the world's ancient civilizations. Merchants learned the horse-drawn carriage manufacturing technology, adapted to local conditions, exerted their innovative spirit, and carried it forward. They were used for travel and war, which greatly improved productivity and the combat effectiveness of the army." He Yuling said, The carriages unearthed at Yin Ruins have used many bronze components, and their structures are exquisite and complex, fully demonstrating the machinery, bronze casting and other technologies of the time.
"Yin merchants also created a mature writing system, which was engraved on oracle bones, cast on bronzes, and written on jade, which has been passed down to this day," Zhao Qingrong said.
In the "Who is the Son - Special Exhibition of Oracle Bones in the East District of Yinxu Garden", many oracle bone inscriptions are displayed for the first time, allowing people to see the daily life of a young prince from the Shang Dynasty.
It can be clearly seen from the records of oracle bone inscriptions that Yin merchants could also record solar eclipses, lunar eclipses and astrological phenomena, and formed early astronomical concepts, astronomical observation and calendar compilation to guide life and production.
"It was this continuous power of innovation that enabled the Shang Dynasty to eventually develop into a large-scale merchant with a vast territory." Zhao Qingrong said that the innovative spirit and rich practices in the Yin Shang culture are exactly the innovation and innovation in the excellent traditional Chinese culture. The spiritual source of advancing with the times and being proactive.
According to Xinhuanet
From "a piece of oracle bone" to the underground ancient city
On February 26, 2024, the new Yin Xu Museum will be opened to the public.
The exhibition hall of the new museum covers an area of 22,000 square meters, and displays nearly 4,000 pieces (sets) of oracle bones, bronzes, pottery, jades and other cultural relics. The large number and rich types rank among the largest cultural relics exhibitions of the Shang Dynasty in China, with a quarter of them Artifacts with three or more items are on display for the first time.
As the first capital site of the late Shang Dynasty in the history of our country with documented documents and confirmed by archaeological excavations and oracle bone inscriptions, the Yin Ruins are an important microcosm of the Shang Dynasty civilization more than 3,000 years ago.
What is currently foreseeable is that in another four years, by 2028, a special exhibition of unprecedented scale will be held in this museum.
Because that will be the 100th anniversary of this "holy land" of Chinese archeology.
Chinese archeology is rooted in the Yin Ruins.
The gray line of grass and snakes lies thousands of miles to Yinxu
Xiaotun Village in Anyang, Henan Province is a residential area that has gradually formed since the Ming Dynasty.
There were only a few households at first, but by the late Qing Dynasty, the number had only grown to dozens.
When local farmers plow their fields, they often find tortoise shells or animal bones engraved with strange symbols in the soil.
Some of the tortoise shells or animal bones were sold to Chinese medicine shops as medicinal materials.
In 1899, the last year of the 19th century, several such oracle bones were accidentally discovered by Wang Yirong, an official of the Qing Dynasty (he was suffering from malaria and went to get medicine). He suspected that the symbols carved on these tortoise shells or animal bones were some kind of ancient writing.
But he failed to find the origin of the oracle bones immediately.
Later, due to the huge profits from selling oracle bones, merchants deliberately concealed the location where the oracle bones were found.
It was not until 1908 that, through careful investigation by the famous scholar Luo Zhenyu, it was finally discovered that the oracle bones were unearthed from "Binhuan's Xiaotun", which is Xiaotun Village in Anyang, Henan.
Since then, the Yin Ruins ruins have been known to Chinese academic circles for the first time.
As a city in the late Shang Dynasty that lasted for more than two hundred years, Anyang contains rich Shang relics buried underground.
The excavation of the Yin Ruins accumulated a large amount of new materials for Chinese history in the early 20th century, and thus triggered a profound revolution in Chinese historiography.
In 1928, an archaeological group was established under the Institute of History and Philology of Academia Sinica (hereinafter referred to as the Institute of History and Philology), which kicked off the excavation of the Yin Ruins.
The person who chose Yinxu as the first place to excavate was Fu Sinian, the famous historian and founder of the Institute of Historical Languages.
The sentence that is regarded as a golden saying in the archaeological and historical circles, "When you go up to the poor blue and fall down to the yellow spring, you have to use your hands and feet to find something", it was from his mouth.
The reason why Fu Sinian favors the Yin Ruins is not only because cultural relics have been unearthed here one after another, but also because Wang Guowei's sentence in "The Theory of Yin and Shang Institutions" that "China's political and cultural changes did not occur during the Yin and Zhou Dynasties" also made him pay attention to the Yin Ruins. There's a lot of interest here.
The first famous scholar to come to the Yin Ruins for "field investigation" was Dong Zuobin. He and Luo Zhenyu mentioned above were ranked among the "four oracle bone inscriptions" and were recognized as one of the four famous experts in the study of oracle bone inscriptions (Luo Zhenyu, Xuetang, Wang Guowei, Guantang, Guo Moruo was named Dingtang, Dong Zuobin was named Yantang).
The reason why Fu Sinian sent Dong Zuobin to Yinxu was not only because he was proficient in oracle bone research and good at identifying the authenticity of oracle bones, but also because Dong Zuobin was also from Henan, which could allow him to communicate more smoothly with the locals.
Not long after lingering in the village, many local people followed the sound and "offered treasures" one after another.
Dong Zuobin bought a small bag of fragmented oracle bones for three silver coins, and then after exploring along the Huan River, he found more than ten damaged oracle bones in the soil.
He believes that more cultural relics will be discovered here in the future.
On October 13, 1928, the first independent scientific excavation of the Yin Ruins in the history of Chinese cultural relics and archeology officially kicked off.
Li Ji, the "father of Chinese archeology", joined the excavation of Yin Ruins the following year.
Unlike Dong Zuobin who only wanted to find oracle bones, the excavation work led by Li Ji focused on a more comprehensive collection of cultural relics and used pit exploration methods for excavation.
Their work achieved remarkable results: in October 1929, during the third excavation, they found the famous "Four Editions of Big Turtle" and ox-head inscriptions, deer-head inscriptions, etc.; from 1931 to 1932, the building base of the Shang Dynasty was confirmed The distribution of oracle bones; in 1936, the discovery of a large pit full of oracle bones made everyone wild with joy and kept them awake all night...
Chinese field archeology
Become mature here
Among the six sacrificial pits at the Sanxingdui site in Guanghan, Sichuan, Pit No. 5 and Pit 6 were "packaged as a whole" and transported to the laboratory.
Among them, the wooden box in Pit 6 weighed more than 2 tons after being packed. It was pulled up with hinges on a scaffolding, moved outside the archaeological cabin, placed under the wooden board supported by the steel pipe, and the wooden box was pushed out bit by bit.
This can be regarded as the most "laborious" transportation in the Sanxingdui excavation work.
More than 80 years ago, in Anyang, Henan Province, in June 1936, archaeological team members from the Yin Ruins discovered an oracle bone storage pit numbered YH127. "The completeness of the newly obtained tortoise shell has never been seen since the discovery of oracle bone inscriptions. And there are countless It’s so many that it’s almost impossible to estimate…”
No one taught them what to do, but they quickly made the most correct and difficult decision: to pack the entire pit of oracle bones and transport them to Nanjing for indoor excavation.
They put the entire gray soil pillar formed by the oracle bone pit into a large wooden box, then took it out and transported it away.
The box weighed 5 tons. At that time, Anyang had neither cars nor lifting equipment.
The locals organized 64 young and middle-aged men to carry it on their shoulders with wooden poles. After two days of hard work, they transported the box to the train station, transported it to Nanjing by train, and placed it in the library hall of the Institute of History and Language. .
Today's "laboratory archeology" pioneered from this pit of oracle bones.
And YH127 lived up to expectations, with 17,000 pieces of tortoise shells unearthed, including 300 complete pieces of tortoise shells, the largest one being 40 centimeters long.
These tortoise shells record the sacrifices, field hunting, agriculture, astronomy, military and other contents during the Shang King Wu Ding's period. They are the largest number of oracle bones unearthed since the scientific excavations of the Yin Ruins. They provide extremely valuable materials for the study of oracle bone inscriptions and the history of the Yin and Shang Dynasties.
In 1931, archaeologist Liang Siyong (brother of the famous architect Liang Sicheng) also joined the Yin Ruins excavation team.
He observed the three-layered stratigraphic phenomenon at the Hougang site and proposed the famous "Hugang Three-layered Layer" - the three layers of Yangshao Culture, Longshan Culture and Xiaotun Culture (i.e. Shang Culture) accumulated from bottom to top. , made significant contributions to Chinese archeology.
This discovery marks that Chinese field archeology has reached a new level in terms of methods and is an important symbol of the maturity of Chinese field archeology.
Good Women: "Tutankhamun" of the Yin and Shang Dynasties
After the Anti-Japanese War broke out in 1937, the archaeological work at Yin Ruins was also forced to stop, and it remained dormant for 13 years.
It was not until 1950 that the excavation of the Yin Ruins was restarted.
In 1961, the Yin Ruins were listed among the first batch of "National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units" announced by the central government.
Being discovered early means being robbed early.
Ever since the value of oracle bones was recognized, even after archaeologists from the Institute of History and Language began working in the Yin Ruins, tomb robbers were still rampant in this ancient commercial capital.
Tang Jigen, a chair professor at Southern University of Science and Technology, has been engaged in archaeological work at the Yin Ruins for more than 20 years. Based on his many years of experience in reading various catalogs and visiting overseas museums (including some museum warehouses), he speculated: The total number of Yin Ruins cultural relics lost overseas so far , the most conservative estimate is 50,000 pieces.
At present, more than 160,000 pieces of oracle bone inscriptions have been unearthed through archaeological excavations in the Yin Ruins, which is not a small number.
However, Anyang has been excavating oracle bones one after another since the end of the 19th century and selling them to medicine shops as "dragon bones". Moreover, medicinal dealers often do not need to engrave the "dragon bones" when they collect them, so many villagers will use the oracle bones as the "dragon bones". The words are worn out and then sold. Small pieces that are not easy to sell are usually just thrown away.
Therefore, outside the sight and protection of archaeologists, we will never know how many precious historical materials of the Shang Dynasty were ground into powder and consumed as traditional Chinese medicine.
There is even a special term for this kind of regret, which is called "swallowing business history".
In 1976, a team led by the famous archaeologist Zheng Zhenxiang discovered the most important tomb in the Yin Ruins: the Tomb of Fuhao.
Fu Hao was the consort of King Wu Ding of Shang Dynasty. She was the first female general in Chinese history who could govern the country internally and fight externally.
1,928 funerary objects were unearthed from Fuhao's tomb, including more than 460 bronzes with a total weight of about 1.6 tons, more than 750 jades, and more than 6,800 shell coins.
Today, Fu Hao has become the most famous woman in the history of the Yin and Shang Dynasties. This is not because she herself became famous more than 3,000 years ago, but because her tomb is the only tomb that has not been robbed since the Yin Ruins were excavated by later generations. , very well preserved.
King Wu Ding of the Shang Dynasty had three consorts: Yi Wu, Yi Xin and Yi Gui.
Wu, Xin and Gui are their temple names.
The famous Simu Wu tripod dates from the same time as Wu Ding, indicating that Mu Wu is Yi Wu.
The tripod found in Fuhao's tomb is called Simu Xin Ding, which proves that Fuhao is Concubine Xin.
The Simuwu Ding now in the National Museum of China weighs 832 kilograms, while the Fuhao Simu Xin Ding weighs about 138 kilograms, less than one-sixth as much as the Simuwu Ding.
This gap is enough to prove that the woman with the temple name Wu has a status far higher than that of a good woman.
However, because Yanwu's cemetery was stolen in the early years, almost no other cultural relics were unearthed except this extremely heavy cauldron.
Just imagine, if all the funerary objects in the tomb of Yan Wu were completely preserved, then the most "prominent" woman in the Yin Ruins would undoubtedly be her and the owner of the Simu Wu Ding.
In this sense, Fuhao is quite similar to the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun - the latter did not rule Egypt for a long time and did not leave any achievements that are famous in history, but because his tomb has never been stolen Only then did "Tutankhamun's Treasure" become an immortal legend that astonished the world.
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News reporter Qiao Xueyang