China finds 5,300-year-old Heluo Kingdom
A boar tusk carving of a silkworm unearthed at the Shuanghuaishu Site Photo: ZHENGZHOU MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT
With approval from the National Cultural Heritage Administration, the Zhengzhou Municipal Research Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences have conducted continuous archaeological excavations on the Shuanghuaishu Site, an ancient city ruin on the south bank of the Yellow River in the township of Heluo, Gongyi City, Henan Province. Chinese archaeologists recently announced significant breakthroughs at the site.
Archaeological excavations and scientific dating methods have confirmed that the Shuanghuaishu Site is the ruins of an ancient city dating back approximately 5,300 years. This ancient city was named “Heluo Kingdom” after its location in the central area of the Heluo region. It is the highest-standard cluster with capital city status discovered so far in the Yellow River basin during the middle and late stage of the Yangshao Culture (c. 5000–3000 BCE), the early stage of the formation of the Chinese civilization.
Major archaeological discoveries
The Shuanghuaishu Site is about 1,500 meters long from east to west and 780 meters wide from north to south, covering an area of 1.17 million square meters. Within the city ruins, archaeologists have discovered the antecedent of a weng cheng (literally known as an urn city, a form of defensive architecture in ancient China that featured a semicircle or square enclosure built outside a city gate as part of the city wall), an enclosed large central residential area with rows of houses, a huge rammed earth foundation, an astronomical relic, a pottery workshop area, a water storage area, a road system and other facilities.
The site was discovered to be surrounded by three huge ring trenches, each with external access, forming a strict defense system. The inner trench is 1,000 meters round, 7.5 meters wide measured on the top and 6.15 meters deep, with the remains of an exit that resemble a drawbridge. The middle trench lies at around 1,500 meters, 30.5 meters in width measured from the top and 9 meters deep, with a passage on its north up to 10 meters wide. The remains of the outer trench are about 1,600 meters around, 17.2 meters wide measured from the top and 10.5 meters deep. Archaeologists also discovered openings on the southeast and southwest areas of the outer trench.
The central residential area was found in the north within the inner ring trench. Two walls on the south, the remains of which are over 370 meters long, together with the northern part of the inner ring trench, form a half-moon-shaped enclosure of over 18,000 square meters. On the southeast of the central residential region, the two walls are connected with each other in a special way, the layout of which typical of a weng cheng.
The remains of four rows of houses have been found in the central residential area with alleys between them. In front of each house, two rows of cylindrical holes of the same size were found in the ground at regular intervals, ruins which may have been front porch columns. Archaeologists also discovered nine pots arranged in the pattern of the nine stars of the Big Dipper constellation in front of the excavation within the site named F12, a house of 220 square meters located in the middle of the second row. An intact body of an elk, with its head pointing south, was excavated near the position of the “North Star” in front of the bowl of the Big Dipper.
In the central area within the inner trench, north to the central residential area, is a huge rammed earth foundation, the first layer of which covers an area of up to 2,400 square meters. Near the foundation are vast ruins of well-preserved rammed earth sections constructed with a method known as ban zhu (a method of building walls by stamping earth between board frames)—the most advanced construction method in China at that time. Its connection with the rammed earth foundation will be a topic for future research. There are three public cemeteries with more than 1,700 tombs that have been discovered in the site and the remains of each person were buried with head pointing west. These are the largest-scale, best-arranged cemeteries that have been discovered in the Yellow River basin from the middle and late stages of the Yangshao Culture. Among the cemeteries are remains of three sacrificial daises. The central axis of the site runs across the largest dais, and the major cemetery is arranged near it.
Sericulture in early civilization
The defensive structure comprising of the three ring trenches and the “Big Dipper” discovered from the site highlight the important place of rites in the settlement planning at that time, and they show that the ancestors of Heluo might have had a relatively mature grasp of astronomical knowledge.
Among the unearthed relics, a boar tusk carving of a spinning silkworm is believed to be China’s earliest carving depicting silkworms. This carving, along with silk fabrics unearthed at the surrounding Wanggou site and Qingtai site dating to the same period, is solid evidence to prove that the ancient Chinese in the middle reaches of the Yellow River began cultivating silkworms and silk production around 5,300 years ago. Except these discoveries at Shuanghuaishu and its surrounding settlement sites, there have been no other definite discoveries from the same period around 5,300 years ago in other parts of the country that are related to the silk textile industry. In this sense, they are the earliest representatives of the history of development of Chinese mulberry cultivation and silkworm-rearing culture.
The size and layout of the central residential enclosure and its buildings bear the characteristics of early-period huge palaces. Archaeologists found that the large rammed earth foundation had been reconstructed and reused several times. Its first layer is considered the largest foundation of a single building of the same period in ancient China. These findings provide crucial information for studying the origins of the palace systems that existed between the Xia and Zhou dynasties (c. 21st century–256 BCE). The defensive structure of the two walls became the antecedent of weng cheng, a distinctive fortification of capital cities in ancient China, an invaluable resource for studying the history and development of cities.
Root of Yellow River culture
The Shuanghuaishu site is a well-selected and scientifically planned settlement site. Based on the geographical location and scale, it is also the only large-scale city settlement discovered so far in the Yellow River basin from the middle and late stage of the Yangshao Culture.
The archaeological findings at the site demonstrate the influence of the Heluo region in the golden stage of the origin and beginnings of Chinese civilization around 5,300 years ago, providing key proof of crucial periods in that stage. They also prove that the mid-late civilization of the Yangshao culture centered around the Shuanghuaishu Site was the root of the Yellow River culture, which is known as the “embryo of early Chinese civilization.”
A series of archaeological discoveries show that the “development model of the Chinese civilization” represented by the Shuanghuaishu Site attaches importance to people’s livelihoods, farming and sericulture, with more investment in social production instead of ceremonial offerings. The main concept of this model was inherited and carried forward by many generations in mainstream society, becoming the representative and leading development model in the following dynasties.
The article was edited and translated from Guangming Daily.
edited by REN GUANHONG