Chapter 13 Section 4 Panlong City, Xingan Shang Tomb and Sanxingdui Sacrificial Pit

The excavations of the Panlong City ruins in Huangpi, Hubei, the Shang tombs in Xingan, Jiangxi, and the sacrificial pits in Sanxingdui, Guanghan, Sichuan, opened a new chapter for southern archaeology in the Shang Dynasty. The ruins of Panlong City are located on the bank of Panlong Lake in Yedian Township, Huangpi County, Hubei Province.The city site was built in the 15th century BC, in the middle of the Shang Dynasty. It was discovered in 1954 and excavated in 1974-1976. The plane of the city site is slightly square, about 290 meters from north to south, and about 260 meters from east to west.The ramming technology of the city wall is similar to that of Zhengzhou Shangcheng City. The main wall is built with rammed earth with a thickness of 8-10 cm per rammed layer.The base of the wall is 21 meters wide.There is a gap in the middle of each of the four walls, which may be a gate.Outside the city is a moat about 1.4 meters wide and 4 meters deep.There are bridge pile holes at the bottom of the ditch in the south of the city, which shows that a bridge was built to pass through the ditch at that time.The area of ​​this city site is small, and there are only palace foundations in the city, which is really a palace city.Outside the city are residential areas, handicraft workshop areas and burial areas, reflecting the shape of the early city.

Excavation of two palace foundations: The site of Hall No. 1 was about 20 centimeters above the ground at that time, facing south from the north, rectangular in plane, 39.8 meters long and 12.3 meters wide.There is a row of large eaves column holes on the outer edges of the four sides. The diameter of the eaves column is about 50 cm, and the bottom of the column is padded with large pillars.The entire building is 38.2 meters wide and 11 meters deep.After restoration and research, it is a palace in the form of "Si Azhong House".In the central part are four living rooms juxtaposed from east to west, and the walls are made of wood, bone and mud.The four chambers are 33.9 meters wide and 6-6.4 meters deep.The two rooms in the middle are wider, each room has a front door on the south side, and the two rooms in the middle have a back door on the north wall.Between the four rooms and the eaves columns, a circle of outer corridors is formed.

The site of Hall No. 2 is located about 13 meters south of the site of Hall No. 1.It is rectangular in plane, 27.5 meters from east to west and 10.5 meters from north to south.The construction technique is the same as that of the No. 1 base site.Possibly the "front court" part of a hall.On the west side of the base site, there are also underground waterway facilities connected by pottery pipes. Tombs of the same period were found in Wangjiazui to the south of the city site, Yangjiawan to the north of the city, Louziwan to the west of the city, and Lijiazui to the east of the city.Among them, Lijiazui Tomb No. 2 is the largest.The entrance of the tomb is 3.67 meters to 3.24 meters, and the residual depth is 1.41 meters.There are exquisitely carved wooden coffins, and the outer wall is engraved with taotie patterns and cloud and thunder patterns.Apply vermilion to the inside of the Yinxian, and black to the rest.There is a coffin inside the outer coffin, and there is a waist pit at the bottom. It used to be a martyrdom or dog martyrdom.In addition to the wooden coffin, three other people died, one was dismembered, one was a child, and the other was an adult.There are bronze tools such as knives, adzes, saws, chisels and copper arrowheads buried with them, probably craftsmen.The burial objects of the owner of the tomb include 23 bronze wares such as tripod, (left (upper white and lower 厶) right scorpion), 鬲, 甗, 盉, 斝, 駚, jue, 罍, small plate, and ring foot plate.Bronze weapons such as Yue, Ge, spear, and knife, as well as jade wares such as Ge and Ji.The pottery includes Li, jars, large-mouth utensils, printed hard pottery statues, urns, etc.The shape and pattern of the bronze wares belong to the style of the middle Shang Dynasty (upper Erligang).This tomb can be regarded as the largest tomb with the most burial objects among the Shang Dynasty tombs in Hubei.It may also be the tomb of the supreme ruler of Panlong City.

Although the Panlong City site has certain local characteristics in terms of city wall ramming technology, pottery features, bronze craftsmanship, jade style, and burial customs, it is clearly consistent with the mid-Shang Dynasty culture unearthed in Zhengzhou.Generally speaking, it belongs to the business culture system.The local area should be an important country of the Shang Dynasty on the banks of the Yangtze River. In the early 1970s, the excavation of the Shang Dynasty ruins in Wucheng, Qingjiang, Jiangxi Province, once attracted the attention of the archaeological community.Although the unearthed relics have their own characteristics in some aspects, most of the pottery is closely related to the Shang culture in the Central Plains, and should be a branch of the Shang culture in the Central Plains migrating south.In recent years, a large tomb of the Shang Dynasty with a large number of bronzes unearthed was discovered in Xingan County, a neighboring county to the south of Qingjiang County (some scholars believe that this is the sacrificial pit of the Shang Dynasty).All kinds of pottery unearthed in the tomb are exactly the same as those of the second phase of Wucheng Culture, so they should belong to Wucheng Culture.This is of great significance for re-understanding the development of local bronze culture during the Yin and Shang Dynasties and its close relationship with the Shang culture in the Central Plains, and is a major archaeological discovery.

The large-scale merchant tomb in Xingan Oceania was excavated in 1989.There were original mounds on the ground, and the tomb pits were oriented from east to west. The coffin chamber was 8.22 meters long and 3.6 meters wide. Nearly a thousand objects were unearthed.There are more than 480 bronze wares, more than 100 jade wares, and more than 300 pottery wares.Among them, the bronze wares are the most eye-catching, with their large number, variety of categories, peculiar shapes, and exquisite decorations, which are not only unprecedented in the tombs of the same period in the south of the Yangtze River, but also the first in the country.

Some of the bronze wares unearthed from the tomb have the style of the mid-Shang Dynasty, and some are similar to similar wares from the Yin Ruins in Anyang.Bronze sacrificial vessels include: tripod, 甗, 鬲, 罍, 卣, gui, gou, pot, bean, goblet with handle, etc., and copper musical instruments include cymbals, 镈, etc., totaling more than 60 pieces.There are more than 250 pieces of bronze weapons, such as Ge, spear, knife, Yue, arrowhead, short sword, and helmet.There are more than 120 pieces of copper agricultural tools and hand tools, including plows, shareshares, shovels, shovels, sickles, axes, adzes, chisels, cones, anvils, carving knives, and boot-shaped utensils.Among them, goblets with handles, short swords, single-winged arrowheads, boot-shaped utensils, plows, and shareshares have never been seen in Shang tombs across the country.In particular, the unearthed bronze plows and shareshares brought the history of plowing in my country back to the Shang Dynasty.Among the bronze sacrificial vessels, the large one-ear copper jar is 1.10 meters high and weighs 85 kilograms.There is also Fang Ding, which is 97 cm high and weighs 49.2 kg.The small ones, such as: copper 鬲 with two ears, square tripod with flat animal feet, etc., are only 10-13.5 cm high.Some bronze wares have strange shapes, such as: double-faced wares, standing bird double-tailed bronze tigers, crouching tiger tripods with flat feet, sheep-horned animal face wares, etc., all of which are rare utensils, with gorgeous decorations, exquisite production, unique style, and outstanding reflections. It reveals the highly developed bronze culture in the southern area of ​​the Shang Dynasty.It is worth noting that in the bronze assemblage, there are no common wine vessels such as jue, gu and gu in the Central Plains, and they also show strong local characteristics.

Jade wares: Cong, bi, block, ring, hairpin, turquoise and agate ornaments, all exquisitely crafted. Pottery: Li and pots are the most common, and there are statues, beans, pots, bowls, etc.Some have colored glaze, which is the original porcelain quality. Judging from the shape and decoration of these cultural relics, they are the same or similar to the Shang culture of the Central Plains. Obviously, they are closely related to the Shang culture of the Central Plains, but they also have local characteristics.It is speculated that the age of the tomb corresponds to the late Shang Dynasty in the Central Plains, about 3,200 years ago.The scale of the tomb, the fineness and quantity of unearthed objects are comparable to those of the royal family of Yinxu.Based on this, it can be inferred that the owner of the tomb may be the supreme ruler of a country in the south of the Shang Dynasty, or the highest military chief stationed in the south of the Shang Dynasty.

The Sanxingdui site is located in the north of Nanxing Town, Guanghan County, Sichuan Province.The total area is about 12 square kilometers.As early as the end of the 1920s, a large number of jade tools were unearthed in this area, which attracted attention. In 1986, two sacrificial pits were excavated, and a large number of precious cultural relics were unearthed.The shape and style of this batch of bronze wares are similar to those of the Central Plains, and similar to those of the late Shang wares in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and southern Shaanxi.However, the patterns are slightly different, and they should be self-cast in Shu, showing the splendid culture of Shu in the early days.

Although the area of ​​these two sacrificial pits is not large, the unearthed objects are very rich, and most of them are rare treasures, totaling more than 800 pieces. Pit No. 1 is a rectangular vertical pit, 4.6 meters long, 3.5 meters wide and 1.6 meters deep.A total of more than 300 pieces of gold rods, gold masks, bronze human faces, dragon-climbing pillars, jade, bone, pottery, and ivory were unearthed from the pit.There are seashells, bone residue and so on. Pit No. 2 is a rectangular vertical pit, 5.3 meters long, 2.3 meters wide and 1.55 meters deep.Unearthed in the pit are about 439 pieces of bronze wares, such as large standing statues, human heads, human face statues, sacred trees, birds, deer, Ge, 罍, Zun, bells, Yi and so on.There are about 131 pieces of jade and stone wares including Zhang, Yuan, Huan, Ge, Chisel, Knife, Bead, and Guan.

According to the age of the sacrificial pit, according to the stratigraphic relationship, Pit No. 1 is approximately equivalent to the early Yin Ruins.Pit No. 2 is later, about 3,000 years ago. The unearthed fine works of the two pits are selected and introduced respectively.Unearthed from Pit No. 1: The gold rod has a residual length of 1.42 meters, a diameter of 2.3 centimeters, and a net weight of 780 grams.Made of solid gold leather wrapped around a wooden core.The head of a person wearing a crown and exquisite patterns such as birds and fish are carved flat on the staff.About 20 cm from the head end of the stick, there is a perforated copper dragon head ornament.This stick may have been originally a copper dragon-headed staff with a gold-skinned wood core.

Gold mask, nine centimeters high, molded in gold leaf. Bronze kneeling figure, 15 cm high, wide face, Fang Yi, high bun. The bronze human face is 6.5 cm high, with a wide face, big eyes and a pointed nose. The climbing dragon column is 40.5 cm high.There is a dragon on the top of the device, the two hind claws are grasping the sides of the device wall, and the tail is rolled up. The above gold rods, bronze heads, human faces, and gold masks are all first seen in China. Unearthed from Pit No. 2: A large standing copper statue, 2.62 meters high and weighing about 180 kilograms.He wears a high crown, thick eyebrows and big eyes, and a prominent nose.The corners of the mouth are hooked down, and Fang Yi has big ears.Wearing a robe with a left lapel, standing barefoot on a square seat. There are eight small copper figures with a total height of 13.3 cm.Wearing a flat-topped double-horned crown, a high nose bridge, a big mouth, wearing a double-breasted long suit, the right leg is bent, and the left leg is kneeling on one knee. There are 41 human heads, the largest of which is 46.6 cm high.The bridge of the nose is high, the corners of the mouth are hooked down, and the moire is big. There are 15 human faces, all of which are semicircular, with protruding eyeballs, hooked noses, wings-like ears, and a height of 65 centimeters. The Bronze God Tree is 3.84 meters high and weighs about 160 kilograms.The tree consists of a base, a trunk, three layers of branches and a giant dragon.On the Yamagata tree base, three clusters of branches form the trunk.The trunk has three layers, with three branches obliquely bending out of each layer.There are standing birds on the branches, and there are flowers, leaves and fruits at the ends of the branches.On one side of the trunk, a giant dragon descends from the tree.This sacred tree is the earliest and tallest copper tree discovered in the world. The statue of three birds and three sheep is 41.8 cm high.The taotie pattern on the abdomen is lined with cloud patterns, and there are a lot of seashells inside. The statue of eight birds and four cows is 53 cm high.The shoulders are decorated with Kui dragon patterns, the belly is decorated with animal face patterns, and the ground is lined with cloud patterns. The excavation of this batch of precious cultural relics shows the high level and artistic characteristics of the ancient Shu bronze culture, and is an extremely important material material for studying the history of ancient Shu culture, as well as religion, etiquette, sculpture, metallurgy, etc. in the Shang and Zhou dynasties.