Chapter 17 Section 8 Beijing Liuli River Yan State Cemetery and City Site

The Liulihe site is located 1.5 kilometers north of Liulihe Town, Fangshan District, Beijing.It is 3.5 kilometers long from east to west and 1.5 kilometers wide from north to south. Exploration and excavation began in 1973, which provided important information for the study of the early history of Yan State. The Liulihe West Zhou City Site is located in the Dongjia Village area in the middle of the site.After excavation, the north city wall has a total length of more than 800 meters, and the east wall and west wall protrude more than 300 meters respectively.The length of the south wall and the southern sections of the east and west walls is unknown due to severe damage.The walls are rammed with loess.The wall is about 10 meters wide, and there is a shallow groove at the bottom of the wall.The wall is rammed in sections.There are "slope protection" on both sides of the lower part of the main city wall, and there are trenches on the outside of the city.House foundations and other relics have been found in the city.It is presumed to be the ruins of the early capital of Yan State.

Near Huangtupo Village in the southeast of the city site was the cemetery at that time.More than 300 Western Zhou tombs have been excavated over the years.There are one, two, and four tomb passages in the tomb respectively.Bronze ritual wares, jade wares, lacquer wares, primitive porcelain wares, weapons, chariot wares, etc. were buried in groups.And in the tomb was found dead.There is also a chariot and horse pit attached to the burial.Quite a few inscriptions on bronze wares mention Houhou (Yanhou). The "Jin Jin" tripod unearthed from Tomb No. 253 is 62 cm high and has an inscription of 26 characters, which records the historical fact that Yanhou ordered Jin to go to Zongzhou (Fenghao) to offer tribute to Taibao (Zhaogongshi (shishi)). The owner of the other bronze vessel "Yu" [yuyu] participated in the ceremony held in "Chengzhou" (Luoyang) and was rewarded by the King of Zhou and the Marquis of Yan. The Boju Ge was unearthed from Tomb No. 251, and the inscription on the Li The owner "Boju" was rewarded by the Marquis of Yan. The entire body of the vessel is embossed with bull's head patterns, and its shape is exquisite, reflecting the superb level of bronze craftsmanship in the Western Zhou Dynasty. The bronze Ge unearthed from Tomb No. 1029 has the word "Hou Hou" on it. The bronze halberd has the four characters "Taohou Wuge" and the copper bubble has the four characters "Taohou Wuyi", both of which were used by the Marquis of Yan during his lifetime. These discoveries show that this is the cemetery of the early nobles of the Yan Kingdom. The owner of the tomb is a certain generation of Yanhou.

The chariot and horse pits excavated vary in number of chariots and horses buried in the pit.At least one cart with two or four horses buried, and the most buried with 10 carts and 42 horses.Some killed the horse and buried the whole car in the pit, while others dismantled the car and buried it in the pit.The spokes of wheel, what have are 18, and what have are 24.Some cars are equipped with umbrella covers with a circular plane and a diameter of 1.3 meters. There are 26 umbrella ribs arranged radially from the top. The large tomb No. 1193 was excavated in 1986, and two bronze vessels with long inscriptions were unearthed, which attracted extensive attention from the archaeological and historical circles.

The chamber of the tomb is a rectangular earth pit with a direction of 352°.The existing tomb entrance is 7.68 meters long from north to south, 5.45 meters wide at the south end, and 5.25 meters wide at the north end.The bottom of the tomb is 10.25 meters deep from the surface.This is the largest tomb in the Liulihe cemetery, and it is the only one with four tomb passages.What is striking is that its four tomb passages are opened at the four corners of the tomb.Tombs of this shape have not been found in other cemeteries in the past.Due to severe looting, there are very few funerary artifacts left.However, more than 200 pieces were still unearthed.There are bronze ritual vessels, tools, weapons, horse wares, lacquer wares, shellfish and so on.In the southern half of the tomb there are 10 spears and several lacquered shields with bronze inlays.The spear shaft is about four meters long, and the tip of the copper spearhead has been removed.The lacquer shields have various shapes, some are rectangular, and some have a mountain-shaped ridge on the upper part.Bronze ornaments are human face, rhombus and circle.The spear and shield were unearthed at the same time, reflecting their connection in use, and they are precious specimens for the study of the history of weapons in our country.Among the only three bronze sacrificial vessels left in the tomb, the 罍 and 盉 both have longer inscriptions, and the content of the two vessels is the same, with 43 characters each.The inscription begins with "Wang Yue Taibao", which praises Taibao himself.There are also words such as "Ling Kehou Yu Yu", as well as the content of granting the people's territory.This is precious information about the history of the founding of Yan State.According to the content of the two bronze inscriptions and the size of the tomb, it is speculated that the tomb owner should belong to the first-class princely figure, and must be the tomb of a prominent generation of Yanhou.

These discoveries strongly prove that the site of Liulihe City was the capital of Yan State in the Western Zhou Dynasty, pushing back the history of Beijing as the capital to the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty 3,000 years ago. The cultural distribution from the early Western Zhou Dynasty to the Shang Dynasty has reached the western part of Liaoning. Unearthed in 1955 at Machanggou in Kazuo (formerly Lingyuan), a group of bronze wares in Western Zhou cellars, mainly Yanhou Yu, was an important discovery.With the progress of the excavation of the Yan tomb in Liulihe, Beijing, the close relationship between the Kazuo bronzes and Yan in the early Western Zhou Dynasty can be seen more clearly.The "Boju" zi and "Yu" gui unearthed in the Kazuo area belong to the same family as the "Boju" ge and "Yu" Fangding unearthed from the Liulihe Yan Tomb.Both "Boju" Li and "Yu" Fangding in Liulihe recorded the affiliation of this clan with the Marquis of Yan in the early Zhou Dynasty.This is the best example of linking the bronze wares unearthed in Liaoning with the Yan in the early Western Zhou Dynasty after Yan Houyu.The shape of the Kazuo bronze wares is also the same or similar to that of the Liulihe bronze wares, both of which are based on the style of the Central Plains and show some local characteristics.

At the beginning of this century, the inscription of "Ya" unearthed from Lugou Bridge recorded that "(upper self, lower part)" [Ji Ji] tribe "Ya" was rewarded by Yanhou.Kazuo also produced "(upper and lower)" vessels, such as "(upper and lower)" Fangding's inner bottom is cast in the middle of "(upper and lower) Hou Ya (upper dagger and lower arrow) [yiyi]". "(Shang Ji Xia Qi)" is a giant family in the Shang Dynasty, which lasted to the Zhou Dynasty, lived in the north and south of Yanshan Mountain, and was the basis for the rapid development of Yan in the early Western Zhou Dynasty.

The above discoveries organically link the cultural remains of the Western Zhou Dynasty in Beijing with the Kazuo bronze ware cellar, and strongly indicate that the influence of Yan in the early Western Zhou Dynasty had entered the Daling River Basin in Western Liaoning.At the same time, it is confirmed that the northern territory of the Shang and Zhou dynasties has reached the north of the Great Wall.