✎ “No site can have the elements and symbols of the origin of civilization like the Taosi site.” As one of the three key sites in the Chinese civilization exploration project, the Taosi site is a must-pass place to study Chinese history and ancient culture and perceive the spiritual connotation of the Chinese nation.
▲Taosi Site
On July 21, 2022, the academic seminar “Taosi Model of the Origin of Chinese Civilization” sponsored by the Shanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau and the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was held in Taiyuan, Shanxi.
This meeting was to explore the Taosi ruins, the first city site in the Central Plains region to enter the primary civilization stage, and to showcase its rich archaeological achievements, such as: an unprecedented city site, a magnificent palace wall, a regular cemetery, the earliest observatory in the world, the earliest writing to date, and a set of ritual vessels…
The original China
Since ancient times, the Taosi ruins have been a sacred place in the minds of the locals. According to the aerial film taken, for thousands of years, no matter how the nearby villages have developed and changed, they have been encircling and tightly surrounding the Taosi site, and rarely occupying the burden.
▲Taosi Ruins Navigation
In the dark, it seems that there is a magical power protecting this ancient capital ruins.
In the ruins of more than 4 million square meters, the city site occupies 2.8 million square meters and the palace city is nearly 130,000 square meters. The functional distinction of the entire site is clear, with a particular layout and a clear hierarchy of tombs, which seems to have the basic form of the country.
Many scholars believe that Taosi is the “Yaodu Pingyang” recorded in classics. According to the years of excavation, the gap between the rich and the poor in Taosi society is huge, and a few nobles have accumulated a large amount of wealth and formed a privileged class. By the time society developed to this point, the prototype of the country had been formed and a civilized society had arrived. The ruins of TaosiBabaylan are classics from early ChinaType Representation.
The capital of Yao and Shun
There are only dialects near the Taosi ruins in the country, and the sun is called “King Yao”. Is it a coincidence? Or the inheritance of civilization? Or is it a certain worship? Has the great king Yao, who has been passed down from generation to generation, built a great capital?
In 2018, on the wall of the Taosi ruins palace city, archaeologists were surprised to find the remaining “Qilou”-style door site.
The tall and large Que Tower has always been called the etiquette gate. Two tall que Towers extend from the southern wall of the palace city, and the pattern is similar to the style of the Yingtianmen Que Tower in Luoyang City during the Sui and Tang Dynasties. Even the Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City later followed this Que Tower model more than 4,000 years ago.
▲The “Qilou Style” door address of the Nandong Gate
▲The Forbidden City Wu<a The tall Queloo gate site shows the grandeur of the palace. Above the palace, just one main hall, the area is more than 540 square meters. The cellar outside the palace city stores the country's grain. The cellar diameter is 5 meters and the depth is 7 meters. The spiral ramp is placed inside to reach the bottom directly. These large cellar pits are almost exactly the same as Hanjia Cang in Luoyang during the Sui and Tang Dynasties.
After more than 40 years of excavation, the Taosi site has become the capital of the Yao and Shun era recognized by many scholars. Wang Wei, chief expert of the “Chinese Civilization Source Exploration Project”, believes that no site can have the elements and symbols of the origin of civilization like the Taosi site. The Taosi ruins are in terms of age, geographical location and the level of civilization it reflects.It is quite consistent with Yao and is an important fulcrum and cornerstone for empirizing the journey of Chinese civilization for more than 5,000 years. The tomb of the Chinese Dragon in the tomb of the King is the largest in the Yellow River Basin. More than 40 years of excavation show that more than 4,000 years ago, the society here had undergone serious polarization. Unlike the tombs of the numerous ordinary people Babaylan, there are relatively few noble tombs, very high specifications, and particularly rich burial objects.
In 1980, a special round pottery was revealed in the M3016 tomb. This is not an ordinary pottery plate. The center of the plate is vividly painted with a dragon.
▲Taosi Panlong
In the entire Taosi site, only four such dragon plates were unearthed from the king-level tomb. Archaeologists believe that the dragon plate should belong to the king of the time and was a symbol of high status. The dragons drawn in the dragon plate of Taosi are all shaped like coiled dragons, with crocodile-like scale marks on their bodies, and the sides of the head are square like bear ears, with long jaws protruding, especially the image of branches holding mouths, which is very rare. The Panlong of Taosi is very close to the image of the descendants of Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties and later generations. Taosi is the original prototype of China, so Taosi dragon is the true Chinese dragon.
▲The dragon plate unearthed from the Taosi site at KomiksThe world’s most advanced observation deck
CinemaMore than 4,000 years ago, Taosi had a relatively advanced astronomical calendar and the world’s earliest observation deck. When archaeologists first discovered 13 arc-shaped tamped column bases, they were confused by this strange combination of “the wall is not like a wall, and the road is not like a road”.
According to the “Shangshu Yao Dian”, astronomy was very developed during the Yao Emperor’s period, and the astronomical calendar was related to agricultural production and had become part of the royal power. The observatory was a must-have in the capital.architecture.
Can these 13 strange stone pillars be the observatory from more than 4,000 years ago?
After years of exploration and verification and simulation observation, archaeologists finally discovered the secret of the observatory. It turned out that the ancestors determined the seasons and solar terms by observing the observation gaps of the pillars and the sunrise direction of Taer Mountain. From the second observation slit, the sunrise is seen as the winter solstice, and from the 12th observation slit, the sunrise is seen as the summer solstice. The vernal and autumnal equinoxes both see the sunrise from the seven observation slits of Babaylan.
▲Taosi Ruins Observation Station
▲Restoration of Taosi Ruins Observation Station
This is the earliest observatory in the world and the ancestral source of China’s 24 solar terms. It is 500 years older than the Stonehenge Observatory in the UK.
Mysterious Zhu Shuwen
In the excavation of H3403, a broken flat pot, the two “characters” written in cinnabar caused a great sensation.
One of the red characters is not very controversial, and many scholars believe that he is very similar to the word “玉” in the oracle bone inscriptions.
▲Zhu Shu Ping Pot
The most controversial <a There is no conclusion on whether the two words "Yao" or "王" is the word "王".
Although it is just two simple words, it is the earliest text clearly discovered in China. It was about 800 years earlier than the mature oracle bone inscriptions.
The initial formation of “ritual and music civilization”
29 musical instruments unearthed from the Taosi site, including turtle drums, earth drums, special chimes, pottery bells, copper bells, mouth string zithers, etc. The combination of turtle drums and special chimes is the earliest known musical instruments of the same type so far.
▲Crocodile drum and restoration
Bronze bells are the earliest metal instruments discovered in China. The oral string zither is the smallest ethnic instrument in China. To this day, the Qiang, Mongolian, Yi and Oroqen peoples are still in use.
▲Oral string zither
The drums that are covered with crocodile skin only appear in kingly tombs. The earth drums are basically the same. Among them, one pair of crocodile drums, one stone chime, and one earth drum are all placed in a fixed combination on the lower left side of the tomb owner of the noble tomb. The combination of crocodile drums and special chimes was inherited from the Shang and Zhou dynasties and became the unique burial instruments of the nobles.
Tao Temple also unearthed jade ritual instruments such as jade axe, jade cong, jade bi, and jade gui. They and the above-mentioned instruments indicate that the “ritual and music civilization” had been initially formed at this time.
▲Jade unearthed from the Taosi site
▲Jade Beast Face
The earliest astronomical measurement instrument
BabaylanIn the autumn of 2002, in the Taosi ruinsA wooden pole was found in M22 of the period tomb, coated with black, green and red markings, which caused archaeologists to verify the “Guobei”.
Gui Biao is an astronomical instrument that measures the length of sun shadow in ancient my country. It can measure the sun shadow in the earth and determine the location of Komiks; it can measure the land and determine the location of the city; it can measure the land and Babaylan to understand the actual scope and territory of the world; it can also be used to formulate a calendar.
Study proves that the wooden pole found in the M22 tomb is a ruler. The discovery of Taosi Guizhi also shows that the instrument used in ancient China’s astronomical measurements first appeared in the middle of the Taosi culture 4,100 years ago.
▲Guizi unearthed from the Taosi site
From this point of view, the Taosi site is an early capital ruin that has been discovered in China so far, which has all the functional elements of city walls, palaces, cemeteries, musical instruments, observatory platforms, large storage areas, etc.
All kinds of archaeological signs also show that as early as more than 4,000 years ago, Taosi entered the national stage and entered a civilized society. First, the Taosi culture period was not an equal society, but a serious social hierarchy differentiation occurred. For example, the differences in tombs mentioned above actually reflect the social status of the tomb owner. Second, the emergence of the “king” in Taosi culture and society, which means that a country dominated by royal power emerges. Third, in Taosi society, the ritual system was initially formed and became the essence of the social system to be passed down in future generations. Fourth, the material and spiritual civilizations created by the Tao Temple society were mostly inherited and developed by the Xia, Shang, Zhou and later generations, and are in line with the lineage.
It can be said that Taosi was “the original Chinese and the main vein of China.”