Master Archaeologist

Chapter 375 Liangzhu and Xia
Sheji, or Sheji, is one of the most important primitive religious rituals inherited from Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties.

All three dynasties of the three dynasties held communal sacrifices to worship the land gods, pray and offer sacrifices.

According to historical documents, as a kind of etiquette system, social sacrifices began in the Xia Dynasty, which is the externalization of Xia people's religious beliefs.

According to a comprehensive analysis of pre-Qin and Han literature, the community sacrifices of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties mainly have the following characteristics.

One is to build an altar to worship the god of the society (the god of land), such as "General Customs and Rituals": "The owner of the society is the owner of the land. The land is vast and cannot be respected everywhere. Therefore, the soil is worshiped for the society and rewarded .”

"Filial Piety Jingwei" also said: "The community is the god of the land. The land is too wide to be sacrificed, so the land is sealed as a community to repay the merits."

The altar is generally square and made of five-color soil.

"Baihu Tongyi Sheji": "The Son of Heaven has a big community, blue in the east, red in the south, white in the west, black in the north, and loess on the top."

The scale of the social altar, according to the ancient literature quoted in "Baihu Tongyi": "The social altar of the Son of Heaven is five feet wide, and the princes are half as large."

Secondly, the community altar is built in the open air. The so-called "community has no house,... the Tianzi Grand Society must be subjected to frost, dew, wind and rain to achieve the spirit of heaven and earth."

The place to build the altar is generally chosen at a high place with big trees around it. "Mozi Minggui Xia": "The ancient sage kings of the Yuxia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties first built the state-run capital day,... Those who must choose the luxuriant trees will be established as Congshe."

"Warring States Policy · Qin Policy Three": "Ying Hou called King Zhao and said: "Hengsi has a god cluster?" Henkel said: "The luxuriant tree is supported by the gods, so the ancient community always depends on the trees."

"Baihu Tongyi Sheji" explained the characteristics of the social altar, saying: "Why is there a tree in Sheji? Respect and know it, so that the people will respect it when they see it."

Its purpose is to create a gloomy, mysterious and majestic religious atmosphere, so that people will have a sense of reverence and fear for the land god, thereby strengthening people's admiration and worship of the god of the society.

Summarizing the "she" created by the Xia Dynasty and inherited by the Yin and Zhou Dynasties to worship the God of the Earth for three generations, it must have at least the following characteristics.

Seal the earth as a society, that is, the altar is built with mud.

The social altar is generally square, reflecting the ancients' concept of a round sky and a round place.

The soil used to build the community altar is of various colors.

The community forum is open air.

Social altars are generally built on high ground.

There are big trees around the club.

In the Liangzhu culture, since the 80s, many sacrificial relics of this period have been discovered, all of which are consistent with the concept of "community sacrifice".

From 1982 to 1984, archaeologists from the SH City Cultural Relics Preservation Committee unearthed a sacrificial relic with a square earth platform in the middle of a large earth pit in the late Liangzhu Culture at the Fuquanshan site in Qingpu, Shanghai.

In the summer of 1987, archaeologists from the ZJ Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology discovered a relic of an altar of the Liangzhu Culture period and 12 large tombs of the Liangzhu Culture in Yaoshan, Anxi, Yuhang, Zhejiang.

The discovery of the Yaoshan altar site is one of the major achievements of Liangzhu culture field archaeology since this century!

Three years later, archaeologists from ZJ Province unearthed a Liangzhu culture altar similar to the Yaoshan altar and four Liangzhu culture tombs that broke the altar at the Huiguanshan site in Pingyao Town, Yuhang County!

This shows that the "sacrifice" of the Liangzhu people is not only large-scale, but also institutionalized and specialized, and the rituals have become standardized and programmed.

Interestingly, the remains of the altar of Xiahou's "shesi" are missing in the Yellow River Basin, which is traditionally considered the birthplace of Xia culture.

So far, there is still nothing similar to the "remains of the altar" found in the Yellow River Basin.

The remains of the altars of the Liangzhu Culture are quite similar to the shape and cultural connotation of the "Xia Society" recorded in the documents of the Three Dynasties.

The shape of the altar of the Liangzhu Culture is square, which not only matches the shape of the altars of the Three Dynasties, but also conforms to the traditional "place theory".

The Liangzhu culture altar is carefully built with three-color soil. The red clay platform, the gray soil surrounding ditch and the yellow cinnamon platform form an organic whole platform.

This is roughly the same as the social altars built with red, cyan, black, and yellow soil in the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties recorded in the literature, "sealing soil as a community".

The altar of the Liangzhu Culture is built in the open air, and the surrounding area is still lush and green. You can imagine the towering trees in this area back then.

This is consistent with the scene in the literature that the "Xiashe" has no houses, the altar is open-air, the surrounding trees are overgrown, and the people look respectfully.

The Yaoshan Altar is built on the top of the hill, facing the vast plains and fields to the south, which is the land where the ancestors of the Liangzhu Culture planted rice and other crops.

Therefore, the altar is obviously related to the land worship prevailing among the ancestors, and it was a place for worshiping the land god in the pre-Xia period.

All these show that the close relationship between the Liangzhu culture altar and the "she" of the three generations is by no means a coincidence.

This reliable archaeological evidence fully proves that the ritual rituals of "sealing soil as a society" in the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties actually developed from the altars of the Liangzhu Culture.

This is why, since the 90s, a large number of scholars believe that the ancient Liangzhu Kingdom may be the legendary Xia Dynasty.

And Dayu's control of the water may be a misunderstanding after the legend has been passed down. It is possible that Dayu was not the Yellow River, but the Yangtze River.

After all, the word "Yellow River" was born not too long ago. Before 1000 years, the Yellow River actually didn't have a fixed name. It was called a river, or a big river.

But the name of the Yangtze River is even more backward. In fact, the Yangtze River has never had an overall name, but each section has different names in different provinces.

For example, the upper reaches of the Jinsha River, the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, as well as the Tongtian River, Minjiang River, Jingjiang River, and even the Huangpu River are all part of the Yangtze River.

Then, in the ancient times 5000 years ago, it was even more impossible for the Yangtze River to have an overall name.

Perhaps people at the time didn't know that it was a river, so they called it a river.

The ancient legend of Dayu's flood control only said that Dayu controlled the flood, without specifying which river it was.

It's just that the Yellow River has always been "rebellious", and all dynasties have tried to control the water, so later the legend was passed down, and it became Dayu who ruled the Yellow River.

Of course, this is only the argument of some scholars. They believe that Liangzhu is Xia, and it was actually the Yangtze River that Dayu controlled the waters. Therefore, Xia Qi later established a country and ruled in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

And also built a lot of water conservancy facilities, which is exactly what the "Da Yu" lineage is good at.

Regarding this statement, many domestic scholars also disagree with it, and there are endless rebuttals.

The most recognized theory still holds that the Liangzhu civilization was earlier than the Xia Dynasty. After the Liangzhu civilization perished, the descendants of Liangzhu spread the "sheji" to the Central Plains.

Or the "Yan-Huang Tribe" in the Central Plains absorbed part of the culture of Liangzhu, including the culture of sacrifices, and derived it into the source of the word "Sheji".

In the end which statement is correct, there is still a lack of critical and direct evidence to prove it.

However, Chen Han agrees with the second statement.

Because according to the discovery of Yin Ruins, inferring the time point of Xia's existence is definitely not comparable to that of Liangzhu. When Liangzhu perished, Xiadu had not yet been born.

Moreover, the Xia recorded in the history books has always been considered to be in the Central Plains, and it is impossible to be in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

Moreover, Shang, who defeated Xia, was indeed in the Central Plains.

It can only be said that Xia may have inherited part of Liangzhu's culture and continued to the later Shang and Zhou Dynasties, but it must not be said that Liangzhu is Xia!

(End of this chapter)