Master Archaeologist

Chapter 378 Chuming Ruins Group

Half a month later, under the scorching summer.

Several meetings were held in Liangzhu, and many lectures were heard. After visiting the Yaoshan altar, the archaeological team of the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences soon received a new task.

A site suspected to be a jade-making workshop of the Liangzhu Culture was excavated.

Zhongchuming Ruins Group.

This is actually not a new discovery.

The Zhongchuming Site Group is located in Yangdun Village, Leidian Town, Deqing County, Huzhou, Zhejiang.

It is about 18 kilometers away from the Liangzhu Site Group in the southwest.The terrain of this area is low, the water network is developed, and it is adjacent to the current Dongtiao River and the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, so the water transportation is very convenient.

According to the second volume of "Deqing County New Records" in 1932: "Zhongchuming, Xiachuming, Sangyu, Gaoqiao, etc. were excavated in the ground. Red and yellow, people at that time called it Western Han jade, and the best ones were extremely precious."

In the 20s, a large number of jade materials were unearthed from the excavation of fish ponds in the local area, and there were occasional piracy.

This has long attracted the attention of the local cultural protection department, and this group of ruins has long been positioned as an important archaeological site.

However, in the whole of Zhejiang, there are too many various sites that require long-term archaeology, so many that there is actually no time to excavate each site in time.

It was not until 2010 that the Yangdun site in the south of the site group was announced as a county-level cultural relic protection unit in Deqing County, and the Zhejiang Institute of Archeology prepared to conduct archaeology on this piece of Zhongchuming site and included it in the long-term archaeological plan.

Then, another ten years passed, and it was not until people from the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences arrived that the Zhongchuming site finally had the opportunity to excavate.

Kong Jianwen led his archaeologists to the location of the Chuming ruins group, and conducted investigation and exploration of this area.

Since it is a group of ruins, it certainly does not refer to a single ruin.

The entire site group includes Muyu Bridge, Baoan Bridge, Wang's House, Tianbandai, Lujiaba and many other sites.

However, due to the excavation of ponds and the construction of farms in the Zhongchuming site group, most of the area was destroyed and the preservation is poor.

Only the Baoanqiao and Wangjia ruins in the north, the Tianbandai ruins in the middle and the Lujiaba ruins in the south are well preserved.

With everyone, we first carried out a period of exploration work.

After a period of archaeological investigation and exploration, the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences discovered and confirmed 23 artificially built earth platforms in the Liangzhu Culture period in this site group.

It is basically clear that there is a large-scale jade-making workshop site group in the Liangzhu culture period in this area, which can be collectively referred to as the Zhongchuming jade-making workshop site group, with a total area of ​​more than 100 million square meters.

According to the existing conditions, the site group is divided into four areas: A, B, C, and D from north to south.

Among them, Area A includes the ruins of Baoan Bridge, Wangjia, and Xiaoqiaotou. A total of 11 artificially built earthen platforms were found, with an area of ​​200 to 1200 square meters.

Area B includes Tianbandai and other ruins, and a total of 10 artificially built earth platforms were found, with an area of ​​100-1000 square meters.

Area C includes the Muyu Bridge ruins, etc., which were severely damaged due to pond excavation and other reasons. Only one artificially constructed earthen platform was found, and only sporadic cultural layers were found in the rest.

Area D includes ruins such as Lujiaba, and a total of 2 artificially built earthen platforms were discovered. However, due to limited time, the exploration work in this area has not yet been completed.

Why hasn't it been done yet?
Because halfway through the exploration, it was basically determined that this was a large-scale jade workshop, so it was necessary to select several ruins for trial excavation.

said before.

Various exquisite jade artifacts were unearthed from the Liangzhu site, representing the pinnacle of contemporary jade artifact culture.

Of all the archaeologists who have participated in the archaeological work of Liangzhu, no one would deny that the jade culture of Liangzhu is very good, and no one would think that these jade articles are foreign objects and must have been made by Liangzhu people themselves.

But at the same time as being firm, because no large-scale jade-making workshop has been found, there is a lack of a little bit of key evidence to prove that these jade wares were made by Liangzhu people themselves.

But it's different now.

The determination of the Zhongchuming site group also confirmed the Liangzhu jade culture, and the jade production technology came from itself.

That being the case, it must be a formal excavation.

After a brief discussion between Kong Jianwen and Professor Li, they decided to take the lead in excavating the well-preserved Baoanqiao site in Area A.

Because there are many built earth platforms here, and the preservation condition is the best in the four districts.

The Bao'an Bridge Site is located in the north of the Zhongchuming Site Group.

According to the scale of the ruins explored in the early stage, Kong Jianwen plans to lay out 5 exploration squares of 10 meters by 22 meters here!
The archaeological team of the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences has only 12 people in total. It is definitely not realistic to rely on ourselves.

Fortunately, as Zhejiang is a large province in the south of the Yangtze River, it is no exaggeration to say that there are people everywhere.

With a little help from the cultural relics protection department of the local county, more than 100 villagers from the countryside were summoned the next day to help with the excavation work.

In fact, it is also very simple, that is, according to the 5m x 10m pit drawn by the white line, dig out the filling soil inside by 1.1m.

It's just digging holes.

More than 100 uncles and aunts in their 50s and 100s are full of enthusiasm and earn a salary of [-] a day. The work is called beautiful.

Another month or two passed, and in the excavation area of ​​nearly 1100 square meters, the earth platforms, braised soil accumulations, ash pits, ash ditches, water wells, tombs, etc. of the Liangzhu Culture period were quickly discovered and cleared, and there were merchants found Cultural relics of Zhou, Song, Ming and Qing Dynasties.

From the perspective of stratum accumulation, the bottom layer of the Baoanqiao site is much richer than the bottom layer of the Liangzhu ancient city dam, and can be divided into 12 layers.

第1、2层为近现代层，第3层是明清层，第4A、B以及第5层、第6层A、B层都为宋代土层，只是具体活动时期不同。

Just one Song Dynasty layer can be divided into five layers. It can be clearly seen that in the Song Dynasty, the location of the Baoan Bridge site should be a very important area with dense traffic and frequent human activities.

And unearthed a large number of early Song Dynasty pottery, tiles, bricks, a small amount of late porcelain, tiles, bricks.

Thinking about it, it’s still the same sentence, the area where the Liangzhu site group is distributed is really too close to the capital city of the Southern Song Dynasty.

It is completely predictable that under the soil layer of this place, the Song Dynasty soil layer is the richest and thickest.

After all, the Hangzhou area in the Southern Song Dynasty is the most important center of China, comparable to the ancient Chang'an, with a dense population and a collection of goods from all over the world.

Although the Song Dynasty has always been called a weak Song by netizens, it is a soft knee.

But what I have to admit is that although the Song Dynasty was very aggressive in foreign wars, it had been in peace for many years, its economy developed very well, and people's livelihood was also doing very well. It can be regarded as one of the most prosperous periods in history.

Whether it is for the officials or the common people, it is a relatively comfortable time to live.

(End of this chapter)