Showcasing New Archaeological Discoveries of Yin Ruins in the New Era | Huanbei | Yin Ruins | Era

Figure 1: Stone beasts unearthed from the Wangling District of the Yin Ruins.

Figure 2: Uncharted divination bones were unearthed in the east of Dashikong Village.

Figure 3: Bronze Yue unearthed from the Taojiaying Site.

Figure 4: A green copper cauldron with gluttonous patterns, split crotch columns, and feet unearthed from the Shaojiapeng site.

Figure ⑤: Viewers visit the exhibition "From Yin Ruins to Dayi Merchants - New Era Yin Ruins Archaeological Discoveries and Achievements Exhibition".

Figures ① to ⑤ are all provided by Zhou Wei

Layout Core Reading

In recent years, under the guidance of new archaeological concepts and methods, archaeologists have continuously made new discoveries in the Wang Ling area of Yin Ruins, the Xiaotun Palace and Ancestral Temple area, the Huanbei handicraft workshop area, and the surrounding areas of traditional Yin Ruins. Relevant research and oracle bone inscriptions have gradually confirmed the Dayi merchants, further revealing, presenting, and restoring the comprehensive and vivid Shang Dynasty civilization.

Many achievements have been made in the archaeology and research of Yin Ruins, but further deepening and improvement are needed in topics such as the layout of Dayi merchants in Yin Ruins, Fang Guo archaeology, oracle bone inscriptions, and the early development and internal driving forces of Chinese civilization represented by merchants.

Not long ago, the National Cutural Heritage Administration, together with the Central Civilization Office and the Central Cyberspace Office, jointly released the promotion list of the 2023 exhibition themed "Carrying forward excellent traditional Chinese culture and cultivating socialist core values", and the Anyang Museum in Henan Province was selected as "From Yin Ruins to Dayi Merchants - New Archaeological Findings Exhibition of Yin Ruins in the New Era". In recent years, under the guidance of new archaeological concepts and methods, archaeologists have continuously made new discoveries in the Wang Ling area of Yin Ruins, the Xiaotun Palace and Ancestral Temple area, the Huanbei handicraft workshop area, and the surrounding areas of traditional Yin Ruins. Relevant research and oracle bone inscriptions have gradually confirmed the Dayi merchants, further revealing, presenting, and restoring the comprehensive and vivid Shang Dynasty civilization. The exhibition is a concentrated display of these archaeological achievements.

The exhibition is based on the archaeological excavations and research achievements of Yin Ruins since the new era. Through 375 unearthed cultural relics and 95 graphic and textual pages, it is divided into three parts: "City Present - Huanbei Commercial City and Its Era", "Tianyi - Prosperous Late Shang Emperor Capital", and "Text - Maintaining the Gene of the Chinese Nation". The exhibition timely transforms new archaeological discoveries into accurate and vivid knowledge, spreads it to the public, and allows the public to experience brilliant civilization.

Presenting the Huanbei Shopping Mall, the capital city of the Shang Dynasty

Visiting the exhibition, visitors can see aerial photographs of the excavation areas of the Huanbei Shopping Mall every year, as well as sequentially arranged pottery pipes, pottery furnace fragments, pottery molds, pottery models, pottery goblets, pottery jues, as well as copper jues and bronze goblets unearthed from the Huanbei Shopping Mall.

In archaeology, the Shang culture is divided into the early Shang culture represented by Yanshi Shang City and Zhengzhou Shang City, the late Shang culture represented by Yin Xu in Anyang, and the Chinese Shang culture between them. In 1999, archaeologists discovered the Huanbei Commercial City, the capital of the Shang Dynasty, which was earlier than the Yin Ruins, in the northeast of the traditional Yin Ruins. The total area of the Huanbei Shopping Mall is about 4.7 million square meters, consisting of an outer city and a palace city, intersecting with the Yin ruins in the southwest. In recent years, with the joint participation of field archaeology, scientific and technological archaeology, and multiple disciplines, the focus has been on the layout of city sites, functional zoning, and the pattern of handicrafts. The system has revealed the production methods of handicrafts such as copper casting, bone making, and pottery, as well as the layout model of "integrating housing and burial" in ethnic towns.

During the period of Huanbei Shangcheng, which was in the middle of the Shang Dynasty, it was the capital of the Shang Dynasty. The Wangling District located in the northwest of the city may have been put into use by this time. The northern area of Houjiazhuang, excavated in 1978, may have been the first royal tomb buried in the Wangling District. The exhibition showcases fragments of stone cong, stone beasts, white pottery, bone arrowheads, bone hairpins, bronze artifacts, and ivory artifacts unearthed here.

The bronze vessels, teapots, tripods, jue, yue, daggers and other cultural relics unearthed from the Taojiaying site are all exhibited for the first time. In 2021, a Taojiaying site with an area of approximately 185000 square meters was discovered approximately 7.2 kilometers north of the Yinxu Palace District and 4 kilometers north of the Huanbei Shopping Mall. Pottery production areas, residential areas, and burial areas have been discovered within the site, with abundant bronze, jade, and pottery unearthed from 25 tombs. Archaeologists believe that this is one of the few known mid Shang Dynasty Huanhao settlement sites, which together with the Huanbei Shangcheng form a clear and differentiated settlement site form. It is an important fortress in the northern part of the Huanbei Shangcheng during the same period.

Pottery is the Code for Interpreting the Civilization of the Shang Dynasty

Pottery is the most common, frequently changing, and representative cultural relic in the Yin ruins, serving as the code for archaeology to interpret the civilization of the Shang Dynasty. In 1956, archaeologist Zou Heng first divided the culture of Yin Ruins into different stages, corresponding to the corresponding reigns of the Shang kings. Since 1961, the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has further explored the stages of Yin Ruins culture based on the new achievements of stratigraphy and typology, with the change of pottery as the main body, and finally established the conclusion of the four stages of Yin Ruins culture that has been used so far. The exhibition showcases pottery from different periods, allowing the audience to see the changes within.

Roads are the material backbone of urban culture. It not only distinguishes different buildings, but also connects with each other. Since the excavation of Yin Ruins, multiple road relics have been discovered one after another. In 2008, with the discovery of large roads in the north of Liujiazhuang, south of the palace district, and under the guidance of the "layout of the Yin Ruins capital" project, multiple roads were successively discovered on both sides of the Huan River. Especially with the discovery of large roads in the north of Liujiazhuang and Dashikong Village, the internal road network of the city has initially emerged. The road is as wide as 15 meters and is often paved with pebbles, intentionally broken pottery pieces, etc. The ruts on the road are clear and distinguishable. On both sides of the road are densely distributed remains such as residential sites, tombs, and handicraft workshops. The "blocks" formed by roads are of great significance for exploring the distribution and social form of Yin Xu ethnic towns.

Ethnic settlements are an important component of the archaeology of Yin Ruins. As a "metropolis" with an area of approximately 36 square kilometers and a population of over 100000, it is evident that not only are there Shang kings and members of the royal family, but there should also be clan towns dominated by families throughout the capital. These families bear different responsibilities as service providers. The Shaojiapeng Site located in the southeast of Yin Ruins is an important discovery since 2019. According to the inscriptions on bronze artifacts, this should be the location of the Shang Dynasty historian's "Book" clan town. The well preserved multiple rows of rammed earth courtyard buildings, "Zhong" - shaped double tomb path large tombs and small and medium-sized tombs, as well as six chariot and horse pits, further vividly present the layout form of the "unity of residence and burial" clan town at that time.

The palace and royal tomb areas of the Yin ruins were excavated the earliest and yielded the greatest results, but to this day, unsolved mysteries are still abundant. The ongoing archaeological investigation of the Shang Wang Mausoleum in the Yin Ruins and its surrounding remains has been selected as one of the "Top 10 New Archaeological Discoveries in China in 2022". From 2020 to 2022, archaeologists such as Niu Shishan conducted systematic exploration and excavation, confirming that there are two square trenches surrounding the western tomb area and the eastern sacrificial area of the Wang Mausoleum, respectively. More than 460 sacrificial pits have been discovered in the eastern area. The square ring trench is currently the earliest known tomb "Zhaogou", which ultimately determined the scope of the royal tomb area. This changed the previous understanding of the Shang King's Mausoleum and effectively promoted research on the Shang Dynasty tomb system.

In 2016, archaeologists discovered a new Xindian site with an area of about 1 million square meters in the northeast of Yin Xu, about 10 kilometers away from the palace area of Yin Xu, including a copper casting workshop of about 500000 square meters. The newly discovered bronze casting related relics and artifacts have a huge quantity, good preservation, complete production processes, and a long duration, making it the largest copper casting workshop known to date during the Shang and Zhou dynasties. As an important component of the commercial capital of Dayi, the Xindian Site also supports the "low-density urbanization" of early Chinese civilization. The exhibition also showcases bronze ritual vessels such as Gu, Jue, Ding, Gui, and Pi unearthed from the latest archaeological discoveries such as Yuan Xiaotun Site, Lao Liuzhuang Site, and Sangyuan Site. These archaeologies have provided new materials for studying the scope, layout, and cultural connotations of the Dayi merchants in the Yin Ruins.

According to archaeological investigations and excavation data, during the late Shang Dynasty, Yin Ruins developed from Huanbei Commercial City to a super large capital of the Shang Dynasty. There is at least a settlement structure in the Huan River Basin, where the Huanbei Shangcheng and Yinxu are at the first level, the Taojiaying and Xindian sites are at the second level, and other small sites are at the third level. The "Dayi Shang" and "Tianyi Shang" recorded in oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions should not be empty references, but have rich and diverse physical evidence.

Relying on Oracle Bone Script Collections to Tell Chinese Character Stories Well

The final part of the exhibition, which is also a very important chapter "Writing - Maintaining the Gene of the Chinese Nation", introduces the important role of oracle bone script in the development of civilization.

Although there have been relatively few oracle bone inscriptions unearthed in recent years, the related relics discovered are extremely important. For example, the M11 embedded turquoise bone in the Angang Second Refinery area and the H37 carved cow bone in Dashikong Village have enriched our understanding of oracle bone inscriptions, inscriptions, and decorative methods. From 2016 to 2017, 165 pieces of oracle bones were unearthed from the Wuzi oracle bone pit in the east of Dashikong Village. This is the most discovery of Wuzi oracle bones outside the palace area of the Yin Ruins, adding content on the renovation method of oracle bones in the Yin Ruins. The tomb of Zhen Ren, discovered in the south of Wangyukou Village in 2009, confirmed the remains of Zhen Ren in oracle bone inscriptions through archaeological excavation, which is the first time in the Yin Ruins.

From the initial preparation of turtle shells and animal bones, to the final carving of inscriptions and many other stages, divination requires cooperation from multiple people to complete. The owners of two Zhenren tombs in the southern part of Wangyukou Village buried multiple tools related to oracle bone divination, including copper knives, copper spears, copper chisels, copper carving knives, jade carving knives, and grinding stones. In the exhibition, we can see related tools such as grinding stones and knives.

There is also a bronze wine cap with inscriptions unearthed from the Shaojiapeng site in the exhibition, which has a 12 character inscription: "On the day of Ji Hai, I bestowed two friends of shells as Yi." It records the fact that the imperial officials bestowed shells on their officials, which is a new material reflecting the system of bestowing shells by the Yin dynasty. Bronze ware was an important carrier of writing during the late Shang Dynasty. The "Ge" tribe at the Xindian site, the "Ce" tribe at the Shaojiapeng site, and the "Chi" tribe in the southern part of Renjiazhuang are all important discoveries in recent years.

The formation and development of the Chinese nation cannot be separated from the maintenance of Chinese characters. How to tell the story of Chinese characters well based on oracle bone inscriptions is a topic that the Anyang Museum has been exploring.

Over the past 90 years, numerous achievements have been made in the archaeology and research of Yin Ruins. However, further deepening and improvement are needed in topics such as the layout of Dayi merchants in Yin Ruins, Fang Guo archaeology, oracle bone inscriptions, and the early development and internal driving forces of Chinese civilization represented by merchants. In the future, it is still necessary to carry out proactive and refined archaeological work, deeply explore the cultural connotations of Yin ruins, and provide more solid support for the protection, display, utilization, and revitalization of Yin ruins.