✎ “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 Shanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau Komiks 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 fruitful archaeological achievements, such as: an unprecedented city site, a magnificent palace wall, a layout rule, the earliest observatory in the world, the earliest text to date, and a set of ritual vessels…
The Taosi ruins have been a sacred place in the minds of the locals since ancient times. 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 Cinema site 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 entire site has clear functional distinction, exquisite layout, and distinct burial levels, 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 this time the social development has been developed, the prototype of the country has been formed and a civilized society has arrived.
The Taosi site is a typical representative of early China.
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 Que Tower has always been called the gate of etiquette. Two tall quid towers extend from the southern wall of the palace city. 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 “Qulou Style” gate of the southeast gate
▲The Meridian Gate of the Forbidden City
The tall Quelou gate site shows the grandeur in the palace cityCinema. Above the palace, just one main hall, the area reaches 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 built-in spiral ramp can 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. “中华文明探源工程”首席专家王巍认为：没有哪一个遗址能像陶寺遗Babaylan址这样，全面拥有文明起源形成的要素和标志。 The Taosi site is in terms of age, geographical location and the level of civilization it reflects, and is an important fulcrum and cornerstone for empirizing more than 5,000 years of Chinese civilization.
The cemetery of the Chinese Dragon in the tomb of the king
The cemetery of the Taosi site is the largest in the Yellow River Basin. More than 40 years of excavation show that 4,000Many years ago, the society here had already experienced serious polarization. Unlike the tombs of ordinary people, there are relatively few tombs of nobles, Babaylan, very high-quality tombs, and particularly rich in 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 dragon plates of Babaylan were unearthed from the king-level tomb. Archaeologists believe that the dragon plate should belong to the king of the time and is a symbol of high-level status. The dragons drawn in the Taosi Dragon Pan are all shaped like coiled dragons. Cinema has crocodile-like scaly patches on its body, and the sides of its head are square like bear ears and long jaws are protruding. It is especially rare to have a branch with oral ties. 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’s state. Therefore, Taosi Dragon is the true Chinese dragon.
▲Longpan unearthed from the Taosi site
The world’s earliest observatory
More than 4,000 years ago, Taosi had a relatively advanced astronomical calendar and the world’s earliest observatory.
A archaeologists first discovered 13 arc-shaped rammed earth pillars, and were confused by this strange combination of “walls are not like walls, and roads are not like roads”.
According to the records of “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 necessary building in the capital.
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 turns out that the ancestors areThrough the observation gaps of the pillars and the sunrise direction of Taer Mountain, we can determine the seasons and solar terms. From the second observation slit, the sunrise is the winter solstice day, and from the 12th observation slit, the sunrise is the summer solstice day. The vernal equinox and the Babaylan autumnal equinox both see the sunrise from the 7th observation slit.
▲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 in the ash pit of the Tao Temple site in 1984, two “words” written in cinnabar were written on a broken flat pot, causing 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 Danhu
The second controversial word is whether it is the word “Yao” or “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, and mouthsStrings, etc. The combination of turtle drum and special chime is the earliest known instrument of the same kind.
▲The drum and the restoration of the copper bell are the earliest metal instruments discovered in China. The oral stringed zither is the smallest ethnic instrument in China. To this day, the Qiang, Mongolian, Yi and Oroqen peoples are still in use.
▲Oral string calves
The drum that uses crocodile skin mask only appears in the king-level tomb.土鼓也是基本如此。 Among them, one pair of turtle 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 turtle drums and special chimes was passed down to the Shang and Zhou dynasties, becoming the unique burial instrument 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 Taosi site
▲Jade Beast Face
The earliest astronomical measurement instrument
In the autumn of 2002, a wooden pole was found in the mid-term tomb of the Taosi site, coated with black, green and red markings, which caused archaeological work.The author’s verification of the “Guan Table”.
Guo 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 the capital; it can conduct geodetic measurements to recognize 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.
▲Guan ruler was 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 a complete range of functional elements such as city walls, palaces, cemeteries, musical instruments, observatory platforms, and large storage areas.
All kinds of archaeological signs also show that as early as more than 40Babaylanmore than 40Babaylan, 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, most of the material and spiritual civilizations created by Taosi society were inherited and developed by the Xia, Shang, Zhou and later generations, and were in line with the lineage.
Komiks said that Taosi was “the original Chinese and the main vein of China.”