On the loess Liangmao (mǎo) on the north bank of the Tuwei River, a first-level tributary of the Yellow River, in Gaojiabao Town, Shenmu City, Shaanxi Province, stands a large-scale stone city dating back about 4,000 years -Shimao. Before the official archaeological excavation of Shimao, there was a local saying:The jade articles in Shimao were caught in the cracks of the city wall.. Many people who have only seen jades unearthed in Shimao are skeptical, because the jade there is only one or two millimeters thin. If such a thin jade is sandwiched in a wall, won't it be crushed?
Why hide jade in the wall?
Yet the facts cannot be disputed. Archaeologists unearthed a jade shovel "inserted" parallel to the middle of the stone seam in the wall of the outer urn city in Shimao. The space between it and the stone walls on both sides was filled with grass and mud. In other words, this jade was deliberately pressed into the wall during the construction of the outer urn wall. And this jade shovel is not an isolated case. In subsequent archaeological excavations, a large number of jade objects found in the city walls also confirmed this.
Source: Shimao Museum
Archaeologists named this phenomenon "jade hidden in the wall". In the newly opened Shimao National Archaeological Site Park, you can witness this phenomenon with your own eyes. There is also a special section in the Shimao Museum to introduce this phenomenon in Shimao culture.
In the eyes of experts, the phenomenon of "jade hidden in the wall" is extremely special.
First of all, the concepts and practices of using jade in Shimao are very different from those in other areas. Due to the rarity of high-quality jade, jade has always been a top luxury product in ancient times. For example, in the Liangzhu culture, which was earlier than Shimao, jade occupies a unique and prominent historical position, integrating divine power, royal power, and military power. The ancestors of Liangzhu designed a jade ritual system centered on the worship of gods, centered on Cong, Bi, and Yue, to distinguish classes, identify identities, and reflect grades.
After the outer city wall of Shimao was washed away by rain, a very complete jade ax was exposed.
In contrast, it is very rare for Shimao to have jade articles interspersed in the city walls. Jade is often found in sacrifices and tombs of high-level nobles. Jade may not be found in the tombs of many ordinary people in later generations. However, the Shimao people 4,000 years ago used it in large quantities in urban construction.
Secondly,Shimao people would repeatedly modify jade articles. From the jades excavated in the Shimao wall, archaeologists also found that modified jade was a common phenomenon here, which led to the complex style of the Shimao jade system. A typical example is a jade shovel collected by the Shaanxi History Museum. The jade shovel has a flat and long body with multiple incised lines on both sides. It is very similar to the multi-node jade cong of the Liangzhu culture, and is obviously modified from the jade cong.
Shimao Culture Jade Shovel
The jade cong is a typical artifact of the Liangzhu culture in the prehistoric Taihu Lake area. It is regarded as a belief by the Liangzhu people and is used to worship heaven and earth. Such a heavy instrument was actually cut into thin slices in Shimao. The Shimao people only used the outside of the jade cong, removed the inner curved part, changed it into a sheet, and pressed it into the wall.
It would be very interesting if these modified jade congs really came from Liangzhu. Jade congs have been unearthed in many places outside the Liangzhu Cultural Center, but only a handful of them have been found in Shimao. The two civilizations, Liangzhu Culture and Shimao Culture, have an ebb and flow relationship. Are the Shimao people violently destroying other people's beliefs by doing this, or are they just out of their preference for flake jade?
third,The origin and processing technology of these jade are also quite eye-catching.. The current archaeological excavation area of Shimao is only the tip of the iceberg of the entire Shimao city, and thousands of jade articles have been unearthed. It can be imagined that the amount of jade materials required for the construction of the entire Shimao city is extraordinary. You should know that jade is produced in batches either from local materials or imported from other places. However, no local jade resources in northern Shaanxi have been discovered so far.
Liangzhu culture jade cong style tube. Source: Shimao Museum
If imported from outside, a series of matters such as luxury goods production, material mining, trade, transportation, processing, etc. would have been a huge project in prehistoric times. "Hiding jade in the wall" not only indicates the strong strength of the Shimao Kingdom, but also implies the frequent and smooth prehistoric cultural exchange network.
besides,The processing technology of jade at Shimao site is also far beyond modern imagination.. The thinnest part of the recut jade is only 0.03 centimeters. Judging from the cross section, it is speculated that the ancients used slice cutting technology, which is still time-consuming and laborious even now. The bodies of many large-scale artifacts at Shimao are also very thin, which is not only related to the lack of jade materials, but also closely related to the advanced jade processing technology at that time. Unfortunately, no jade processing tools have been found in the archeology of the Shimao site.
Yumen Yaotai, piles of sacred objects?
The phenomenon of "hiding jade in the wall" is puzzling. What is the meaning of Shimao people doing this?
Speaking of which, we must mention the other two major features of the Shimao Kingdom: one is the recognizable large-scale stone sculptures on the city walls, and the other is the discovery of human heads laying foundations at the base of the walls and under the city gates. Putting these three situations together, coupled with the layer-by-layer guarding and unattainable royal city pattern, expresses theShimao people have a spiritual expectation for their city walls.
head pit
Some ancient Chinese tribes worshiped jade as a sacred object, and the Shimao people may have been one of them. In ancient Chinese mythology, "Yao Terrace" is the residence of gods, and "Jade Gate" is the door for gods to enter and exit, both of which are built of beautiful jade.
It is recorded in the historical book "Bamboo Chronicles" that Xia Jie, the last ruler of the Xia Dynasty, imitated the treatment of gods by "building Qing palaces, decorating Yaotai, making Qiong chambers, and erecting jade gates." However, in the real world, so-called jade buildings cannot be made entirely of jade materials. Instead, they can only build jade objects into buildings like Shimao, in the hope of warding off evil spirits and fending off enemies.
In addition to jade pieces, there are also a large number of broken sheep bones in the walls of Shimao City Wall. Could they just be carriers of witchcraft to protect the city wall? We don't know, and further conclusions require more evidence to support.
Shimao stone carvings
Another possibility is that it was influenced by the culture of the northern nomads, who had the habit of building the sacred objects of small tribes into the city walls as spiritual sustenance.
Some scholars conducted a physical anthropological analysis on 104 skulls unearthed from the sacrificial pit at the east gate of the outer city and Houyang Bay at the Shimao City site. Most of the skulls in the sacrificial pit at the east gate of the outer city were of mature age, and their racial characteristics were highly consistent with those of the indigenous residents along the Great Wall in Inner Mongolia. The wounds on these skulls indicate that the Shimao people and the people in this area may have fought frequent wars over resources. This is just a small window into the fact that the Shimao Kingdom is "surrounded by wolves." Shimao may have completed cultural exchange and integration through frequent wars.
The long-standing jade culture
Chinese jade culture has a long history, and Shimao culture occupies a unique historical position. We cannot use today's concept of "jade and jade" to look at jade from prehistoric times. During that period,Jade is the material carrier and symbol of Chinese spiritual civilization and even institutional civilization.It plays a multi-faceted role in beautifying the body, communicating with heaven and earth, constructing order, worshiping humans and gods, symbolizing power, indicating status, representing wealth, and containing thoughts.
"Husband's jade is also a sacred object, and it is made so by the holy master." The general meaning is that jade, which is regarded as a sacred object, is also used by sacred people like Huangdi to show his dominance. In the Liangzhu Culture, jade was a symbol that reflected divine power, royal power and military power, and this meaning has been widely spread for a long time; in the Shimao Culture, "hiding jade in the wall" added a spiritual barrier or other more different cultural connotations to jade; in later generations, jade stepped down from the altar, walked out of the royal family, and entered the homes of ordinary people, becoming the spiritual symbol of the Chinese people.
Huangcheng Terrace
With the continuous efforts of archaeologists, the meaning of jade has become more and more vivid and true. As Fei Xiaotong, a famous Chinese sociologist, said: Our archaeological community is using the study of jade as an entry point to elaborate on the significance of jade in Chinese culture from a more profound level, and profoundly combine archaeological research with the study of spiritual civilization.
References
[1] Xu Feng. Preliminary comparison of archaeological finds in Shimao and Taosi [J]. Wenbo, 2014(01):18-22+69.
[2] CCTV News. "Looking for Ancient China" Jade Story·Yuyao Ancient Country
[3] Sun Zhouyong: The ancient city of Shimao 4,000 years ago, the cultural starry sky shining on the eve of the Xia Dynasty
[4] Chen Liang, Xiong Jianxue, Shao Jing, etc. Research on skulls unearthed from the sacrificial pit of Shenmu Shimao City Site in Shaanxi [J]. Archeology and Cultural Relics, 2016(04):134-142
[5] Sun Zhouyong, Shao Jing, Di Nan. A review of archaeological discoveries and research on the Shimao site [J]. Central Plains Cultural Relics, 2020(01):39-62
Planning and production
This article is a work of Popular Science China-Starry Sky Project
Produced by Science Popularization Department of China Association for Science and Technology
Producer丨China Science and Technology Press Co., Ltd., Beijing Zhongke Galaxy Culture Media Co., Ltd.
Author | Yong Qian Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archeology (Shaanxi Archaeological Museum)
Review丨Wang Hongzhi Associate Professor, School of Humanities, Shanghai Normal University
Planning丨Xu Lai
Editor in charge丨Cao Ruiyinuo