Er Li Tou Archaeological Site 二里头遗址 | Chinese History - The Xia Dynasty E14

So here we are at the final final last episode of the CR Dynasty series and the second episode in the two academic episodes on the CR Dynasty and of course the usual disclaimer I am in no way an academic by any stretch of the imagination. I'm just a guy with a camera telling stories about Chinese histories and stuff like that and in today's episode we are going to be talking about the archaeological finds and discoveries that have been made over the past couple of decades about the CR Dynasty. So yeah let's go! Hello and welcome to the show my name is Api Ngo and I am the chain-smoking writer. Here we share the myths, legends and histories of the Chinese people from the first creation myth to the last imperial dynasty more than 6,000 years of stories one video at a time and if you like to join us on this journey through time remember to give a thumb to the video a sub to the channel and click on the bell icon to be notified whenever a new video drops every Tuesdays and Fridays at 7 p.m Singapore time and now on to the show The CR Dynasty is generally recognized by most as the first actual dynasty in Chinese history but at the same time is also viewed as the most mysterious dynasty. Now that's because although we have documents and legends and stories and second-hand accounts that trace this slave-owning society's 500-year rule under 17 different kings through 14 different generations until today or rather until a few decades ago we did not actually have any physical archaeological evidence proving this dynasty's actual existence. Now in the early 20th century the discovery of bone scripts and the inshi archaeological sites proved the existence of the Shang dynasty which came later and we'll touch on in the next series and this gave hope to archaeologists and it spurred them on to continue in their efforts to find actual archaeological evidence to prove the existence of earlier and until then a mythical CR dynasty. Now the myths and legends that were passed down through the ages and through time through all these myths and legends we learned that Yu the Great was the one that founded the CR dynasty and in a bid to more efficiently and effectively rule the land he divided the realm into nine states or nine provinces and Yangcheng in today's Dengfeng in Henan was established as the first capital of the CR dynasty. Now during King Taikang's time Yuzhou which is today's Luoyang in Henan took over as the new capital of the dynasty of the kingdom and according to historical texts you know all these second-hand accounts and documents it was documented it was well documented in fact that Taikang moved the capital to Zhenxun and Houyi ruled from there and even the last king Jie the tyrant ruled from that city. However through the passage of time through you know all these thousands of years this ancient city of Zhenxun is you know long buried underground and basically has not been discovered you know through all this time by anyone throughout the ages. Now from the early 1900s for more than half a century generations of Chinese archaeologists spent countless hours and spent no effort in searching for the site of this ancient city of Zhenxun and although there were you know many discoveries being made during this period regarding early Chinese history the lack of any concrete proof of the existence of this mythical city you know caused many academics and many scholars to start you know doubting the veracity of the claims in these ancient texts that you know spoke extensively about the city and it was not until 1959 that the team led by the Chinese archaeologist Xu Xu of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences or 中国社会科学院 made a discovery a major discovery in fact while digging in the highlands south of Erlitou village about nine kilometers southwest of Yanshi county city and this discovery was a major one because they found the ruins of the mythical Xia capital. Now through further studies over the years it was discovered that this city was the seat of power under the reigns of Taikang, Kongjia, King Gao and King Jie the tyrant and during their reigns the city was indisputably the center of politics military economy and culture so from 1959 intensive studies began on the Erlitou archaeological site and over time more and more of this ancient cultural capital revealed itself to the scholars and the academics and in total the entire site sits on four million square meters of land which encompasses four different periods of historical developments through time. Now archaeologists discovered a large scale fully functional ancient city in this dig you know and it came with you know massive palace complexes mausoleums houses for the commoners and a well-planned road system and water wells and they even found a massive workshop zone dedicated to the production of bronze equipment. Now all this goes to show that the development of bronze working was already at an extremely advanced level and a mature level at this point in time and in the layers that that were deposited in the later periods of the city's development archaeologists also found large quantities of jade implements which you know included you know but not limited to you know jade knives jade tablets and jade you know big jade plates or jade coins that were used for ceremonial and decorative purposes and apart from these jade items large numbers of pottery and earthenware statues of tortoises pigs and goats heads were also uncovered and dug up and many of them decorated with depictions of dragons tortoises people going about their daily activities and you know other various geometric patterns. Now these discoveries not only showed us the high levels of cultural development that these ancient people had attained at the time it also you know showed us the level of creativity and the intelligence these people possessed and the skills with their hands and the production level that they possessed. Now according to Professor Xu Hong also of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences all these discoveries made at the archaeological site points to the fact that this city was built around 3,600 or 3,700 years ago and it is also the earliest ancient city discovered thus far with clear and concise city planning that was you know thought that was put into how the city was planned out and what the layout was. It was the earliest ancient city with this level of planning in the construction and the building of the the entire city itself. Now the layout and the planning of the city was neat and precise with a well-thought-out road network with square palace complexes that comprised of multiple palace buildings linked together with galleries and multiple courtyards and the city sits in the north-south sitting which basically means that it sits in the north and faces the south with a center line running through the entire middle of the layout you know and it had areas marked out for various purposes segregated into individual zones so you have like the noble zone, the commoner zone, the market zone, the workshop zone and of course a palace complex, the palace zones and stuff like that etc etc. Now this kind of layout, this kind of city planning and the various techniques used in city construction were actually passed down through time and they evolved and they you know were tweaked and improved upon but basically the general concept and the general idea and layout of city planning remained unchanged throughout the ages and it was used through the various dynasties all the way until the end of the Qing dynasty in 1911 and the pinnacle of this development of this construction style and this construction fundamentals, the pinnacle of the development of this concept can be seen today actually in the Forbidden Palace in Beijing that was built in the Ming dynasty. Now also discovered in these archaeological digs were actually two parallel tracks left in the ground that ran in the east-west direction in front of the south face of the palace complex and these tracks ran for roughly about five meters, a distance of about five meters and were about one meter distance apart from each other. Now this discovery, the discovery of these tracks told us that two-wheeled carriages or carts were already in popular use around 3,700 years ago amongst the early Chinese people and academics have now classified the development of the Xia dynasty into four different phases. Remember we mentioned earlier that there were four layers and archaeologists have split them out and now you know they have officially classified that as four different periods or four different phases of the development of the city itself based on the layers of deposits found in the dig. Now the fourth phase or the last phase of the development was generally considered to be you know the decline and the final days of the Xia dynasty as the rise of the Shang city at Yanshi just a bit further down the road was dated to roughly around the same period. However more recent discoveries showed that you know while the quantities of the artifacts discovered in the fourth phase is not as numerous as you know in previous phases, the area of dispersion of these artifacts did not show any signs of shrinking as would be common with you know a declining or dying civilization. The area covered by the palace complexes even showed signs of being massively expanded over phase three. Now the palace walls that were built in phase three of city development lasted well into phase four and they were never really destroyed. The road networks around the palace complex together with the walls were found to be well preserved when they were discovered and foundations for new large-scale buildings and walls for courtyards and gardens were also found to the east of the existing palace complex that were discovered. Now other than these discoveries, the archaeologists also found a new wall running parallel about 18 meters to the south of the palace complex south wall and this new wall was constructed of rammed earth and seemed to be actually better constructed than the original palace walls and this new wall actually ran for about 200 meters long with an average thickness of two meters deep and this was separated from the old wall by actually what was a road, a main road you know and so it was believed that this new wall would be part of a north wall of a new construction that was happening at that time. However nothing more is known about this new building as the wall itself was actually destroyed not long after construction. Archaeologists also found to the south of the palace complex an area marked out as a turquoise workshop zone and the only job of this whole workshop zone was to produce turquoise jewelry and decorative implements for the nobles and the ruling class of the time and beside the workshop area they found a refuse pit where failed pieces of work were discarded and in this refuse pit we actually found thousands of pieces of turquoise materials that actually showed signs of cutting drilling and polishing and many of the smaller pieces of turquoise beads were actually seemingly discarded just because the holes drilled in them were not centered and were not straight and they were thus discarded and these were all dated to the later period of the phase 4 development of the entire site which shows that you know the Xia dynasty, the end of the Xia dynasty might not have been such a slow decline and you know it did not slowly disappear in fact it was still showing signs of development and high levels of productivity until the very end. On top of that the bronze and jade artifacts that were discovered in phase 4 mausoleums, not only were they you know more numerous in quantity, the quality of those pieces of artifacts were found to be of a much higher level as well. It was also discovered at this time that there were also large scale bronze weaponry and more intricate pieces of pottery found in these mausoleums with you know very high levels of intricate decorations that dated as late as phase 1 development of the Shang city at Yanshi. Right at the very end of the period, the central palace complex zone still showed signs of extensive use and even major expansion works that were being planned and were being carried out at the time. So there were, I mean after the discoveries, yes we did get a lot of answers but it also threw up a lot of questions about this mythical and mysterious first dynasty of Chinese history. So did this city at Erlitou develop all the way until the end of the fourth period before starting its decline and you know which later led to its abandonment in total? Or was it you know like conquered and sacked by the new rising power that took over the city? Or is it possible that this city at Erlitou actually existed for a time together with the new Shang city that was being built up and constructed further down the road at Yanshi? Or did they you know come one after another you know after the abandonment of Erlitou, then the Yanshi city was built? Or was it like a crossover? Was there a crossover point between both of them? Now yes, these archaeological finds at Erlitou answered a lot of questions about the Xia dynasty that we had until its discovery. But at the same time it threw up you know all these new questions that frankly nobody has any answers to. And these are the questions that are still awaiting new discoveries to give us satisfactory answers to. And with these questions we come to the end of the series on the Xia dynasty. And next Tuesday where the new video drops is going to be the 100 subscribers special. So watch out for that one and after that we are going to start a new series on the Shang dynasty. So you guys better stay tuned and remember to subscribe to the channel for that. Well I hope you found the information in this video interesting. I thought it was interesting enough to share with all you guys out there. So yeah I hope it's not too dry. But anyways if you found it interesting remember a thumb for the video, a sub for the channel and click on the bell icon to be notified whenever a new video drops every Tuesday and Friday at 7 p.m Singapore time. And if you would like to support this channel and you're considering supporting this channel beyond liking and subbing you can do so over at my Patreon page. The links are available here and down in the description box below. And if you can do that yeah it would definitely help keep the lights on around here. So yeah do so if you can. And as usual I do look forward to the comments and the banter that we have in the comment section. So yeah give me your feedbacks give me your thoughts in the comment section. I do personally go through all of them and I do personally reply to all of them if possible. And so yeah I look forward to your comments and I guess I will see you in the next episode.