Ruins of the city wall
Posted on 12/03/2007 10:43:29 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The ancient city of Liangzhu is rectangular in shape with rounded corners, and faces north. The city extends 1,500-1,700 meters from east to west, and 1,800-1,900 meters north to south. The 6 kilometers of wall surround an area of 2.9 million square meters: the size of the Summer Palace. The adobe walls, built on stone foundations, are the widest existing walls found thus far... The Liangzhu culture is a prehistoric culture, dating back to BC 5,000- BC 4,000. The sphere of its influence reached as far as Shanxi to the north, and to Guangdong in the South. It is among the earliest of civilizations, materially proven; and equally as valuable as the famous Yin Dynasty ruins... "After all, what we have so far is only a fraction of this old civilization. The Liangzhu culture in itself defies analysis in that it has left no written accounts, or any records of a founder. Therefore, it is still too early to say that a Liangzhu Dynasty existed in China’s history," stated Ge Jianxiong, a professor at Fudan University.
(Excerpt) Read more at english.people.com.cn ...
Ruins of the city wall
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Thanks to Renfield for sending the link to Remains of ancient city discovered in east China, which got me started looking for more. :') |
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This is the first time I’ve ever heard that there was civilization in China 4000 years before the pyramids were built in Egypt!
Oops, make that 2000 years.
In my opinion, its just an attempt by Commie China to claim that their civilization is the oldest one in the world.
Via Google:
The Liangzhu culture, dated to 3310 – 2250 B.C., is a late Neolithic (or Chalcolithic) culture located in Southeast China. Well known for its high quality and number of jade artifacts, it succeeded the Majiabang culture and later became part of the Shang Dynasty. The Liangzhu culture is roughly contemporary with the Longshan and Hongshan cultures to the north.
The Liangzhu culture consists of over 100 sites, of which 30 have been excavated, residing south and east of Lake Tai on a peninsula formed by the Yangzi River and Hangzhou Bay. This peninsula, named Tai Hu Bandao, has played an important role in China throughout its history. Shanghai lies on the east seashore and to the southwest, the city of Hangzhou was the capitol of several dynasties in China’s past. Hangzhou was a small town during the Chalcolithic Liangzhu culture and was originally named “Liangzhu”. The small town was renamed many times and eventually became a very important city and one of the cradles of the Chinese civilization.
The Liangzhu culture, growing keng rice and making black-based and black-burnished pottery, represents the earliest Chalcolithic Culture in southeast China. They also left significant evidence to reveal some of their social practices. The evidence shows a pronounced social structure, a reckless consumption labour, extensive human sacrifice, and the iconography of power.
Near Shanghai, in qingpu lies a great mound raised exclusively for Liangzhu burials named Fuquanshan. The mound contains massive numbers of sacrificially burned slaves, as well as tombs of the more opulent people of the culture. In the center of the mound lies a tomb, Tomb 144, which was surmounted by three levels that had been scorched by fire. This tomb encased an inner and outer coffin. The Inner coffin held a skeleton surrounded by many fine jades. On top of the outer coffin lied the remains of a sacrificial victim.
The most remarkable part of the Liangzhu culture is their large number and high quality of green jade artifacts, and their religious importance. Many other cultures that were contemporary to the Liangzhu culture also had jades, but none could compare to those of the Liangzhu culture. Unlike the later dynastic periods, the Neolithic jades are easily distinguishable by style, quality, and the technique used to make them. The Liangzhu jades are set far apart from those from other cultures.
There were two kinds of jades that were prominent for their ritual use during this time. These are called bi and cong jades. The bi is a circular ring used to worship heaven, and the cong is an elongated square tube used to worship earth. Over 5,000 jades have been collected so far. These jades, especially the congs, also have the earliest taotie mask designs as a part of their inscriptions. The taotie mask is an image formed when the elaborate carvings on a jade are arranged in such a way that the image of a face can be seen in the macro image. These taotie designs were later used and stylized by the peoples of Shang and Zhou cultures.
It might well be. But given China's present circumstance as the cheap labor capital of the world (and therefore a relatively poor country), that's like a raggedy panhandler saying that his forebears were Rockefellers. Not really something to boast about. Not to mention the fact that the ancient inhabitants of what is now China are not the Chinese of today, any more than modern Egyptians are the Egyptians of antiquity. In many cases, the original inhabitants were overrun and massacred, in accordance with the customs of antiquity - you lose, you die - sometimes as a human sacrifice. It's amusing to see the Chinese claim credit for the achievements of a people they might have wiped out.
“Liangzhu culture, dated to 3310 – 2250 B.C., is a late Neolithic (or Chalcolithic) culture located in Southeast China.”
IOW, not particularly out of line with the rest of the world. The Egyptian 4th Dynasty built the Great Pyramid, and lived at the cusp of the Stone Age.
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