During the period of 1965 ~ 1972, villagers in Taixi discovered a batch of bronze ritual vessels, a jade ge with a length of 39 cm, a bronze tripod, a Ryukyu ball, a halo, a dagger, a spear, a squat tool and a stone mill. It was identified as a cultural relic in the middle Shang Dynasty (about14th century BC) by National Cultural Heritage Administration and Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics. In particular, the bronze locks with iron pieces unearthed here have aroused widespread concern in academic circles at home and abroad.
From 65438 to 0973, Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Management formed an archaeological team to excavate Shang Dynasty sites in western Taiwan. * * * The exposed area is1889.75m2, and there are 4 house sites 14, 2 wells, 34 ash pits 12 tombs (including slave tombs 10). Unearthed cultural relics include more than 3000 pieces of pottery, stone tools, jade and bronze. According to the inference of scientific workers, the earliest people who worked and lived here were people in Yangshao culture period.
Taixi site mainly includes the remains of residential houses and tombs in the middle of Shang Dynasty.
The 14 Shang dynasty houses excavated here can be divided into early and late stages according to the relationship between the foundation surface and the comparison of unearthed objects.
In the early days, two houses were cleared, both of which were semi-cryptic. Houses cleaned in the later period 12, mostly wooden beam ground buildings, including hard-top houses, flat-top houses and mansion on the top of slopes.
The shape, structure and construction technology of the house have made great progress compared with the early buildings. Take Room 2 as an example. It is a two-room building with a north-south direction of 30 square meters. The total length from north to south is 1035m, and the width from east to west is 3.8m The middle partition divides one room into two rooms. The wall of the house has also been separated from the stage of using "wooden bone and mud wall" in Yangshao, Longshan and early Shang Dynasty. The lower part is rammed with soil, and the upper part is built with adobe.
It is worth noting that there is a "wind window" on the gable of the house, which is the first time in architectural history. The building of this house also used human sacrifices, not only cows, sheep and pigs, but also living men and women as sacrifices.
The site includes houses, cultural relics and tombs. The atrium is mostly a ground building, and there are also two and a half crypts. There are stoves and pits in the room. The house is built of rammed earth, and the towel partition is made of a mixture of grass mud and adobe, coated with grass mud inside and outside. During the construction, people and three kinds of animals were used as sacrifices.
There are many ash pits, belonging to atriums and tombs. Their shapes are mainly round or oval, and the number of human and animal bones unearthed in the pit is different.
At the same time, two wells were found in the site, belonging to the early and late stages respectively. There are barrels in the well, which can be extracted by hand.
Cultural relics include pottery, stone tools, bone horns, mussels, lacquerware, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, textiles, plant seeds and Wen Tao symbols.
Pottery is mostly sand, mud and gray pottery, and there are other painted pottery. There are many decorative patterns, including household appliances and production tools.
Stone tools are generally polished, with knives, shovels and sickles the most. The bone angle is finely machined and the surface is shiny.
There are sickles, knives, shovels, hooks, shovels, rings and so on.
There are relief patterns on the surface of lacquerware, which are carved first and then painted.
Oracle Bone Inscriptions was drilled and fired simultaneously.
The textiles are mainly linen and silk, which proves that the textile technology at that time has reached a higher level, including sericulture, silk weaving and hemp weaving.
The peach kernel whose plant seeds were identified as medicinal and Li Ziren were related to the medical instruments unearthed in the same site, so it can be considered that the medical cause of the society had developed to a certain extent at that time.
Wen Tao and symbols, the former is words, the latter is numbers and other symbols, which is of great reference value for understanding the evolution of the whole society at that time.
Another major part of Taixi site is tombs. The cleaned 1 12 tomb is also divided into two stages: morning and evening. This tomb is a rectangular pit with vertical holes. The largest is 3.4m long and 1.5m wide.
There are coffins in adult tombs and no coffins in children's tombs. Slaves were sacrificed. Most of the bases are straight limbs buried on their backs or sideways, followed by straight limbs bent over.
Funerary objects include pottery, bronzes, bone horns, jade and stone tools, clam shells, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, lacquerware and silk.
From the investigation of the relics obtained, some scholars believe that Taixi in the Central Plains has many similarities with Shang Dynasty sites in Anyang and Zhengzhou, but it also has its own characteristics. However, it has certain cultural ties with several important Shang Dynasty sites in the south of the Yangtze River.
This shows that the business culture of Jiangnan and Zhongyuan influenced each other. Another view is that it is also related to Jinzhong culture and the Great Wall in the north.
In a word, Taixi culture is between the Central Plains culture and the Great Wall in the north, and has the dual characteristics of interweaving two regional cultures.