The discovery of the archaeological ruins of Liangzhu Ancient City confirms that 5,000 years ago there was already a civilization in ancient China. The magnitude of the site, the complexity of the urban design, and the enormous amount of engineering involved in the construction of the buildings, all suggest that the ancient city of Liangzhu was on a par with the ancient Egyptian, Sumerian and Harappan civilizations of the same period.

The Liangzhu culture from the Taihu Lake basin in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River dates from around 5,300-4,300 years ago and is a very important archaeological find from the late Neolithic period in China. The archaeological community had never imagined that 5,000 years ago, Chinese ancestors would have built a city and waterworks on such a large scale. Colin Renfrew, a leading British archaeologist and professor at Cambridge University, said after his research in Liangzhu, “The importance of findings from the Neolithic Age in China has been greatly underestimated.”

In July 2019, the ruins of Liangzhu City were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List by the World Heritage Committee at its 43rd session. Over 80 years of archaeological research have confirmed that the ancient city of Liangzhu, once the center of power and belief of the Liangzhu culture, with its large-scale city site, peripheral water conservancy system with complex functions, socially graded tombs, and a broad range of jade artifacts symbolizing the belief system, proves the existence of an early regional state with rice-cultivating agriculture as its economic base in the circum-Taihu Lake area in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River about 5,300-4,300 years ago. The property has thus become an outstanding testimony of the 5,000-year history of Chinese civilization.

The discovery and study of the ancient city of Liangzhu

It has taken a very long process of discovery and research to learn what we know today about the Liangzhu culture. In 1936, Shi Xingeng, an archaeologist of the West Lake Museum, discovered 12 Neolithic sites featuring black pottery in Liangzhu Town in Yuhang, Zhejiang Province. Later, he published a book Liangzhu, which laid a foundation for Liangzhu culture and prehistoric archaeological research in Zhejiang. In 1959, archaeologist Xia Nai first used the term Liangzhu Culture, and various features of Liangzhu culture were then gradually uncovered by more archaeologists.

In 1986, at a conference held to mark the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Liangzhu ruins, archaeologist Wang Mingda proposed the concept of Liangzhu Ruins Cluster and announced that “as many as 40 or 50 sites have been identified.” In the same year, archaeologists excavated a collection of high-ranking tombs at the Fanshan site in Yuhang, unearthing thousands of exquisite jade artifacts, more than the sum of all previous jade finds. In particular, a complete image of the divine emblem was found on each side of the jade cong (a tube-like jade object having a square outer section) and the jade yue (battle-axe shaped) of tomb 12, which is of epoch-making significance for interpreting the meanings of the patterns and shapes of Liangzhu jade. From 1986 to 2006, starting with the Fanshan and Yaoshan sites, archaeologists continued to excavate the palace area of Mojiaoshan, the Tangshan dam area, the tomb area of Wenjiashan, and the Bianjiashan site, gradually developing a holistic understanding of the Liangzhu ruins.

From 2007 till now, since the identification of the walls of the ancient city, Liangzhu archaeology has entered a new phase defining Liangzhu as a capital city, with the use of technology. In 2009, the outer wall of the southeastern part of the ancient city was discovered, and later a high dam and spillways for water conservancy were found as well in the hills northwest of the city. In 2011, with the help of remote sensing technology, low-head dams on the plain were discovered, thus revealing the complete structure of the water system in Liangzhu. A holistic understanding of the ancient city and its water system has been formed and a complete conservation boundary designated.

A grand palace revealing the shape of a state

Today we know that the ancient city of Liangzhu, which is eight times the size of the Forbidden City in Beijing, was organized in a triple structure of palace, inner city, and outer city, with royal buildings and tombs, city walls and moats, a waterway transportation system within the city and a water conservancy system outside the city, all built in an orderly fashion. The inner city, the water system, the palace, and the royal tombs were built 5,000 years ago, while the outer city was added in the late Liangzhu era.

The location of the ancient city was chosen with clear forethought. It was surrounded on three sides by hills, with the palace occupying an area of 300,000 square meters in the center, followed by an inner city of 3 million square meters and an outer city of over 6 million square meters. This marks the beginning of the triple structure of palace, inner city and outer city of ancient Chinese capital cities.

Liangzhu was also a water city, with mostly man-made channels totaling 32 kilometers in length. A total of eight water gates were found in the inner city walls to connect the water systems inside and outside the city, and one land gate was found in the southern city wall. The city was divided into various functional areas, including the most central area of the Mojiaoshan palace, a square laid out in sand, the warehousing area and the workshop area. Coordination of several functional areas ensured the proper functioning of the ancient city.

The water conservancy system on the periphery of Liangzhu consists of a long dyke in front of the mountain, a high dam at the mouth of the valley, and low dams on the plain, forming a water storage surface area of 13 square kilometers with a storage capacity of 45 million cubic meters. This water system would not only have prevented flooding and protected the city, but also served the functions of water transfer, irrigation, and transportation.

The warm humid climate in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, with abundant rainfall and lakes, marshes and rivers, makes Liangzhu an ideal place for growing rice. Investigations of plant remains from the archaeological sites reveal uninterrupted rice production throughout the Neolithic period.

By the end of the Liangzhu culture, rice farming had become quite mature, mainly in terms of domestication, large scale production and high yields, with rice becoming the main source of food for people at that time. The ancient rice paddies found at the Maoshan site in Yuhang with red baked-earth embankments show us that rice production in Liangzhu was large-scale and that it was this advanced agriculture that laid a solid material foundation for the Liangzhu culture.

The development of the people in harmony with their environment gave them access to a large number of household goods, and a private ownership system based on the family paved the way for the development of civilization and later the emergence of early state institutions. The discovery of high-ranking tombs and ritual jade objects also confirms that a unified belief system and a rigid social hierarchy had already emerged at that time. It is now generally acknowledged that Liangzhu had entered the phase of early state societies.

A profound influence on Chinese etiquette system

Jade is the most important material and spiritual representation of the Liangzhu culture, reflecting a model of civilization with religious power as the key element. Liangzhu’s jade culture represents the high point of prehistoric jade culture in China. The complete or simplified image of the Liangzhu divine emblem is found on jade objects in the circum-Taihu Lake area and is extremely consistent in its expression, suggesting a common belief shared by all Liangzhu people.

For Liangzhu people, jade objects were a symbol of power and identity, and were mainly used in worship or as ceremonial utensils marking status. The jade objects include cong, bi (a circular flat piece of jade with a hole in its center), yue (battle-axe shaped), guan (crown-shaped), trident-shaped vessels, conical vessels, huang (a kind of semicircular ornament) and so on, of which the cong is the most symbolic, with each piece bearing the divine emblem. Looking like an axe, the yue is a symbol of royal power, and the Chinese character “钺”(yue) in the oracle bone script is derived from the pictogram for battle-axe. Of all the large jade objects of the Liangzhu culture, the bi is the most common. The cong and bi invented by the Liangzhu people were eventually incorporated into the Six Auspicious Jade Ritual Vessel system of the Shang and Zhou dynasties (c.1600 BC – 221 BC).

Stone tools also played an important role in the production and life of Liangzhu and have been excavated in large numbers from all sites. The people chose different stone materials to produce a wide range of tools for different purposes. According to recent research, a significant proportion of the stone tools excavated from the main site and its surrounding sites were not made of local stones, but of stones from areas a couple of hundred kilometers away or even further as the crow flies. This suggests that there was probably some kind of commodity distribution and trade network associated with the processing chain of stone tools, and that a relatively sophisticated economic system might have been in existence.

As an important component of Chinese civilization, the jade culture of Liangzhu in particular had a widespread influence on other cultures of the same period, and even on later cultures around the Longshan period, with a distribution reaching half of China. For example, jade cong from the Taosi site in Shanxi Province, from Lushanmao site in Yan’an and Shimao site of Shenmu in Yulin, Shaanxi Province, and from the Qijia culture in the Gansu-Qinghai region all derive from the Liangzhu jade culture. Jade cong from Liangzhu have also been found at many sites from the Xia (c.2100 BC – c.1600 BC), Shang, and Zhou dynasties, including Yinxu, Sanxingdui, and Jinsha, revealing the absorption and inheritance of the Liangzhu culture by Chinese etiquette system.

Chinese history is one of developing civilization, and as such, Liangzhu culture is an important part of its past, providing tangible evidence of its 5,000-year history. The study of Liangzhu culture has shown us the direction and formation of Chinese civilization in all its diversity and unity. The statement that “Liangzhu is a sacred site that testifies to the 5,000-year history of Chinese civilization” vividly illustrates the significance of the Liangzhu culture.

The authors are Liu Bin at Zhejiang University, and Zhang Yixin at Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.

Liu Xian /Editor    Hu Min /Translator

Yang Xinhua /Chief Editor    Ren Qiang /Coordinator

Liu Li /Reviewer

Zhang Weiwei /Copyeditor    Tan Yujie /Image Editor

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