When a team of Chinese archaeologists came to investigate the rubbles, they started unearthing the area and found that the stones weren’t a part of the Great Wall but were the ruins of a magnificent fortress city. However, pieces of jade, a prized material in ancient China, began to turn up. (2002) from Northwest University (2002), and Ph.D. (2007) from La Trobe University, Melbourne. Why was it showing up in abundance in this barren region so close to the Ordos Desert? Jades are often found inside the stone walls, which is notably unique. Between 2011 and 2012 when a full coverage survey was carried out by archaeologists from Shaanxi province, three well-preserved stone-made enclosures ¨C the Huang Cheng Tai platform, an inner and outer city ¨C were discovered. to a drier and cooler climate. The pyramid was surrounded by embryonic urban designs and inner and outer perimeter walls. Alligator-skin drums were likely used during ritual ceremonies, one sign of the vital role music played in Shimao palace life. 5: jade items found at East Gate; 7: jade and metal bracelets with a human arm bone found in a burial; 8: stone human head; 9: Shimao ceramics. He specializes in field archaeology and, over the years, several of the projects he worked on have been acknowledged as ¡°Top Ten Archaeological Finds of China¡±. Discovered in 1976, the Neolithic city was first thought to be a small town. But one detail was curiously out of place: Locals, and then looters, began finding in the rubble pieces of jade, some fashioned into discs and blades and scepters.
The excavated artifacts include jades (often found inside the stone walls), wall paintings (on the inner surface of interior walls), stone sculptures, pottery, and stone tools. Historical records show a rapid shift from 2000 to 1700 B.C. The stone-walled platform, known to the local villagers as Huang Cheng Tai (Imperial City Platform), is shaped as a pyramid, with the bottom wider than the top. Sun Zhouyong said that “The skulls show signs of being hit and burned.” It was presumed that the skulls came from war captives, possibly enemy soldiers. My name is Edward Whelan and I am from Limerick in the Republic of Ireland. It exchanged ideas, technology, and goods with a wide range of other cultures, from the Altai steppe to the north to coastal regions near the Yellow Sea. It is encircled by both interior and exterior stone walls that are constructed largely along the ridges of hills, with a NE-SW orientation. But its base is four times larger, and the Shimao elites protected themselves further by inhabiting the top tier of the platform, which included a 20-acre palatial complex with its own water reservoir, craft workshops, and, most likely, ritual temples. On the basis of stratigraphic data and ceramic typological studies, the Shimao site has been dated to around 2000 BCE, between the Longshan period and Xia dynasty. The findings provide support for the idea that people at the time may have viewed ¡°jades¡± as apotropaic. A Jade artifact recovered from the walls of Shimao. Even more astonishing: Carbon-dating determined that parts of Shimao, as the site is called (its original name is unknown), date back 4,300 years, nearly 2,000 years before the oldest section of the Great Wall—and 500 years before Chinese civilisation took root on the Central Plains, several hundred miles to the south. Many artifacts found at Shimao could only have come from distant lands. Dec 1, 2013 - Explore Tim H Darch's board "Shimao, Xia Period, China" on Pinterest. The Shimao site is constructed around the middle Longshan period or slightly later (Huang Cheng Tai) and is abandoned by the early Xia Dynasty. Image Credit: Siyuwj CC BY SA 4.0 Th researchers wrote in their study that on the topmost step of the pyramid, there “were extensive palaces built of rammed earth, with wooden pillars and roofing tiles, a gigantic water reservoir, and domestic remains related to daily life.” XI’AN, CHINA—Reports indicate that two beacon towers that were part of a city wall have been uncovered at the 4,000-year-old Shimao Ruins in China’s Shaanxi Province. The stone-walled platform, known to the local villagers as Huang Cheng Tai (Imperial City Platform), is shaped as a pyramid, with the bottom wider than the top. Many features of Shimao suggest a constant exchange between the city and the rest of the territory that is now China. A relic stone with carvings resembling a human face was one of the artifacts found by archeologists from the … Several stone blocks in the high terrace walls were carved with lozenge designs, making them appear like enormous eyes gazing down at the East Gate. The defensive system included barbicans (gates flanked by towers), baffle gates (allowing only one-way entry), and bastions (a projecting part of the wall allowing defensive fire in multiple directions).
The ancient site is shrouded in dust and rocks and silence. These structures are connected by an approximately 9 m wide¡º-shaped doorway and measure at 4000 m2. It had an expanse of 1000 acre and is larger than the Central Park of New York City. Fortified walls eight feet thick and six miles long ringed the city. It also employed a “mamian” (“horse-face”) structure whose angles drew attackers into an area where defenders could pummel them from three sides—a design that would become a staple of Chinese defensive architecture. The archaeologists guessed that these were combs or hairpins, until a musical scholar deduced that the bones were the earliest examples of a primitive reed instrument known in Chinese as the mouth reed and more colloquially as the Jew’s harp. Shimao’s defenses were very impressive - and this made sense as the people here were vulnerable to attacks from nomads. Anyone walking across the threshold—above the buried sacrificial pits—would have been awed by more immediately visible signs. The East Gate of the Exterior Wall is located in the northeast of the outer city, which is comprised of an entranceway, an outer wengcheng walled enclosure, rammed earth platforms, an inner wencheng walled enclosure, gatehouse (menshu), watchtowers (mamian), turret and other components. Abstract In Shimao Site, stone city walls, city gates, watchtowers, corner towers and auxiliary structures similar to “bastions” are found. Inside the interior walls are densely distributed residential zones, cemeteries, and craft workshops. Besides the jade, archaeologists also found the remains of alligator skins, which must have come from a swampier region much farther south. Different stratigraphic layers have been clearly identified and an abundance of cultural remains have been excavated. Alligator-skin drums were likely used during ritual ceremonies, one sign of the vital role music played in Shimao palace life. The Shimao walled site encompasses a total area of 400 hectares. Recently, archaeologists unearthed several relics at the site. (Discover a fortress in Sri Lanka that was swallowed by the jungle.). The East Gate of the Exterior Wall is situated in the most highly elevated area of the site, a prime strategic location.

This could help scholars to re-write the history of human sacrifice in China. The other settlements were all satellites of Shimao, indicating that it was the capital of a state. The abundance of jade artifacts suggests that Shimao, with no source of its own, imported large quantities from distant trading partners. It is encircled by both interior and exterior stone walls that are constructed largely along the ridges of hills, with a NE-SW orientation. Sun Zhouyong is a researcher at the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology. The Neolithic City of Shimao. The technology of the wooden beam (renmu) horizontally placed in the city walls for the purpose of structural reinforcement is a major innovation in engineering and architecture in ancient China. “What is significant is that Shimao, along with many other areas, shows that China’s civilisation has many roots and does not emerge just from the growth in the Central Plains on the middle Yellow River,” says Jessica Rawson, a professor of Chinese Art and Archaeology at the University of Oxford. Aerial photo of Shimao’s East Gate. All Rights Reserved. However, pieces of jade, a prized material in ancient China, began to turn up.