Project: Effects provide ‘rich cultural heritage’
Chinese studies on ancient civilization have made remarkable progress over the past year, since President Xi Jinping called for new efforts to promote Chinese civilization.
While chairing an organizational consultation on May 27 last year by the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee on a decades-old national studies program addressing the origins of Chinese civilization, Xi called on scholars to approve and make full use of the program’s fruits. which demonstrates China’s 5,000-year history through abundant discoveries and archaeological discoveries.
Xi, who is also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, under pressure that more achievements at the plenum can help the country build cultural confidence and follow the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, while exploring and explaining how a sense of network has developed among other Chinese and how Chinese from other ethnic groups. They are united in diversity.
The program, which involves some 400 scholars from across the country, was introduced in 2002 and focuses primarily on key sites, mainly between 3500 and 1500 BC.
“We have achieved many results, but our path of transparent progression of civilization still wishes to be explored at a deeper level,” said Wang Wei, director of the educational history department at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who lectured at the 2022 group study. “We want to look at more spaces and expand comparative studies applicable to a much broader era to look for the roots and key ingredients of a civilization. “
During the year, Chinese researchers met M’s expectations. Xi and produced new discoveries in the field.
Earlier this month in Zhengzhou, Henan province, the country’s most sensible scholars gathered at a forum to share recent findings spanning a long era of time.
At the 10,000-year-old Sitai in Shangyi County, Hebei Province, archaeologists have unearthed the ruins of six semi-basement dwellings, believed to be the earliest known “houses” in China.
The discovery “provided curtains for the examination of key questions, adding Chinese cultural lineage, human migrations and the origins of agriculture,” said Zhao Zhanhu, a researcher at the Hebei Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.
In Hanshan County, Anhui Province, archaeologists recently discovered the large ruins of an organization of buildings at the Lingjiatan site, dating back between 5300 and 5800 years. More discoveries of jade artifacts and sites for wonderful sacrificial ceremonies have allowed other people to be informed. about a prehistoric ritual formula and a confused society.
Archaeologists working at Nanzuo in Qingyang, Gansu province, have unearthed the ruins of a huge “palace city” dating to between 4,700 and 5,200 years ago. The ruins gave a glimpse of a midpoint of strength on the edge of the Loess Plateau in China.
Meanwhile, discoveries at Bicun in Lyuliang, Shanxi province, the ruins of a stone castle dating from 3,800 to 4,200 years ago, have marked the border of a regional power, and possibly only revealed the tip of a confusing defensive system.
“These discoveries showed other formats and the rich cultural heritage of the formative years of Chinese civilization,” said Chen Xingcan, director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Brilliant image of how a united network emerged in the midst of diversity. “
After long-term communication between other regions, the site of Erlitou, the cultural center, gave the impression of being present-day Henan Province, absorbing complex elements of civilization. It was sometimes thought to be the capital of the Xia Dynasty (c. 21st century-sixteenth century BC), the first recorded central dynasty in Chinese history.
In March, the network of roads that intersect near the site’s palace domain was ranked among the 10 smartest Chinese archaeological finds of 2022.
The ruling formula of a central dynasty was further consolidated in the next Shang dynasty (circa the sixteenth century-eleventh century BC). C. ), as evidenced by the site of the Yinxu ruins in Anyang, Henan. New discoveries were also discovered in the royal mausoleum of Yinxu. about the 10 most sensible discoveries of the past year.
The site, the capital of Shang at the end of its period, also houses inscriptions on 3,300-year-old oracle bones, the oldest Chinese writing system, whose lineage is the same as that of the Chinese characters used today.
President Xi visited the site in October. He said Chinese characters are common and play a vital role in the formation and progress of the Chinese nation, and singled out archaeologists for making the right paintings in this regard.
To this end, the Beijing Palace Museum announced on May 22 the publication of its first two volumes of the Yinxu Oracle Bone Inscriptions in the Palace Museum Collection.
“Despite researchers’ enduring determination for educational studies, more efforts are still expected to announce our findings to the public,” said Wang Xudong, director of the Palace Museum. artistic tactics to revitalize relics. “
Wang Wei of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said greater exposure of recent educational achievements favors the original agenda.
To that end, he and several other scholars are expected to participate in the season’s production of the City of Museums, a popular exhibition of truth on Beijing television. Tracing the origins of Chinese civilization will be the theme of the new season, which begins in early June.
The original study program only seeks to have interaction with the public, but also looks at a global horizon.
In recent years, Chinese archaeologists have made trips to the core spaces of the world’s major ancient civilizations, achieving a more complete understanding of the concept of civilization.
For example, in Luxor, Egypt, Chinese archaeologists excavated the site of Montu Temple dating from the New Kingdom period, which more or less fresh has the ruins of Yinxu.
In Dobrovat, a village in northeastern Romania, a Chinese team explored the similarities and differences between painted pottery from the local Cucuteni-Trypillia culture and the Yangshao culture of the same era in northern China, gaining a greater understanding of how agrarian cultures evolved in Eurasia. .
After a break from the COVID-19 pandemic, those cooperative projects have returned to practice this year.
“A deeper understanding of other civilizations can help us better review the characteristics of our own,” Wang Wei said.