Chapter 1,165 Shangdu

The entire Sutra Pavilion is filled with solid wooden shelves, with a dazzling array of cultural relics placed on them.

Su You was excited: "This is an amazing achievement!"

Ouyang Fa, however, looked calm and handed over an atlas: "According to our inspection, Shang-Tang Bodu has a rectangular plane and a city wall circumference of seven kilometers. The north wall, south wall and east wall are each

It is about 1,700 meters long, and the west wall is about 1,900 meters long. The widest part of the wall base is 32 meters, and the highest remaining part on the ground is about 5 meters. There are eleven gaps around the city, which are probably the city gates.

.”

"The city wall was built using a segmented construction method, which was rammed section by section. It is similar to the current ordinary city construction method in the northwest. Each section is about four meters long. The ramming layer is thin and the ramming nests are dense. This shows that the workmanship at that time was very solid and the city

It’s also pretty sturdy.”

“On the inside or both sides of the city wall, in some sections, we also found protective slopes of rammed earth structures. They must have been steps up and down the city.”

Su You looked at the cultural relics in this room and felt a little dizzy: "How come you guys were able to discover a city all at once?"

After a second thought, I figured out that the earth's surface architecture did not undergo huge changes until modern times. Before, urban buildings had not had such a great impact on the earth's surface structure, so the discovery of ruins was much easier than in later generations.

I heard Ouyang Fa say: "With the scope of the city site, we quickly explored the distribution within the city site. In your words, this is called the cultural layer."

"The cultural layer of the Shang Dynasty covers a huge area. In addition to discovering house foundations, wells and other relics, we also discovered a high platform in the northeast of the city, covering an area of ​​nearly 400,000 square meters. There are large and medium-sized rammed earth platform remains on the platform."

"The foundations are all made of rammed red earth and loess, and the largest ones are more than 2,000 square meters. The foundations are mostly rectangular in plane, with neat column holes arranged on the surface, about two meters apart, and there are often column foundations at the bottom of the pillar holes.

stone."

"On the surface of the largest platform foundation, there is also a hard 'white gray surface' and a yellow mud floor. The house foundation is made of rammed loess, and the current thickness is two meters."

"Based on the two rows of rectangular column grooves on the foundation surface, we can roughly reconstruct a large dormitory hall with nine rooms, double eaves and a cloister."

"That should be the palace of King Shang!"

"Nearby here, we unearthed relics such as bronze hairpins, jade hairpins and jade pieces that are rare in other places. This further supports our point of view."

Su You was very excited: "Are you sure it is Bodu in the Shang Dynasty?"

Ouyang Fa frowned and took out a cow bone: "Mingrun, look at it."

On the ox bone, a hexagram was carved with a sharp tool, including the character "乇".

Ouyang Fa handed over another pottery fragment and said: "Look, there is also the word "Bo" on it. According to my inference, this is the capital of Bo built by Shang Tang."

"But Academician Sima doesn't think so, because according to historical records, this may also be the capital where Zhong Ding moved his capital."

Just being a commercial capital will suffice. Being a commercial capital will have political influence.

Su You looked back at the map. The various excavation areas were marked very carefully on the map, which was made using scientific and engineering cartography.

Pointing to a trench-like pattern in the palace area: "What are these little circles here?"

Ouyang Fa's face turned pale: "These are all human heads."

"In this trench, we found nearly a hundred human skulls, and most of these skulls were sawed from the eyebrows and ears into a scoop shape, and they were obviously placed deliberately."

Then he said unbearably: "The appearance of these human skulls in the palace area can only be related to the palace human sacrifice activities of the Shang Dynasty."

After speaking, he pointed to the northeastern part of the palace area: "Here, three rows of eight dog pits were found. The largest pit contained twenty-three dogs, and the smallest number six, for a total of ninety-two. At the bottom of one pit

, two human skeletons were also buried. Another dog pit was found to be decorated with gold leaves with Kui dragon patterns."

"These people should be slaves. The presence of pits for sacrificing humans and dogs at the same time shows that the status of slaves at that time was equivalent to that of dogs."

"The gold leaves with the Kui dragon pattern also show how seriously the kings at that time attached importance to sacrifices. And so many human bones and dog bones also show that such sacrifices were the norm at that time."

Su You nodded: "Brother, there is no need to feel sorry for the ancients. This was the system of people at that time. From Shang to Zhou, from Zhou to Qin, and now, civilization is always progressing little by little."

Ouyang Fa nodded: "That's true. By the way, a small semi-crypt-style residence was also found in the ruins, indicating that in addition to nobles, there were also low-status servants living in the palace at that time."

Then, Ouyang Fayou pointed out to Su You on the map the distribution of ruins such as city walls, palace rammed earth foundations, handicraft workshops, tomb areas, cellars, and sacrificial pits.

Su You asked: "How many kinds of cultural relics have you collected?"

Ouyang Fa proudly said: "The cultural relics of the Shang Dynasty alone include bronzes, pottery, porcelain, jade, stone, bone, ivory, custom-engraved bones, and shells. Unfortunately, no wooden artifacts have been found."

This was too much information. Su You glanced at the glazed statue displayed on the shelf and pointed: "That one is also from the Shang Dynasty? Wait, just now you said it was only the Shang Dynasty, are there other dynasties?

"

Ouyang laughed and said: "Of course, let's look at the porcelain first. Mingrun, you are a master of porcelain making, and this object is also very controversial. Bachelor Sima believes that this should be regarded as glazed pottery, which is an intermediate product between pottery and porcelain. It is not yet

The level of porcelain. And I think that in fact, glazed, brightly colored, and waterproof vessels should be considered porcelain, right?"

"We have to fight for this..." Su You felt a little funny: "Actually, I think that glazing should be the biggest feature of porcelain. For example, Meishan porcelain, some need to be fired once, and then glazed and colored twice."

"If there is no glaze, although the fired body is fine, white, precise and majestic, craftsmen still habitually call it white pottery."

"The same goes for purple clay pottery. The kiln temperature has reached 1,300 to 4,000 degrees Celsius. There is no problem with porcelain fired at the kiln mouth. However, because it is made of pottery clay and is not glazed, it can only be called pottery."

"So the temperature of the kiln and the density of the carcass should not be used as a criterion for judging ceramics." Su You said as he took off the green statue: "This is lime glaze at first glance, which is made by adding limestone and glaze fruit as glaze slurry.

.Many villages are still using this technology.”

Then he looked at the sole: "This is a red clay tire, a standard pottery tire, and the firing temperature is obviously insufficient."

Then he knocked twice: "The density is average, but the firing temperature is a little higher than ordinary pottery."

"But I still think it should be counted as porcelain, because it has all the characteristics of porcelain."

"If you infer that it is pottery just based on the firing temperature, you are talking to yourself in the study, and your fingers are not touched by the smell of spring water."

"In all the folk workshops in the Song Dynasty, there is no such thing as glazed pottery. Even the three-color pottery used for burials in the Tang Dynasty is actually similar to this one. It is also called three-color porcelain, not three-color pottery."

Now Ouyang Fa was happy: "I will write a letter to Bachelor Sima right away. Mingrun's statement makes sense! It can only be said by a real porcelain player!"

Su You smiled and said: "What's important is not this, okay? What's important is that this discovery has greatly advanced the Chinese people's porcelain making technology to the Shang Dynasty, okay? Is there anything else?"

"There are more!" Ouyang Fa nodded: "There are many more, ranging from blue-black, yellow-green, to gray-brown. It seems that various glazes have been developed at that time."

"You are talking to a layman again." Su You smiled and looked at several complete pieces of porcelain that Ouyang Fa took out from the wooden box: "These are all the same kind of glaze, but the content of iron in them is different. The temperature in the kiln

The difference between the oxygen environment and the oxygen environment will only lead to different colors when burned."

After speaking, he couldn't put it down and stroked the cow-headed celadon statue in his hand: "Look, this one is gray and white, made of kaolin clay. They already know that they use different clays to make the body."

"The shape is old-fashioned and the glaze is crystal clear. This object can definitely be regarded as porcelain."

After speaking, he said to Ouyang Fa: "You don't just collect the complete vessel, you can also collect many porcelain pieces and piece it together to make the whole vessel. Even if some parts are missing, it doesn't matter. At least let us have a better understanding of the shape of ancient ceramics.

, the ornamentation, and the burial system, I also have more control over it.”

Ouyang Fa said: "There are too many things, more than 10,000 pieces, and there are not enough manpower..."
Chapter completed!