Travel back to stone city 4300 years ago

On July 13, the media group "Understand China from Cultural Relics" went to the largest prehistoric city found in China so far —— Shimao ruins, to capture the splendor and vicissitudes of prehistoric civilization.

The media group is visiting the Shimao ruins

From 2011 to 2012, archaeologists in Shaanxi Province carried out a regional systematic archaeological survey of the site and found a stone city composed of three parts: the core imperial city pyramid, the inner city and the outer city. A large number of palace buildings, house sites, tombs, handicraft workshops and other relics from the late Longshan Culture period to the early Xia Dynasty were densely distributed on the site.

Entering the site, you can see the holes in the pier and the decaying wood distributed in the higher walls of the ruins. According to the docent of the Shimao ruins, these decaying wood can be considered steel bars in modern times, mianly used to reinforce the wall. They were inserted horizontally into the wall by the ancients during the construction to prevent accidental collapse.

The media group is visiting the Shimao ruins

Zhang Zhiming, deputy director of the Shimao Site Management Office, said that based on preliminary research, Shimao City was first built 4,300 years ago and had been in operation until 3,800 years ago. The inner area of the city is more than 4 million square meters, equivalent to that of six Imperial Palaces.

Screenshot via Archaeology website

Since its excavation, the site has won many of the highest awards in the field of archaeology. By the end of 2020, the Neolithic City of Shimao in northwest China's Shaanxi Province was listed among the top 10 archaeological findings of the past decade by the U.S.-based Archaeology journal.

As Zhang Zhiming introduced, the core imperial city is located in the west of the site center, the shape of which looks like a pyramid with a small top and a large bottom. The wall boasts various carved patterns such as giant diamond-shaped eyes, head portraits, and animals. 

The discovery of the Shimao ruins provides new research materials for exploring the diversity and development of the formation of Chinese civilization. Zhang Zhiming shared with the media group that the Shimao Site Museum is scheduled to open this year, and preparations are currently underway. Upon the opening, both Shimao ruins and the Shimao Site Museum, conveyors of the Shimao culture, will be accessible to the public.