The "Stone Kingdom" is open! What is the origin of the shocking Shimao ruins?

On November 29, the Shimao Museum in Shenmu City, Yulin, Shaanxi Province, was officially opened to the public. The Shimao site is known as the "Stone Kingdom" and is an important site of my country's "Chinese Civilization Origin Exploration Project". The official opening of the Shimao Museum and the exhibition of hundreds of cultural relics reflect the significant progress of the Shimao site in archaeology and cultural protection. Why is this Shimao site known as the "Stone Kingdom"? What is its origin?

The Kingdom of Stone: Shimao, a place full of stones

The Shimao site is located in the northern part of the Loess Plateau, on the southern edge of the Maowusu Desert, one of the four major deserts in China. The site has a history of 4,000 years. Its main body is a "stone-built" city site with an area of ​​4 million square meters. It is a rare "stone city" settlement from the late Longshan culture to the early Xia Dynasty, and it is also the only one discovered so far.

The Shimao site is generally composed of three structures: the Imperial City Terrace, the Inner City, and the Outer City. The stone city of the site is surrounded by a 10-kilometer-long stone wall, and the Inner City and the Outer City heavily guard the core area of ​​the Imperial City Terrace. The stone wall has the attributes of a defensive facility and also has the symbolic meaning of divine power and royal power. This suggests that Shimao is a characteristic of an early urban settlement in the northern region.

The Imperial City Terrace, as the core area, is surrounded by layers of stone walls (in the shape of steps), and the overall shape has the charm of a pyramid. A large platform and a high-level cemetery were found on the top of the Imperial City Terrace. The rammed earth core of the large platform is also surrounded by a "stone wall", and exquisite "stone carvings" were found on the stone wall. To the west of the large platform is the high-level cemetery. The stone wall separates the large platform from the cemetery, but there is a passage connecting the two. The tombs in the cemetery are rows of high-level tombs. It is common for the tomb owners to be buried with jade, and human and dog sacrifices have also been found.

Imperial City Terrace at Shimao Site (Source: Xinhua News Agency)

Stone carvings on display at the Shimao Museum (Source: Xinhua News Agency)

The "stones" of Shimao are certainly amazing, but the many "firsts" it has created are even more earth-shattering.

A groundbreaking event: Shimao has set many precedents

The layout of the ancient city of Shimao, with the Imperial City Terrace as the core and the inner and outer cities surrounding it, as well as the remains of defensive buildings on the walls (such as the urn city, corner towers, and horse faces), laid the foundation for the layout of ancient capitals in my country and even the entire East Asia. The avenue connecting the east gate of the outer city of Shimao to the east gate of the inner city and the Imperial City Terrace was the first in the concept of the central axis of the capital city in my country. The facilities at the gate site of the Imperial City Terrace in Shimao, from the outside to the inside, were the first in the establishment of a square at the main gate of the ancient capital city in my country.

The east gate retaining wall of the outer city of Shimao Ruins (Source: Xinhua News Agency)

The various relics and remains unearthed from the Shimao site are even more astonishing, showing a level of civilization far beyond our imagination today: a huge number of murals were unearthed from the Shimao site, which is an important discovery in the archaeology of ancient Chinese art and even in art history; in addition, the direction of the east gate of the outer city of Shimao was the sunrise direction at the summer solstice at that time, reflecting that the Shimao people mastered systematic knowledge of astronomy and calendar.

Archaeologists have also discovered a number of cypresses inserted into the cracks of the stone in the walls of the Shimao Imperial City Terrace. This engineering technology was recorded in the Song Dynasty's "Construction Methods", which played a load-bearing role and reduced the risk of accidental collapse. It was called "纴木". Traditional academic circles believe that "纴木" began in the Han Dynasty, but the discovery of "纴木" in Shimao has greatly advanced the time when this engineering technology appeared.

Where does "Stone" come from: Shimao people and Shimao culture

With the discovery of the Shimao site and its ancient city, the "Shimao culture" represented by the site has also been established in the academic community. The academic community has also put forward many views on the attributes, age, settlements, society, and relationship between the Shimao culture and surrounding cultures.

For example, some scholars believe that the Shimao culture had strongly infiltrated and even violently invaded the Taosi site, known as the "capital of Yao". In 2022, the team of Fu Qiaomie, a researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, cooperated with domestic archaeological and cultural institutions and university research institutions to conduct ancient genome (ancient DNA) research and analysis, revealing that the Shimao population was mainly of local origin. In addition, it also revealed that there was a close maternal genetic connection between the Shimao culture and the Taosi culture-related population in southern Shanxi. Some scholars also analyzed the special funeral customs of the Shimao culture and found that the culture had close exchanges with the Qijia in the far-flung Hexi Corridor region.

Comprehensive sources: Xinhua News Agency, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, etc.