3,000-year-old tortoise shells unearthed in Shaanxi

Over 700 tortoise shells of the Western Zhou Dynasty (11 century B.C.- 771 B.C.), of which 82 bearinscriptions, have been unearthed at an ash pit near the site of the Zhougong Temple in Qishan County of northwest China's Shaanxi Province after some 60 days of excavation.

"With preliminary identification, we discovered 350 recognizable characters. One shell even bears 36 characters, the most we discovered at the site," said Lei Xingshan, associate professor with the School of Archaeology and Museology (SAM) of Beijing University who participated in the archaeological excavation at the Zhougong Temple.

"Discovery of those tortoise shells will provide valuable material for the research on the Western Zhou Dynasty, which left few written material," said Lei.

Among these inscriptions, archaeologists discovered the word "Zhougong", the title of the icon whom the temple was built to commemorate.

"This is the first time for the word to be discovered and it appeared five times," said Lei.

The excavation began on March 27 and since then an area of 120 square meters was excavated. Discoveries during the newly finishedexcavation was considered to be the most important of the Western Zhou Dynasty, next only to the excavation at Zhouyuan site in 1976,where a large amount of tortoise shells were unearthed.

The region where Qishan County and Fufeng County lie had been the birthplace of the Zhou Dynasty, where many famous historical events and stories of the Western Zhou Dynasty occurred.

Located at the southern foot of the Fenghuang Mountain 7.5 km northwest of Qishan County, the Zhougong Temple site covers an area of over 610,000 square meters.

In 618 when the Tang Dynasty (618-907) was founded, the first emperor of Tang sent out an imperial decree to build a temple at the old haunt of the Zhou Dynasty to commemorate Zhougong, the regent of Zhou who consolidated the newly established Western ZhouDynasty.

In December 2003, Xu Tianjin, an associate professor with the SAM, discovered two tortoise shells bearing 55 inscribed characters of the Western Zhou Dynasty during his field investigation around the Zhougong Temple site.

The discovery drew close attention from the archaeological circle and initiated the investigation and excavation at the site by an archaeological team organized by Shaanxi archaeological research institute and Beijing University.

In March 4, Shi Haoshan, a senior professional with the Shaanxiarchaeological research institute, discovered four tortoise shellsbearing inscriptions at an ash pit on a hill in Fengming Town, northwest of the Zhougong Temple site. For this historic discovery,the ash pit was named "Haoshan" after the discoverer.

Source: Xinhua