Page 532 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

more 70,000 square meters. Cities of such small scale could not have been imperial capitals,
but they might have served as regional capitals of local states (fangguo).
In the years since 1949, many late Shang sites have been discovered in Henan, Hebei,
Shandong, and Shanxi provinces; the Yinxu excavations constitute the most ambitious of these
excavations. The site has yielded finds of great importance, such as the Great Tomb at Wuguan
village, oracle bones found to the south of Xiaotun, the large-scale palace foundations along
the riverbank to the east of Xiaotun, and the tomb of Fu Hao. The latter, a tomb of modest size,
had not been looted, and the artifacts recovered from this one site exceed the total number of
bronzes and jades found at Yinxu during the entire period of excavation: 468 bronzes (includ-
ing 210 ritual vessels) and 755 jades (including 175 ritual objects) — many of them exquisite
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pieces. The thousands of oracle bones found to the south of Xiaotun village have provided a
detailed stratigraphy, which has both clarified periodization and confirmed facts described in
the inscriptions themselves: the oracle bones, for example, have enabled us to date the diviner
Dui (Duizu bud) securely to the era of King Wuding (the third king after Pangeng) and to deter-
mine that the oracle inscriptions of the diviner Li (Lizu bud) do not belong to this era.

A R C H A E O L O G Y O F T H E Z H O U D Y N A S T Y
During the early years of the Zhou dynasty, in an effort to consolidate the regime, the rulers
enfeoffed much of their territory to imperial family members and meritorious officials; in doing
so, the Zhou held sway over every district of the country. The numerous vassal states in the
Western Zhou realm soon established their own governing systems, as well as individual
economies and cultures, and progressively became independent kingdoms. From disparate lo-
cations such as Feng and Hao (near present-day Xi'an) and the Zhouyuan, the government of
the Zhou kings was centralized into one province — present-day Shaanxi — and an auxiliary
capital was established at Luoyi (present-day Luoyang, in Henan province) to govern the east-
ern region. Excavations of Western Zhou sites at Feng-Hao and Luoyang have been underway
since 1949, but looting and damage rendered the material retrieved from the excavations less
than ideal.
The Zhouyuan, extending over the counties of Qishan and Fufeng in Shaanxi province,
was the homeland of the Zhou people. Following the Zhou settlement of the Feng region, the
area became a fiefdom of the Duke of Zhao, and it functioned as a provincial capital of the dy-
nasty. The site has yielded several important finds. Of particular interest to scholars was the
discovery of the well-preserved foundations of a palace in Fengchu, Qishan county; the remains
of the structure — methodically laid out, with clearly demarcated front halls and rear bedrooms
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— provide a model for the structure of Western Zhou palaces. A pit in the foundation yielded
approximately 300 inscribed oracle bones dating from the late Shang period to the era of the
early Zhou kings Cheng and Kang. The finds provide new materials for the study of the rela-

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