The Liangzhu ruins in Hangzhou, pointing to an established Chinese civilization 5, 000 years ago, have been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
Every Chinese child is taught at school that the country’s civilization is 5, 000 years old, but proving this beyond doubt has been a problem.
Now, a jade artifact named “King of Cong”, found in the Liangzhu city ruins near Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, has provided an answer. According to radiocarbon dating (放射性碳定年法), the 6.5 kg object is 5,300 years old. It is one of the largest objects among all Cong from Liangzhu. The piece has now won greater global recognition.
However, the site has far more than just things made of jade. The main area, spread over 14.3 square kilometers in the Yuhang area of Hangzhou, includes not only a city’s ruins but 11 dams and several cemeteries, all about 5,000 years old. Archaeological facts show that people lived in Liangzhu for about a thousand years.
“The archaeological ruins of Liangzhu (3300-2300 BCE) show an early state with a unified belief system based on growing rice in Late Neolithic China,” the UNESCO World Heritage Committee said. “These ruins are an extremely good example of early city civilization expressed in town planning, a water conservation system and a social order which can be seen in where and how people were buried in cemeteries within the ruins.”
According to studies led by Liu Bin, director of the Zhejiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, the inner part of the ancient city ruins covers 2.8 square kilometers, about five times the area of the Forbidden City in Beijing, and the outer city spreads across 6.3 square kilometers. Liu said it was the biggest city ruins site of its time to be found in China, and was also one of the largest cities of its day in the world.
【小题1】What can prove that China has a civilization of 5,000 years old?【小题2】How many years did people live in Liangzhu?
【小题3】What is the whole area of this ancient city?
