The Excavation Report on the Qujiatun Site at Luoyang

By The Luoyang Archaeological Team

Abstract:

The site at Qujiatun lies in the southeast of Qujiatun village, Luoyang. It faces the River Jian and is with the back towards the River Luo. It lands on the triangle zone besides of the south wall of Eastern Zhou’s king city, where the River Jian (River Gu) in floods the River Luo. This zone is lodgeable, because it has geographical advantages, good environment, fertile soil, convenient water supply, and has the natural barriers like River Jian and River Luo.

Luoyang commences capital construction on a large scale in the 1950s and 1960s. In order to survey the site of Eastern Zhou’s king city and work in the capital construction, the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing University, and the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture drilled and excavated the banks of the River Jian, Zhongzhou Road in Luoyang and the site of Eastern Zhou’s king city on a large scale. They gained rich result. They found sites and tombs of the Yangshao, Longshan, Erlitou, Erligang, Western Zhou, Western Zhou and Han periods. The one of the most important harvest is the Henan county seat of the Han dynasty, and the king’s city of the Eastern Zhou dynasty. At the same time, they drilled two rammed earth building foundations of the Eastern Zhou dynasty in the northeast of the Qujiatun village.

There has not had important excavation and study on the Eastern Zhou’s king city for about 40 years. We only knew that there was one of the royal mausoleum regions in the northeast of the Henan county seat, and there were some layers filled with rammed earth at the NO. 13 Middle School of Luoyang and the neighboring areas which extends to Wangcheng Street to the east, and Jian River to the west, Xingshu Street t othe north and Qujiatun village to the south, and only some chariot pits, tombs, kiln sites, house foundations and ash pits, etc. were unearthed.

In the 21^st century, the excavations of the Eastern Zhou’s king city made great progress. We found the pottery kiln site at north of the king city. We found the chariot pits and big tombs of the Spring and Autumn period at the belt of the Museum of Zhou King’s carriage with six horses north to the playing field. The most important find is the Eastern Zhou king’s tomb of the early Spring and Autumn period. The tomb is about 30 meters to the east wall of the Eastern Zhou’s king city which is at the northeast to the cross of the Jiudong Street and the Field Street. So we thought that the belt was the royal mausoleum region of the early Eastern Zhou period. Besides these, we found chariot pits of the Warring States period at this belt, especially the find of the chariot pit of the king’s carriage with six horses and the find of the big tombs with entrance passages at the neighboring areas. All of these made us affirm that the belt is the Eastern Zhou Royal mausoleum region of the Warring States period. Furthermore the archaeological information on the east wall of the Eastern Zhou’s king city proved that the wall was built in the Warring States period, and was repaired in the late Warring States period.

According to archaeological findings and documents, the scholars all thought that the Qujiatun site is the palace of the Eastern Zhou. The site is located at the east bank of the Jian River and at that point the Jian River inflow the Luo River. While the rammed earth building foundations are scattered at this belt, and the archaeological materials are not published. All of this blocked the study of the East Zhou’s king city badly.

We excavated more than 10000 square meters at the belt that the Jian River inflows the Luo River, southeast of the Qujiatun village which is in the south of the south wall of the Eastern Zhou’s king city. The site was found with different cultural accumulations. There are the layers of Yangshao period, the late Spring and Autumn period to the early Warring States period, Han period, Tang period. The sites of Yangshao period were unearthed in the Xigangou and Tonglezhai besides the Jian River and the Zhongzhou Street near the Jian River. So the banks of the Jian River were inhabited since the prehistoric period.

The Western Zhou’s tombs are all small to middle sizes and most are with waist pits. The burial objects are li – tripods, dou – stemmed plates, guan – jars and jade and stone ornaments. Some tombs only have seashells. A very interesting phenomenon is that some tombs are arranged in pair with the same size, the same burial system, the same direction, just being like the burial tradition in the Han period. Many sacrificial remains, ash pits and tombs of the Western Zhou were unearthed near the banks of the Jian River. According to the “Luo Gao” in Shang Shu, “I made divination at the east of Jian River and the west of the Chan River. The only settlement is Luo”, we know that this area is an important dwelling area of the Western Zhou period.

The 4^th layer belonged to the late Spring and Autumn period to the early Warring States period. According to the “Zhou Yu” in Guo Yu, “the Luo River overran its bank and endangered the palace in the 22^nd year after the Ling Wang became a king”. The Qujiatun site should be the locus of palace of the Eastern Zhou’s king city. As we found a large numbers of the alluviums earlier than the middle Warring States, which show the Luo River overrunning its bank, verified the authenticity of the affair from other point of view.

The tombs of Eastern Zhou found in this area are small earthen shafts popular in Luoyang. The tomb furniture is one coffin or one coffin and one outer coffin. The tomb occupants are often in supine position with contracted arms, a few tombs have niches. The burial objects are mainly potteries, jades, stones, shells and a few bronze objects such as sword. The assemblage and evolutionary rules of the articles match with the general rules of the Eastern Zhou tombs summarized in the Excavation Report on the Zhongzhoulu Site in Luoyang. For example the assemblage of li, guan, dou to ding, guan, dou in the Spring and Autumn period, the assemblage of ding, guan, dou to ding, dou, hu, then to ding, dui, hu in the Warring States period.

The most important find is the large scale building foundations with rammed earth of the Eastern Zhou period and a part of oversized enclosed courtyard site, in which there are groups of large building foundations with rammed earth, aprolls, water supply and drainage systems, the garden with pools, wells, ditches, pottery kiln, etc. This building complex should be the palace remains of the Eastern Zhou, and one part of the Eastern Zhou’s king city judged by its scale and standard. Moreover, some building foundations and walls with rammed earth, kiln, water supply and drainage system, arranged wells are unearthed at the periphery. This find is important for the study of Eastern Zhou’s king city undoubtedly. Without large – scaled excavation, we cannot know the overall layout and the method of the construction clearly.

It is difficult to get one large – scale building complex with rammed earth of the Eastern Zhou period like this to study the overall layout and characteristic of the ceremonial buildings. It also provides valuable material information for further research into the process of constructing the Eastern Zhou’s king city and reconstruct the building complex of this period. The site might have been the palace of Zhou King Nanwang after moved to the king city from the Chengzhou city of the Eastern Zhou, and abandoned in the late Warring States period. We made this conclusion by the site’s scale, standard, function, date, layout, environment, etc.

There are some small house foundations with rammed earth and cellars of the Han period. They might have been dwellings.