Encyclopedia of society and culture in the ancient world ( PDFDrive ) 245

216 cities: Asia and the Pacific More than 50 walled settlements from this period have been uncovered along the Yellow and Yangtze river valleys This was also the time when great houses appeared, structures so large compared with other dwellings that they are believed to have filled palatial or ceremonial functions Some of the most impressive evidence of urbanism in the third millennium b.c.e in China is associated with the Neolithic culture known as Longshan Longshan has been identified in eight Chinese provinces, but its most impressive cities are in Shandong In Yanggu County, Shandong Province, a walled enclosure of approximately 236 miles has been found China’s most famous Longshan city is at Chengziya, in Zhangqiu County, Shandong Dated to about 2600 b.c.e., the city had a wall that enclosed an irregular rectangle roughly 1,460 by 1,772 feet Several Longshan city remains suggest that many walls existed in single cities At Lianyungang, in Jiangsu Province, a Longshan city with inner and outer walled areas has been identified By about 2500 b.c.e a city in Pingliangtai, Henan, had a system of pottery drainpipes (Their use is contemporary with a drainage system in the ancient Indus Valley civilization city of Mohenjo Daro in Pakistan.) A long avenue divided Pingliangtai into two sections, a feature that would be present in some Chinese cities for the next several millennia Also by this time, it is believed that ceremonies were a part of urban life There was a distinct group of people in the society who performed rituals and a group of craftspeople who made ritual objects Much of the evidence of ritual comes from the Neolithic site Niuheliang, in Liaoning Province, dated to about 3000 b.c.e., which is an example of the Hongshan culture The focal points of ritual at Niuheliang included a large, high mound, more than 23 feet of which remains; a structure named the Female Spirit Temple for the pieces of female statues uncovered there; stone platforms; and burial mounds beneath which were objects made of jade and other expensive materials In southern China at Yushan in Yuhang County, Zhejiang Province, near the city of Shanghai, ritual altars and jade objects that attest to ceremonies as part of urban life in the fourth and third centuries b.c.e have been excavated By the middle of the third millennium b.c.e., China was composed of numerous city-states, most of them walled and some with several walls Often a walled enclosure called an enceinte was the hub of activity of a larger region, but rarely was the territory within the jurisdiction of a city-state more than 62 miles in any direction The city-states are believed to have had a ruling elite and economies based on agriculture, supplemented by stock breeding and fishing There was a division of labor, meaning that builders of city walls and ritual architecture ate food grown or gathered by others The most importance evidence of urbanism in China of the second millennium b.c.e is along the Yellow River valley in North China This was the time, before the middle of the second millennium, when writing appeared in China, though some believe pictographs were used in the third millennium b.c.e China entered its Bronze Age early in the second mil- lennium, even before the official beginning of China’s first great historic period, the Shang Dynasty (1500–1045 b.c.e.) According to literary sources, Shang was preceded by the Xia Dynasty Most historians believe that this dynasty began before the age of Neolithic cultures ended in China CITIES OF BRONZE AGE CHINA A city that may well date to the Xia Period was excavated at Erlitou, near Luoyang in Henan Large palatial complexes, bronze vessels, bronze plaques inlaid with turquoise, and remnants of jade, lacquer, bone, and pottery excavated at Erlitou attest to the complexity of urban life there, even though no wall remains have been uncovered North of Erlitou in Yanshi County is a city dated to about 1600 b.c.e Sometimes it is referred to as Shixiangguo, named after a drainage ditch that ran through it Consisting of an outer wall with an inner wall sharing its southern boundary and the southern part of its western boundary, the city measured 1,356 by 1,870 yards Its outer wall was more than twice as thick as the inner one and was surrounded by a moat 65½ feet wide Seven gates provided access to the outer city, and wide boulevards ran through it Several palaces, large ritual sectors for animal offerings, pottery workshops, and a drainage system were among the urban features It has been surmised that Erlitou was the first of seven capitals from which the Shang kings ruled There is little doubt that the Shang city at Zhengzhou was one of those capitals Certainly the city was the most important urban center in the first half of the Shang Dynasty Its main outer wall measured just short of miles, and parts were as wide as 98 feet at the base A little over 16 feet of wall have been uncovered south and west of the main wall, suggesting either that this was a significantly larger city or that it had many sections The wall was made of pounded layers, lined by wooden planks, a technique introduced to China in Neolithic times The largest palace foundation uncovered so far is 21,528 square feet Cities that were not capitals flourished in many parts of China during the Shang Two of the best excavated have been found at Panlongcheng (near Wuhan, Hubei) and Gucheng (in Yuanqu County, Shanxi) At Panlongcheng a gate and two main buildings, believed to be a palace complex, stood in the northeast of the squarish city wall, which measured about 951 by 853 feet on each side Contemporary with the capital at Zhengzhou, the city is important evidence that a similar level of urbanism was present in the Yellow and Yangtze river valleys by about 1400 b.c.e The four wall segments of the city at Gucheng measured between 1,102 and 1,312 feet The base of the wall was less than half the thickness of the wall at Zhengzhou, but portions along the south and west were doubled The area believed to be the palace was roughly in the center of Gucheng Shang China’s most important city was Yinxu, northwest of the city of Anyang, in Henan It spanned about 14 square miles on either side of the Huan River Excavation has occurred there almost every year since the late 1920s Among the