Tianmushan Shang and Zhou Dynasties Ruins

Tianmushan Shang and Zhou Dynasties Ruins

The Tianmushan Shang and Zhou Dynasties Ruins is a cultural tourism attraction.

The Tianmushan Ruins are located in the northern part of Jiangyan District, at 120° east longitude and 32° north latitude, on the south side of the Xin Tongyang Canal and the east bank of the Jiangzhen River. The site sits on higher ground, surrounded by water on all sides, resembling a small island. On May 29, 2006, it was officially approved and announced by the State Council as a typical site of different dynasties, categories, and regions from various historical periods, remarkably well-preserved, and was included in the sixth batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level. From August 2000 to October 2003, an archaeological team for the Tianmushan Ruins, led by the Nanjing Museum and composed of personnel from the Nanjing Museum, Taizhou Museum, and Jiangyan Cultural Relics Management Office, conducted two excavations at the site, uncovering an area of 1,316 square meters. The archaeological findings revealed that the site was an ancient city from the Western Zhou Dynasty, consisting of an inner city and an outer city, with a surrounding moat outside the outer city. Currently, only the eastern, northern, and western sections of the outer city wall have been discovered. The perimeter of the inner city is consistent with the historical records in the Wanli-era "Taizhou Annals." The city walls were built from rammed earth, and their initial height did not exceed 10 meters, which aligns with ancient texts. The excavation also uncovered ancient relics such as river channels, platforms, building foundations, tombs, and drainage ditches, along with a large number of animal remains and man-made pottery items including jars, tripods, beans, bowls, basins, plates, and gui vessels. The Western Zhou city of Tianmushan is currently the earliest discovered city site in the Jianghuai region. Urban sites from this period are very rare and provide irreplaceable data for comparative studies of different ancient city structures during the Spring and Autumn Period and research on the development of ancient Chinese urban models. The affiliation and cultural characteristics of the Jianghuai region during the Western Zhou and Spring and Autumn Periods have previously received little research attention, with scarce and often contradictory historical records. During that time, various groups such as the Gan, Huaiyi, Wu, and Dongyi may have been active in the area, though they are not documented in historical texts. The Tianmushan ancient city is a small city situated in a river channel and served as a strategic stronghold on the route where the Wu Kingdom aspired to reach the Central Plains and expand northward, even in the late Western Zhou and early Spring and Autumn Periods. The cultural elements of the ancient city reflect the blending and evolutionary development between the Jiangnan Hushu culture of the south and the Central Plains Longshan culture. The Tianmushan ancient city lies within an area that experienced changes in the ancient Yangtze River course and coastline shifts, and the site can provide fundamental data for research on the origins of rice cultivation culture. On October 18, 2003, at the first Jiangsu Provincial Cultural Relics Festival and the 70th anniversary celebration of the Nanjing Museum, Mr. Zou Heng, China’s foremost expert in Shang and Zhou archaeology, a leading authority on the Chronology Project of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou Dynasties, and a professor at Peking University, provided an on-site commentary on the cultural relics unearthed from the Tianmushan ancient city at the Nanjing Museum exhibition hall.