Qiu City Ruins

Qiu City Ruins

The Qiu City Ruins are a cultural heritage site protected at the provincial level in Zhejiang Province.

The Qiu City Ruins are located at Xiaomeikou in Baique Township, 9 kilometers north of Huzhou City. Built against the mountains, Qiu City consists of two roughly equal-sized, connected city walls running from north to south, enclosing two small hills (both named Qiu City Mountain). The walls were constructed from rammed earth and are linked together in a shape vaguely resembling the Chinese character “吕”. According to the Huzhou Prefecture Records from the Tongzhi era of the Qing Dynasty, Qiu City was “one of the three cities built by the Wu Kingdom during the Spring and Autumn period” (the other two being Peng City and Wu City).

In the eastern, southern, and southwestern parts of Qiu City, there are Neolithic sites, hence the name Qiu City Ruins. The total area is about 30,000 square meters, divided into three cultural layers: upper, middle, and lower.

The lower layer, dating back approximately 6,000 years, belongs to the Majiabang culture. This layer contains remnants of large architectural structures. The main production tools were stone implements, especially adzes with arched backs and perforated axes with diagonal backs and tongue-shaped blades. There were also many bone tools such as arrowheads, chisels, pestles, and needles. Pottery was mainly sandy red clay pottery and fine red clay pottery. Vessel shapes included waist-rimmed cauldrons, cauldron-shaped ding vessels, flared-footed beans, and pottery jars with a pair of ox-nose style handles on the belly, along with animal remains such as cattle, deer, pigs, and fish.

The middle layer, dating back about 5,000 years, belongs to the Songze culture. Stone tools were mainly flat perforated stone axes and long rectangular stone adzes. Pottery was mostly black pottery, including ding vessels, beans, cups, jars, cups, zun vessels, and cylindrical objects, all with regular shapes, some decorated with circular and triangular openwork patterns.

The upper layer, which is part of the city wall, was discovered in 1957. The rammed earth contained stamped pottery, primitive celadon, red pottery, black pottery, as well as stone tools, bronze arrowheads, jade ornaments, and jade huang pendants. The latest artifacts were the stamped pottery and primitive pottery. In the upper cultural deposits of the southeastern part of Qiu City Mountain, artifacts such as sandy cord-marked pottery ding vessels, triangular stone spades, and arched-back segmented stone adzes were unearthed.

The Qiu City Ruins belong to the Majiabang type. On March 11, 1963, they were designated as a provincial-level key cultural heritage site by the People’s Government of Zhejiang Province.

On April 13, 1981, they were re-designated as a provincial-level key cultural heritage site.

Binhu Subdistrict: Binhu Subdistrict is located in Wuxing District, Huzhou City, Zhejiang Province. It governs the following areas:

330502009001 111 Taihu Sunshine Holiday Community

330502009002 112 Huanglong Cave Community

330502009003 220 Hengtangqiao Community

330502009004 111 Mojiantian Community

330502009005 111 Hubin Community

330502009006 112 Xiaomei Community

330502009…… More detailed information about Binhu Subdistrict++

Further reading:

· Second Batch of Zhejiang Provincial Cultural Heritage Sites