Tongling Mining and Metallurgy Site

Tongling Mining and Metallurgy Site

The Tongling Mining and Metallurgy Site is a cultural tourism attraction.

Tongling Mining and Metallurgy Site

The Tongling Mining and Metallurgy Site is located in Tongling Village, Xiapu Town, Ruichang City, Jiangxi Province. Its geographical coordinates are 39°45′ north latitude and 115°35′ east longitude, about 7 kilometers from the Yangtze River and approximately 40 kilometers from the Tonglushan Copper Mine Site in Daye, Hubei. The Tongling Site is another significant discovery following the Tonglushan Mining and Metallurgy Site in Daye, Hubei, and was rated as one of China’s Top Ten Archaeological Discoveries in 1991. It provides extremely rich scientific evidence that copper mining in China dates back over 3,000 years. It is the earliest, best-preserved, and most content-rich large-scale mining and metallurgy site discovered in China to date. It not only solves the question of the source of raw materials for China’s highly developed bronze casting but also holds great significance for the study of China’s metallurgical and civilization history.

The site was discovered in the spring of 1998 and is divided into two parts: the mining area and the smelting area. The mining area covers approximately 1 square kilometer, while the smelting area spans about 2 square kilometers. Since 1998, the Jiangxi Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, in collaboration with the Ruichang City Museum and other institutions, has conducted five consecutive years of archaeological excavations at the site. The mining area has an exposed area of 1,800 square meters, and the smelting area has an excavation area of 1,200 square meters. The archaeological findings indicate that the site contains a wealth of relics and artifacts.

In the mining area, 107 vertical shafts, 20 tunnels, 7 open-pit mining pits, 5 work sheds, and 1 ore dressing site were uncovered. Around 300 stone, wood, bamboo, copper, pottery, and porcelain tools and utensils were unearthed. These mainly include stone axes, wooden shovels, wooden spades, wooden ladles, wooden mallets, wooden pulleys, wooden buckets, wooden tubs, wooden carrying poles, wooden hoes, wooden axes, bamboo baskets, bamboo trays, bamboo baskets, bamboo skewers, copper axes, copper adzes, copper chisels, pottery tripods, pottery cauldrons, pottery beans, pottery jars, pottery spinning whorls, primitive celadon cups, and celadon bowls.

In the smelting area, 2 furnaces and 18 water storage wells were uncovered. A large number of copper smelting slag and pottery daily-use items were found, mainly including tripods, cauldrons, beans, jars, and cups. Analysis of the unearthed pottery suggests that the period dates to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty.

The Tongling Site is currently the earliest known copper mining and smelting site in China and even the world. Based on carbon-14 dating data, the earliest mining activity at the site dates back to the middle Shang Dynasty, approximately 3,300 years ago, continuing through the Western Zhou, Spring and Autumn, and into the early Warring States periods. The pottery tripods and jars unearthed show styles similar to those of the upper layer of the Shang Dynasty at the Erligang site in Zhengzhou and the early residential remains at the Taixi site in Haocheng. The mining area of the site preserves both pit mining and open-pit mining areas, especially the latter, which is rare among similar domestic remains. The Western Zhou-period large sluice used for segmented water-flushing ore dressing uncovered at the site is an especially precious artifact. The Shang Dynasty wooden pulley unearthed at the site, with its unique design, is the oldest existing belt-driven mechanical object in China and even the world.