The Cao Yanzhuang Site

The Cao Yanzhuang Site

The Cao Yanzhuang Site is a cultural heritage protection unit of Hebei Province.

The pre-Shang Dynasty Cao Yanzhuang site is located on the south side of Zhongxing West Avenue in Xingtai City, to the east of Cao Yanzhuang Village, and at the southeastern corner of the current Xingtai Regional Grain Depot. The Hebei Provincial Cultural Relics Management Committee carried out excavation work in Cao Yanzhuang twice: from May 14 to November 27, 1956, and from April 16 to August 12, 1957. The total excavation area was 2,535 square meters, yielding 3,999 intact artifacts. During the excavation, the cultural layers of the site were found to be divisible into three strata:

1. The loess layer, representing the Warring States cultural stratum. Artifacts here are primarily ceramics, including beans, bowls, jars, zun (wine vessels), basins, pots, and urns. Some vessels bear inscribed characters on their rims, shoulders, bodies, or bases. Stone tools include knives, sickles, shovels, and adzes. Bronze items consist of awls, triangular arrowheads, knife coins, and spade coins. Remains include two types of pits: storage pits and tile-lined wells. Most of these pits are filled with ash and burnt soil, and the contents are mainly pottery.

2. The gray soil layer, representing the upper layer of the Shang Dynasty. This layer contains the most coarse rope-patterned, pierced-foot li (cooking tripods), as well as beans, basins, jars, oracle bones, bone hairpins, bone knives, stone sickles, and stone shovels.

3. The lower layer of the Shang Dynasty. Artifacts here include rope-patterned high-footed li, semi-high-footed li, perforated stone tools, round-bottomed jars, carved bone hairpins, oracle bones, stone axes, and stone sickles. Remains include rectangular storage pits, round-well-shaped pits, and bag-shaped pits. These contain pottery, stone tools, and bone implements. The pits are relatively deep and small in area, and the bag-shaped ones are prone to collapse, making them unsuitable for habitation. However, they contain artifacts, many of which show no signs of use. Some vessels hold scattered skeletal remains, suggesting that some pits may have been used exclusively for storage, while others were cooking areas. In addition, three Shang Dynasty house remains were excavated in Cao Yanzhuang, each showing different architectural styles, daily utensils, and various other artifacts.

Based on the excavation findings at the Cao Yanzhuang Shang Dynasty site, although the Shang Dynasty had entered the Bronze Age, the main production tools used by the general populace were still stone implements. Grain crops were one of the staple foods cultivated by the people of the Shang Dynasty, and the large number of unearthed pottery li in storage pits indicates the prosperity of folk handicrafts. The presence of dog skeletons inside houses shows that the laboring people of the Shang Dynasty had already begun raising livestock. The decorative patterns such as cloud-and-thunder motifs and taotie designs on pottery, as well as the carved patterns on bone arrowheads and hairpins, indicate a broad aesthetic appreciation and creative ability among the lower-class laborers of the Shang Dynasty. Meander and interlocking geometric patterns were already widely used in daily life. From the impressions of matting patterns, it can be seen that the people of Xingtai had the habit of weaving mats as early as 3,000 years ago, and mats were widely used in daily life.

The discovery of Shang Dynasty cultural remains at Cao Yanzhuang provides valuable physical materials for studying the lives and culture of people during the local Shang Dynasty period. In 1982, this site was listed as a Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit of Hebei Province.

Further Reading:

· Second Batch of Key Cultural Relics Protection Units of Hebei Province