Site of the Xiwusi Temple

Site of the Xiwusi Temple

The Site of the Xiwusi Temple is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Period: Neolithic Age, Zhou Dynasty

Located southeast of Xiwusi Village, Xiaomeng Town, Yanzhou District, Jining City, Shandong Province, it is said to lie about 500 meters north of the ancient course of the Zhaohe River, standing 1.5–2 meters above the ground surface. The site covers an area of 60,000 square meters. After its discovery in 1957, the Shandong Team of the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, as well as cultural heritage management departments at the provincial, municipal, and county levels of Shandong, conducted multiple surveys. In the spring of 1982, the Shandong Provincial Institute of Archaeology carried out a small-scale trial excavation. From the spring of 1984 to the end of 1985, the National Cultural Heritage Administration held three sessions of the “National Field Archaeology Team Leaders Training Class” at this site, opening a total of 138 excavation units and uncovering an area of 3,250 square meters, yielding over 1,400 cultural relics. The Xiwusi Temple site mainly features remains from the Longshan Culture and the Zhou Dynasty. Among them, the Longshan Culture remains include ash pits, house foundations, wells, and tombs. Artifacts primarily consist of pottery and a small number of stone, bone, horn, tooth, and shell tools. The Zhou Dynasty cultural remains mainly comprise ash pits, as well as animal taboo pits, ash ditches, house foundations, hearths, pottery kilns, wells, and tunnels. The vast majority of artifacts are pottery, along with bronze, stone, bone, and horn objects. The Xiwusi Temple site was designated as a Shandong Provincial Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit in 1977. By the end of 1986, land north of the ancient road ditch at the site was opened for soil extraction by the village’s brick kiln. In May 2013, it was announced by the State Council as part of the seventh batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units.

Further Reading:

· First Batch of Shandong Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units

· Seventh Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units