The Houli Shang-Zhou Tombs

The Houli Shang-Zhou Tombs

The Houli Shang-Zhou Tombs is a cultural tourism attraction.

The Tianhu Houli Shang-Zhou Tombs are located on a hillside within the Houli Village Group of Tianhu Village, Mangzhang Township, approximately 21 kilometers south of Luoshan County. They lie to the east of the Zhugan River. The tomb site stretches 100 meters from north to south and 40 meters from east to west.

The site was discovered in mid-April 1979 during a water conservancy construction project. Following two large-scale excavations, a total of 17 Shang Dynasty tombs and 24 Zhou Dynasty tombs were unearthed (with a number of medium-sized well-coffin tombs in the northern area yet to be excavated). The finds include 215 pieces of Shang bronze ware, 68 jade artifacts, 42 pottery items, 2 stone objects, and 9 wooden lacquerware pieces, as well as 38 Zhou bronze artifacts, 138 pottery items, 1 stone object, and 3 wooden lacquerware pieces. These relics feature exquisite craftsmanship and a wide variety, among which the Owl-shaped Handle Wine Vessel (Chiyu Liuyou) and the Agate Red Jade Bracelet are rare national treasures. The black-lacquered square wooden bowl and lacquered wooden dou (food vessel) are the first physical examples discovered from the Shang period. The 2-kilogram liquid sealed inside the bronze wine vessel unearthed from Tomb No. 8 was tested by the Chemistry Department of Peking University and confirmed to be wine over 3,000 years old, recorded by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s oldest wine. The discovery of Shang Dynasty wine provides invaluable physical evidence for the study of wine culture. Dating results indicate that the Shang Dynasty tombs belong to the second to fourth phases of the Yinxu Culture in Anyang, covering the reigns from King Wu Ding to King Zhou of Shang. Dendrochronological correction of coffin timber samples, tested by the 14C Laboratory of the Cultural Relics Protection Science and Technology Research Institute under the National Cultural Heritage Administration, determined an age of 3,286 years, which closely aligns with the estimated time of King Wu Ding’s reign as suggested in Mr. Chen Mengjia’s book “A Comprehensive Study of Yinxu Oracle Bone Inscriptions.” This absolute dating also corresponds with the historical record of King Wu Ding’s military campaign against the Jingchu region. It is likely that the tomb owners were mid-level slave-owning nobles dispatched to the Dabie Mountains after Wu Ding’s victorious campaign. The 1981 special issue of “Central Plains Cultural Relics,” titled “The Significance of New Archaeological Discoveries in Southern Henan,” noted: “Chu culture originated from Central Plains culture. The Chu culture that began to take shape in the mid-Spring and Autumn period represents a continuation and creation based on this foundation. After King Wu Ding of the Shang Dynasty, the southern Jingchu region was already under the control of the Central Plains-based Shang Dynasty, as evidenced both in historical texts and by archaeological findings at the Mangzhang Shang tombs in Luoshan.”

The Tianhu Houli Shang-Zhou Tombs in Luoshan represent a major discovery in the archaeology of China’s Shang and Zhou periods, with some scholars even referring to the site as a “Little Yinxu.” It not only fills a gap in the archaeological understanding of the Shang period in southern Henan but also enriches the well-known Yinxu Culture of Anyang. The site reveals the ethnic transitions and north-south cultural exchanges in southern Henan during the transition from the Shang to the Zhou Dynasty, further underscoring Xinyang’s critical role as a cultural bridge between the Central Plains and southern cultures in the context of pre-Qin archaeology in China.