Remains of Song Village in Zhao County

Remains of Song Village in Zhao County

The Song Village site in Zhao County is a cultural heritage site protected at the provincial level in Hebei Province.

The Song Village site is located 700 meters west of Song Village in Zhaojiazhuang Township, Zhao County. The site has an irregular rectangular layout, measuring 116 meters from north to south, 75 meters from east to west, covering an area of approximately 9,000 square meters, with a cultural layer about 5 meters thick. Due to earth excavation in earlier years, the surrounding area of the site features cliff-like edges. According to the "Zhaozhou Annals" under the section on Temples: “Xilin Temple is located to the west of Song Village, on a high ridge that is flat and expansive, covering more than twenty acres.” Today, about thirteen acres of the ridge remain, with much of it having been excavated over time. On the ridge, there still stands a hexagonal brick pagoda from the Yuan Dynasty’s Xilin Temple, as well as the remains of temple structures and fragmented stone Buddha statues. To the east of the pagoda is a earthen mound, traditionally believed to be the tomb of Li Zuojia. Around the earthen ridge, numerous pottery shards have been exposed, and artifacts such as the rims and feet of Shang and Zhou dynasty pottery li tripods, stone sickles, stone axes, and stone spades have been collected. This area was part of the territory of Jizhou during the Xia Dynasty; during the Shang Dynasty, it was directly governed by the Shang kings (as noted in "Tang Yunming's Archaeological Papers"); in the Western Zhou Dynasty, it belonged to the jurisdiction of Gaoyi; during the Spring and Autumn period, it was called Jipu (today’s Zhao County), and successively came under the control of the Xianyu State and the Jin State; in the early Warring States period, it was annexed by the Zhongshan State, later coming under the rule of the Wei and Zhao states; in the Qin Dynasty, it was part of Julu Commandery, and in the Han Dynasty, Pingji County was established here, falling under the jurisdiction of Changshan Commandery of the Jizhou Inspectorate. This site contains distinct cultural layers from the Shang and Zhou periods, and was likely abandoned after the Warring States period. A Xilin Temple was built on the site during the Yuan Dynasty.

The Song Village site holds significant historical and archaeological value, and was designated as a provincial-level key cultural relics protection unit by the People's Government of Hebei Province in 1993.