The Ninggu Ancient Site in Anshun

The Ninggu Ancient Site in Anshun

The Ninggu Ancient Site is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The Ninggu Ancient Site is located in Ninggu Town, about 6 kilometers south of downtown Anshun. It was the site of the ancient Zangke Commandery during the Han Dynasty, dating from the Western Han to the Eastern Han period. The site is divided into three parts: architectural ruins, pottery kilns, and tomb clusters. Covering an area of approximately 100,000 square meters, it has yielded important cultural relics such as wooden slips and the “Changle Weiyang” roof tile, which have great research value concerning the central government’s jurisdiction in the southwest during the Western Han Dynasty. In June 2006, it was designated as a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit by the State Council.

The excavation of this site has uncovered a large number of Han Dynasty artifacts, including geometric-patterned square bricks with nipple studs, Qin Banliang coins, Han Wuzhu coins, and Daquan Wushi round coins with square holes; as well as hundreds of production, daily life, and military items made of gold, copper, iron, pottery, and wood. Based on the unearthed relics, the site is inferred to date from the end of the Western Han Dynasty (during the reign of Liu Xuan, King of Huaiyang) to the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty (during the reign of Emperor Guangwu, Liu Xiu).

In the 1970s, an ancient Han site that had lain dormant underground for more than two thousand years emerged. Continuous excavations in Ninggu Town, Xixiu District, Anshun City, unearthed a large number of Han Dynasty relics, including geometric-patterned square bricks, Qin Banliang coins, Han Wuzhu coins, Daquan Wushi round coins, and hundreds of items such as gold, bronze, iron, pottery, and wooden objects used in production and daily life. Since then, this relatively small area has become a treasure trove for the study and research of Han Dynasty history in Guizhou.

Notably, the “Changle Weiyang” roof tile, iron mirror, and bronze turtle lamp unearthed in 1996 were official-use items from the end of the Western Han to the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty. This excavation also marked the first discovery of the only wooden slip found in Guizhou. After more than 30 years of continuous effort, 32 Han tombs have been excavated. Experts have identified over 120 Han tombs in seven or eight villages such as Dazhai, Longtan, Panmeng, Baini, Shangyuan, Longtanpo, Longquan Temple, and Paomadi, with an estimated total of over a thousand tombs. In addition, there is a 5,000-square-meter brick and tile kiln area south of Longquan Temple in Shangyuan, primarily consisting of pottery kilns. Beneath the open fields southwest of Longquan Temple lies a building complex site spanning 90,000 square meters.

A Han Dynasty site that integrates architecture, pottery kilns, and tombs in such a tripartite form is rare in the archaeological history of the southwest. As a result, researchers have turned their attention to the Western Han Dynasty over two thousand years ago. After analyzing a wealth of historical records, they have raised the question: could the seat of the Zangke Commandery—the first local government under the centralized rule of the Han Dynasty—have been established right here?

Through the corroboration of unearthed relics and historical texts, many historians from within and outside the province believe that the Han Dynasty site discovered in Ninggu, Anshun, is large in scale, high in specification, broad in scope, and rich in Han cultural elements, making it undoubtedly the largest ancient Han site in Guizhou.

According to the Records of Huayang Kingdom, during the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties, the population of the Zangke Commandery was: 24,219 households and 153,360 people in the Western Han; and 31,523 households and 167,252 people in the Eastern Han. From today’s perspective, although the Zangke Commandery covered a vast area, its population was limited. A place like Ninggu, which has a building ruin covering 90,000 square meters, is absolutely unique in Guizhou. Therefore, it is inferred that Ninggu was a large-scale residential area at the time, already having the scale of a commandery capital. In other words, Ninggu is likely to have been the site of the Zangke Commandery’s seat.

Flipping through historical records, like the Yelang Kingdom, Zangke was an important symbol in the ancient history of Anshun. If the establishment of the Han Dynasty Zangke Commandery is seen as a prominent cultural highland emerging in history, then the evolutionary process before and after it over the following centuries was equally full of twists and turns.

Further Reading:

· First Batch of Guizhou Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units

· Sixth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units