Luzhi Historical Relics Museum

Luzhi Historical Relics Museum

The Luzhi Historical Relics Museum is located in the southeast of the Jiangnan Cultural Park. It displays artifacts unearthed during two excavations of the Chenghu Site in Luzhi in 1974 and 2003. Based on the relics revealed through archaeological excavation and the precious artifacts unearthed, the museum vividly showcases the production and daily life scenarios of our Luzhi ancestors over the past five thousand years. When you walk into the exhibition hall, it’s like traveling back through a time tunnel of more than five millennia, giving you a deeper appreciation for the long history of today’s Luzhi — this Jiangnan “land of fish and rice.”

The vast waters of Lake Tai flow eastward through the Dongjiang, Loujiang, and Wusong rivers, heading straight to the sea. However, as they passed by Luzhi, they took a brief nap — and thus became Chenghu. For thousands of years, the rolling waters have nourished Luzhi’s fertile lands and irrigated the flowers of its ancient civilization.

As early as 5,500 years ago, human activity had already begun in the Chenghu area. In early 1974, the Nanjing Museum conducted the first archaeological excavation, unveiling the prelude to this history. Building on that, in late September 2003, the Suzhou Museum and the Wuzhong District Cultural Relics Management Office carried out another excavation. After two months of work, 402 wells, 443 ash pits, and nearly 500 various artifacts were discovered. These included painted pottery bottles and black-glazed pottery ewers from the Songze culture period; ladle pots from the Liangzhu culture period; pottery zun vessels from the Western Zhou period; and bronze scrapers from the Eastern Zhou period, among other precious artifacts.

At the same time, a primitive village dating back 5,500 years was discovered, consisting of living areas made up of house foundations, storage pits, ditches, wells, and ash pits, as well as operational areas comprising rice paddies, ponds, ditches, water storage pits, and water inlets. The discovery of rice paddies, in particular, indicates that as early as 5,500 years ago, our Luzhi ancestors had already begun cultivating rice in the Chenghu-Luzhi area. This not only proves the history of artificially cultivated rice but also shows that the local socio-economic structure had begun transitioning from a fishing and hunting economy to a rice-farming agricultural economy.

This exhibition of artifacts unearthed from the Chenghu Site in Luzhi reveals that the site, through the two excavations in 1974 and 2003, has uncovered a large number of ancient cultural remains. Among them, the rice paddies from the Songze culture period were the first of their kind discovered in the Jiangnan region. Although the history of rice cultivation in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River dates back 6,000 years to the Majiabang culture period, the appearance of rice paddies from the Songze culture period along with their associated ponds, ditches, and water inlets — components of an agricultural irrigation system — proves that rice cultivation techniques had advanced further during the Songze period compared to the Majiabang period. This has profound significance for the study of the development, evolution, and history of rice paddies in the lower Yangtze region. Additionally, the concentration of numerous wells and ash pits indicates that the geographical environment here was highly suitable for human habitation. Humans began activities in the Chenghu area 5,500 years ago and continued to thrive there until the Song Dynasty, after which they gradually migrated northeastward, eventually forming the present-day town of Luzhi. The achievements of this archaeological excavation and interdisciplinary collaboration provide extremely valuable physical materials for the study of human activity and historical changes in the Chenghu area.

Human life is inseparable from water, and people originally lived near rivers and lakes. The emergence of wells allowed people to move away from water sources and choose places more suitable for living. A total of 402 wells have been discovered at the Luzhi section of the Chenghu Site, making it one of the sites with the most wells discovered in the Taihu Lake basin. The earliest wells date back about 5,500 years. Water-drawing tools appeared alongside wells and were initially not used solely for drawing water — items such as containers or drinking vessels were sometimes repurposed for this function. Early tools were mostly made of pottery, and it wasn’t until the Tang Dynasty that wooden tools specifically designed for drawing water began to appear.

Ash pits are relics closely related to the lives of ancient humans. They are generally basin-shaped pits dug manually, with planar shapes including rectangular, circular, and irregular forms. Their primary uses were for garbage disposal and storage (as storage pits). A total of 433 ash pits have been found at the Luzhi section of the Chenghu Site, making it the site with the highest number of ash pits discovered in the Taihu Lake basin.