Bamboo weaving craftsmanship

Bamboo weaving craftsmanship

　　　Product origin: Fuyang, Hangzhou City

　　Product features: Stylish design, fine craftsmanship, unique shapes.

　　Product introduction: Exquisite bamboo weaving craftsmanship. The bamboo handicrafts from Fuyang are stylish in design, finely crafted, and uniquely shaped. At the entrance of the Zhejiang Hall in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, there is a double-sided bamboo inlaid screen—Bamboo and Rock Painting—featuring slender bamboo and adorned with peculiar rocks. The craftsmanship is exquisite, and all who see it are left in awe.

　　Product history: After nearly three months of field excavation, more than 100 relatively intact cultural relics were unearthed, with accumulation layers reaching 2–4 meters in thickness. These were divided into six cultural strata, belonging to three major historical periods, including modern-era accumulations; deposits from the Song Dynasty approximately seven or eight hundred years ago, which yielded a hard pottery house model with an A-shaped roof, remarkably lifelike, along with a large number of celadon-glazed items and prehistoric stone tools.

　　When the excavation reached the late Neolithic Age cultural deposits (approximately 4,000–5,000 years ago), the archaeologists were very excited. Many well-preserved, diverse-patterned, and skillfully woven bamboo fragments were unearthed, some resembling baskets and crates. One small, double-ended, round-table-shaped bamboo basket was found in an almost perfect state.

　　In the central part of the excavation area, a large pot-shaped pit formed. The deeper they dug, the richer the organic remains—mainly bamboo and wood—became, comparable in abundance to those at the Tianluoshan site, and concentrated near the center of the pit bottom. Among them, a nearly intact wooden oar, a short-handled wooden spade-like tool, a spinning top, and a club-like object were discovered.

　　Su Dongpo’s saying, “I would rather eat without meat than live without bamboo,” highlights the distinctiveness of Chinese culture compared to others. As early as the Shang Dynasty, there are records of Dongyang bamboo weaving. Originally, experts believed that bamboo weaving craftsmanship dated back two or three thousand years. But this archaeological discovery, considered the most significant of its kind, may push the origin of bamboo weaving craftsmanship back by about 2,000 years.