China's 5,000-Year-Old Shijiahe Civilization Now Open to the Public

China has opened wider access to the traces of an ancient civilization in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. It is called the Shijiahe Culture, a civilization that lived about 5,900 to 3,800 years ago.

According to a report by China Daily quoted Thursday, June 18, the relics of the civilization can now be seen at the Shijiahe Site Museum in Tianmen, Hubei Province. The museum opened on May 18 and has six exhibition rooms.

The size of the museum is about the size of a football field. It contains more than 800 artifacts, ranging from pottery, jade, to stone tools. All these objects show how the people of Shijiahe built the city, managed water, made crafts, and carried out religious rituals.

Director of the Institute of Cultural and Archaeological Heritage of Hubei Province Fang Qin called Shijiahe the largest prehistoric city center and the most densely populated settlement cluster in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River at the end of the Neolithic or the young stone age.

"Shijiahe site is remarkable for its vast city scale, long housing period, rich cultural heritage, and distinctive regional character," said Wang Wei, a senior archaeologist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Wang said the most striking thing about the site was the number of relics related to spiritual beliefs. According to him, such findings are rarely found at contemporary sites in other regions.

This site is on the list of China's 100 Greatest Archaeological Discoveries in the Last Century. Since its discovery in 1954, Shijiahe has been excavated more than 20 times.

Shijiahe culture developed about 2,000 years ago. That makes it one of the longest inhabited prehistoric settlements in China.

Fang said the ancient city covers nearly 3.5 million square meters. Its size is more than four times the size of Beijing's Forbidden City.

The city already has a division of areas. There are settlements, ceremonial spaces, pottery workshops, and burial complexes. Its water management system is also advanced, used for irrigation, flood control, and defense.

One of the most prominent findings is the jade artifact. More than 400 jade objects were found at this site. Their shapes depict gods, phoenixes, eagles, tigers, and tonggerets with very fine carvings.

One phoenix jade now housed in the National Museum of China in Beijing is known as "China's first phoenix" for its distinctive circular design.

Many of the jade carvings are very small, not even bigger than a fingernail. But the details are complicated.

"This jade artifact was likely used in rituals to communicate with the spiritual world," Fang said.

China Daily also reported that Shijiahe pottery shows the intelligence and imagination of prehistoric people. The museum displays clay figurines in the shape of birds, chickens, pigs, and dogs. There is also a pensive human figure reminiscent of Auguste Rodin's The Thinker.

At the Sanfangwan site, not far from Shijiahe, archaeologists found a 8,000-square-meter workshop to produce red earthenware cups.

Deputy Director of the Shijiahe Site Museum Hu Yongmei said the workshop was the largest Neolithic pottery workshop ever found. The large number of red pottery cup remains indicates the possibility of trade with other regions.

Near the location of the furnace, archaeologists also found a large ritual area containing many jars and pots. These objects are suspected of being used to store offerings.

"The sophistication of the jade and pottery industry shows a very specific division of labor," said Hu.

The museum also uses digital technology to bring the world of Shijiahe back to life. Visitors can watch an immersive production titled Seeing Shijiahe.

The performance uses holographic projections, moving mechanical devices, wind, fog, and vibrations. The scenes shown include a flood that breaks through the city's defenses, a large ritual, to a phoenix flying in the sky.

Director Fan Yupeng said the production was built on the basis of archaeological evidence and interpretations of experts because there were no visual or written records from that time.

"By recreating archaeological scenes through immersive performances, we can bridge the distance between modern audiences and ancient history," Fan said.

Fan hopes visitors can understand Shijiahe Culture and the long legacy it left behind.