王冬冬Third National Cultural Relics Survey in China
Taking Tongling（铜陵）as an example
Wang Dongdong
Master's Course Student, School of Archaeology and Museology,Peking University, China

National Cultural Relics Survey in China is a significantand important thing. China has a long history and cultural

The first national cultural relics survey began in 1956. At

resources are substantial. Thus, it is necessary to survey thethat time, survey was only on a small scale, and nonstan-number of cultural heritage and the state of preservation

dard. We can’t know much detail about it.

of them. It is also important to protect, develop, and utilize

The second national cultural relics survey was from 1981

cultural resources in the further. So far, China had madeto 1985. The scale of this time is much bigger than the last

three surveys of cultural relics.

one, and got a lot of achievement. But limited by finance andtechnology，this survey is not comprehensive. What’ more,this survey was carried out 20 years ago，some information

1. An introduction of the National Cultural Rel-is not collected at that time and some technology is not highics Survey in China

Ruin (Neolithic, house and Courtyard)

Tomb (Shang and Zhou daynasties, cemetery)

Architecture (Ming and Qing dynasty, old village)

Temple (Northern Wei dynasty yungang grottoes)
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enough to adapt to the study and protection currently.

or the valleys, and try their best to find more ruins at each

The third national cultural relics survey began in 2007,

range. And then they should make a detail record and col-and finished in December 2011, totally five years. Comparedlect all the relics. Through the observation of the records

with the first and second ones, this survey was on a large

and relics, we can get some useful information, which isscale and used a lot of modern technology, such as camera,

very important for us to do more research. later.

GPS, GIS and so on. This survey covered many aspects, forexample, this survey of immovable cultural relics includes
ancient ruins, tombs, architectures, temples and rock carvings (Fig.1), important historical sites and representativearchitecture. The results of the third survey must be useful.

3. The excavation at shigudun（师姑墩）site,tongling（铜陵）county
Shigudun（ 师 姑 墩 ）site (Fig.3) is located at Zhongming（钟鸣）town, tongling（铜陵）county, about 10 kilome-

2. The cultural relics survey in tongling（铜陵）ters south to the Yangtze River. On the southeast of thissite, there is a large copper mine area. In history, we haveTongling（ 铜 陵 ）is an important city in anhui（ 安 徽 ）discovered at least 5 copper smelting sites in the large cop-province. Before making this survey, we had to know theper mine area. What’s more, tongling（铜陵）is one of thetopography of this area clearly. Tongling（铜陵）is on thethree huge copper mines at the middle and downstream ofsoutheast of the Yangtze River and on the northwest of thethe Yangtze River1.

king mountain (Fig.2). Besides, there are three main tribu-This site is a typical mound site, oval shaped, 1-3 meter intaries and some small hills in this area. During this survey

height. It covers an area of about 7,500 square meters. Dueof cultural relics, investigators have to walk along the rivers

to a railway construction crossing the southern site, fromFigure 2 Map of Tongling（铜陵）1The other two are tonglvshan（铜绿山）in hubei（湖北）province and tongling（铜岭）in jiangxi（江西）province.

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Figure 3 Map of shigudun site（师姑墩）Figure 4

House（F1）House（F2）

Trench（G1）Figure 5

March to August 2010, the Anhui Provincial Cultural Relics

Shang dynasties to the Spring and Autumn Period, and isand Archaeology Institute conducted an excavation of 1,300

one of ruins with complete chronosequence (Fig.4). Because

square meters.

of this, this site is very impotant. It can be divided into threeThe continuous stratum of culture deposit is from Xia and72

major periods: the earliest lies between Xia and Shang Dy-

Third National Cultural Relics Survey in Chinanasties（2100BC-1500BC）; then Shang Dynasty（1500BC-riod, the number of potteries increase fast, such as the flat-1100BC）; the latest is from the Western Zhou to the Spring

crotch Li（ 瘪 裆 鬲 ）, cylindrical footed Li（ 素 面 柱 足and Autumn Period（1100BC-500BC）.

鬲 ）, the plate with round foot（ 圈 足 盘 ）and vessel-He

This excavation disclosed ten pits, seven trenches, onewith a curved handle（曲柄盉）, and the number of stone

well, two house sites and countless pillar holes, all dating

implements increases as well, such as axes, adze, arrowhead,Shang-Zhou period (Fig.5). There are more than 250 relics,spear, etc (Fig.6).

such as pottery, stone artifact and bronze. The most significant findings are copper slag, furnace wall debris and molds,

4. Conclusion

which are connected with copper smelting.
Relics from the early period between Xia and Shang dy-Before the excavation of Shigudun（师姑墩）, the bronze

nasties are basically potteries. Relics from shang dynasty

smelting sites of Shang and Zhou are mainly in the core area

consists of potteries, a small amount of stone implements,or strategic point of the period. In most cases, they are of-copper slag, such as the pottery vessel type-Li with thickficial industry.

rope-pattern（ 粗 绳 纹 鬲 ）, the Jiafu Dou（ 假 腹 豆 ）.

Shigudun（师姑墩）is a small settlement with an indus-

Relics from Western Zhou to the Spring and Autumn Pe-

trial history over hundreds of years. We found another threeFigure 673

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sites of similar size in the basin. The distant among them is
no more than 700 meters. They are all industrialized, which
implies that the settlements as a whole are related to thebronze industry.
Now we are able to examine the social infrastructure of aremote resource rather than the elites in central areas. Also,
we would be able to define the relationship between theearly period and their southeast bronze resource with not
only a chronicle, but also a social context of better accuracy
and transparency.
Shigudun（ 师 姑 墩 ）is only a small excavation, the direct reason of excavating this site is railway construction.
But the site was discovered in the third national Cultural
Relics Survey. Therefore, through excavating one site enable
us to understand deepen, and through relics survey enable
us to understand widen, they are complementary.

The information of shigudun（ 师 姑 墩 ）is supportedby Wu Weihong（吴卫红）, from the Institute of Cultural
Relics and Archaeology in Anhui Provincial.

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