Yin Xu (The Remainder of Yin Dynasty)

Yin Xu was the capital city of the late Shang Dynasty (1300 to 1046 BC) of China and has more than 3,300 year's history. It is a testimony of the golden age of early Chinese culture, crafts and sciences, as well as of great prosperity of the Chinese Bronze Age. The archaeological site is close to Anyang City, some 500 km south of Beijing covering 24 square km. It is the birthplace of Jiaguwen (inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty) and offers abundant and important content for studying the history of 3,000 years ago.

In 1899, in Xiao Tun Village of Anyang City, Henan Province, villagers found many tortoise shells and bones carved with letters and symbols, which unveiled to the world Yin Xu, an ancient city with a long history and splendid culture. Since then this place has become of great interest to worldwide archeologists, because those inscriptions have proved to be the earliest written characters of human beings, the Oracles.

Covering a grand area of 24 square kilometers (more than 9 square miles), Yin Xu had a palaces district, civil residences district, tombs district and workshops district, divided into two parts by the Heng river in the city.  A number of royal tombs and palaces, prototypes of later Chinese architecture have been unearthed on the site. This rational layout clearly shows people a powerful country and a well-equipped ancient city.

The large-scale excavation in Yin Xu has been continued since the last century. Besides the 150, 000 pieces of oracles, abundant bronze ware has been excavated, and among them, Simuwu Ding, a 4-legged bronze cooking vessel is the biggest and heaviest bronze ware ever found worldwide. Apart from oracles and bronze ware, people have also excavated much pottery ware and jade. The excavation is still in progress and great discoveries come forth from time to time. Like a famous archeologist has said, in Yin Xu there are more treasures to be found.

Numerous pits containing bovine shoulder blades and turtle plastrons have been found in Yin Xu. Inscriptions on these oracle bones bear invaluable testimony to the development of one of the world's oldest writing systems, ancient beliefs and social systems. Because of its great value in not only the historical relics of Chinese culture but also the human civilization of the whole world, Yin Xu topped the 100 Greatest Archeological Discoveries of China in the last century and it was listed in the World Cultural and Natural Heritage List of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
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