The royal city of Liangzhu Ancient Kingdom covers a total area of ​​more than three million square meters.

At that time five thousand years ago, this was already a very large city.

The core area of ​​this ancient city is the current Mojiao Mountain ruins.

The Mojiaoshan site is the largest site among the Liangzhu cultural sites, located 25 kilometers northwest of present-day Hz City.

The central mound of the site is rectangular in plan with an east-west direction, about 670 meters long from east to west, and about 450 meters wide from north to south. The total area is about 300,000 square meters, and the soil layer is 10.2 meters thick.

There are also three small mounds on the big earth platform, forming a tripod, with Wugui Mountain in the south, Xiao Mojiao Mountain in the north, and Da Mojiao Mountain in the east.

The entire artificially built huge mound platform is shaped like a so-called "earth pyramid".

On this large earth platform, a large area of ​​rammed foundations and large pillar holes have been found, which are the remains of large-scale buildings at that time.

In other words, five thousand years ago, the ancestors of the Liangzhu Kingdom artificially built these three large earth mounds in the center of the city.

Many large buildings were once built on these three mounds.

After years of archaeological exploration, it is basically certain that this large earthen platform is the royal palace of Liangzhu and a sacrificial area similar to the "Ancestral Temple".

Immediately to the northwest of the Mojiaoshan site is the so-called "Liangzhu King Tombs" of the Fanshan site tomb group.

It can be said that the culture of Liangzhu State is indeed the source of influence on Chinese civilization for thousands of years.

Their palaces will also be equipped with altars of heaven for worship, and their "imperial mausoleums" are also built close to the ruling center.

The birth of the Liangzhu Ancient Kingdom can be regarded as a "big event" for the entire lower Yangtze River Basin!

In the lower reaches of the Yangtze River more than 10,000 years ago, prehistoric settlements were still very rare. They were only found in northeastern Jiangxi and lived in caves.

But tens of thousands of years later, in the mountain basin in the middle reaches of the Qiantang River, many sites represented by the Shangshan Culture appeared. So far, more than 20 sites have been discovered, all of which were wilderness-type settlements near the river, where farming settlements appeared.

Although there are differences in time between these settlements, they have generally reached a large scale and have expanded to a wide range of surrounding areas, including Kuocang Mountain in the east and the northern foot of Siming Mountain in the north.

Around 8,000 years ago, scattered settlements also existed in the mountain basin in the middle reaches of the Qiantang River and in the plain area on the south bank of the lower reaches.

Six to seven thousand years ago was a period of great development of settlements, but before seven thousand years ago, settlements in the entire region did not show obvious hierarchical differences.

The combination of ancient river channels and artificial trenches at the Shangshan Cultural Qiaotou site is only for defense needs.

Since six thousand years ago, due to the emergence of a few very large central settlements, class differences have become increasingly obvious.

For example, Lingjiatan in Hanshan, which covers an area of ​​one million square meters, and Dongshan Village in Zhangjiagang, which covers an area of ​​several hundred thousand square meters, were both important central settlements at that time.

There are already differences between different settlements such as central settlements, ordinary settlements, and even intermediate-level settlements.

Differences in hierarchy are also reflected in the refinement of the settlement's internal functions and the differentiation of cemeteries.

For example, the emergence of large altars in Lingjiatan, the separation of high-level cemeteries from ordinary cemeteries, and the huge differences in funerary objects are all important signs that social complexity has begun.

However, the most significant changes occurred during the Liangzhu Culture period.

From the late Songze period to the early Liangzhu period, the use of jade in the cemeteries of the Guanjingtou settlement in the Liangzhu area has diverged.

In the early Yaoshan Cemetery in Liangzhu, large altars and high-level tombs appeared, and a large number of jade objects were buried with them, which became important status symbols. The largest number of jade objects buried in the tombs was more than 700 pieces (sets), which was very different from ordinary cemeteries such as in front of the temple.

Starting roughly from the early mid-Liangzhu period, Fanshan Cemetery is a relatively independent cemetery that can be called a "royal tomb", which is completely different from the large number of ordinary cemeteries in the surrounding area.

More importantly, the Liangzhu area adopts a high-low dam water conservancy system made of "straw-wrapped mud bags", which has an overall plan for flood storage and water source regulation, and can form a water storage area with an area of ​​​​8.5 square kilometers.

The Mojiao Mountain large-scale artificial construction foundation site with an area of ​​about 300,000 square meters and a height of about 10 meters, as well as the later completed city walls with a total area of ​​more than 2.9 million square meters and a base width of about 40-60 meters, are still there.

There is an outer city with an area of ​​more than 8 million square meters. The moat outside the city wall and the branch channels excavated between the inner city river and the main river form a "well"-shaped river network in the city, forming a quite complete

waterway system.

At the same time, a number of high-level cemeteries with large scales, rich grave goods, and jade burials appeared throughout the Taihu Lake Basin, such as Gaocheng Dun in Jiangyin, Si Dun in Changzhou, Fuquan Mountain in Shanghai, etc.

However, it cannot be compared with Yaoshan and Fanshan cemeteries, thus becoming a second-level central settlement.

There are a certain number of ordinary settlements outside the central settlement. On the Yujia Mountain in Linping on the outskirts of Liangzhu Ancient City, a settlement group consisting of six small settlements with ring moats is concentrated.

The Maoshan site may be a grassroots settlement mainly engaged in rice farming, and the same is true around other sub-central settlements.

It can be seen from this that the central settlement established in the Liangzhu area with Mojiao Mountain as the core, the ancient city as the focus, and supplemented by dams and river network systems has undergone careful planning and eventually became the center of the entire Liangzhu culture. It may have a certain degree of centralization.

The characteristic "pyramid-shaped" social structure has been formed in Liangzhu Culture.

As we all know, the evolution of human development generally goes through the era of primitive tribes, then to the era of settlement, and finally gradually enters the era of city-states and country states.

Later, it was the era of feudal countries.

The Liangzhu Civilization obviously broke through the settlement era. From the mature central settlement in the settlement era, it expanded outward step by step and formed a mature Fangguo system.

The core area of ​​the center is 30 square meters, which is the palace area and sacrificial area of ​​Liangzhu Kingdom. The city wall with an area of ​​nearly 300 square meters will be completed later. Surrounded in the middle is the inner city of Liangzhu Kingdom.

And the width of this city wall is even 40-60 meters. Five thousand years ago, this was definitely a bear city comparable to Tiandu!

In addition to the inner city, there is also the outer city which is more than 8 million square meters surrounded.

Moreover, the capital city of Liangzhu Kingdom is a city built on the water like the Venetian Water City.

Relying on the moat of the outer city, the river in the inner city, and the branch channels excavated between the main river channels, a complex river network is formed in the city, connecting various areas of the entire Liangzhu Ancient City.

This shows that the Liangzhu people have very developed water transportation and a mature "river network" system!

This land of China five thousand years ago was simply a Zentraedi civilization!

And this is just the capital of Liangzhu Kingdom.

Outside of the capital, Liangzhu also ruled a large amount of territory in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and even went north to wage war with settlements in Shandong and plunder land!
Chapter completed!