Chapter 275 274【Toynbee】

In the previous two or three days, the archaeologists discovered all kinds of stone tools and pottery.

In these days, carbon-14 testing is still not available, so it is impossible to determine the exact age of the Longshan site. Everyone can only guess from the exquisiteness of pottery and stone tools that this place should be a relic of the late Neolithic age.

The discovery of the city wall at this time further verified the speculation of the archaeologists.

After several days of hard excavation, the scale of the ancient city wall surprised everyone. The thickness of the wall is 8-13 meters, and the length and width of more than 300 meters have not yet come to an end.

Li Ji hurriedly asked a student to return to Tsinghua University, and asked the principal Luo Jialun to apply for additional funds. At the same time, he hired more than 30 local farmers to work overtime to dig the ancient city wall.

A week later, the general outline of the ancient city wall first appeared, with a length of 530 meters from north to south and 430 meters from east to west. The east, south, and west walls are relatively straight, while the north bank of the city wall is curved outwards, and the corners of the city wall are curved.

Zhou Hexuan originally wanted to go back after watching the excitement for a few days, but the discovery of the city wall made him quite excited, so he continued to stay to help excavate cultural relics.

A few days later, the archaeologists found a dense cultural relics area, not to mention various pottery and stone tools, bones used for divination, and even...

"Yu Jue! This is Yu Jue!" He Shiji shouted holding a hollow disk.

Soon, the archaeologists found some jade Zhang, jade huang and other objects here and there, which made people even more excited.

Both Yuzhang and Yuhuang are ritual vessels of Chinese civilization, which shows that this site is directly related to the current Chinese civilization, and may even be the ancestor of Chinese civilization.

In addition, there are inscriptions on the jade wares, the patterns are similar to characters, but they are different from the known oracle bone inscriptions and Jin Ding inscriptions.

Li Ji looked at the original characters suspiciously but excitedly, and guessed, "Could this be the Dongyi language of the Xia and Shang Dynasties?"

God knows!

Until Zhou Hexuan crossed over, Chinese archaeologists were unable to decipher the text of the Longshan site. Because the stock is too small, and there is not much inheritance relationship with Chinese characters, it is a holy book for archaeologists.

Zhou Hexuan estimated the time and prepared to flash back to Tianjin. But just as he was about to leave and wandered around the archaeological site, he suddenly found a bronze statue.

The archaeological team is collectively confused...

As for the Neolithic Age, what the hell are bronzes?

Li Ji looked at the bronze statue stupidly, his thinking was completely confused. Because this bronze ware is beautifully made, it shows that the bronze production technology at that time was relatively mature, and it is completely impossible to appear in the Neolithic Age.

In the evening, the archaeologists ate corn bread and sat around to discuss.

However, there was no result in the struggle, because this bronze statue was too bizarre, just like finding a laptop computer in the Republic of China era.

Zhou Hexuan suddenly said: "Is it possible that our current excavation site is not one ancient relic, but two overlapping relics?"

Li Ji's eyes lit up, and he said happily: "It is very possible, and there is only one reasonable explanation, that is, the relics of the Neolithic age and the relics of the Bronze Age overlap!"

Zhou Hexuan studied history before time travelling, not a professional archeology graduate. He only has a general understanding of Longshan culture, but he doesn't know that the Chengziya site in Longshan town is actually the overlapping of three ancient sites.

There are three ancient cities here.

The lowest layer belongs to the Neolithic city wall, the middle is the Bronze Age city wall, and there is a Zhou Dynasty city wall on the top.

In the era when there was no carbon 14 measurement technology, such a complicated situation was unsolvable for archaeologists, and they could only make rough judgments through cultural relics. Moreover, it was time-consuming and labor-intensive. The discovery in just half a month would allow Li Ji and others to study it for 20 to 30 years.

When the "Ta Kung Pao" reporter received the news and came to the archaeological site to take pictures and interviews, Zhou Hexuan finally decided to leave, and took a mutilated black pottery cup with him. Anyway, there are many similar pottery cups unearthed, enough for them to do archaeological research. It doesn't matter if it's missing.

The whole cup is smooth and round, with a black metallic luster on the surface. The mouth of the cup is larger than the palm of an adult. The wall of the cup is as thin as an eggshell. The thinnest part is only 0.2 mm, and the thickest part is only 0.5 mm. This firing technique can only be described as ingenious.

Li Ji and other archaeologists temporarily named this black pottery "eggshell pottery" because it is as thin as an eggshell.

Zhou Hexuan kept them carefully along the way, and bought boxes and cotton in the town, for fear of damaging such extremely fragile items. He is not greedy for money, but wants to keep it as a souvenir. It is also possible to donate it to the archaeological community for research decades later.

Two days after Zhou Hexuan returned to Tianjin, the news from "Ta Kung Pao" also came out. At the beginning of the second edition, two archaeological photos were published, one is an eggshell pottery, and the other is a jade Zhang more than 20 centimeters long.

"The archaeological team led by Mr. Li Ji, a professor of Tsinghua University, recently discovered prehistoric relics in Longshan Town, Licheng (later assigned to Zhangqiu) in Shandong... After archaeological excavations, a large number of black pottery, jade, stone tools and divination artifacts were unearthed, and excavated An ancient city wall with a length and width of hundreds of meters...It is reported that among the pottery, divination and jade, there is also a prehistoric writing that is very different from the oracle bone inscriptions... From the type of jade, it can be preliminarily inferred that this Neolithic remains. Civilizations are directly related, or to the ancient ancestors of the Chinese..."

The article also introduces eggshell pottery in detail, because it is so thin that modern pottery craftsmen simply cannot burn such exquisite pottery.

As soon as the report came out, it immediately shocked the entire Chinese archaeological community, and even some archaeological experts in the south came to help spontaneously.

The Academia Sinica chaired by Cai Yuanpei was planning to set up a history research institute at this time. After he heard the news, he immediately organized his staff and went to the site with archaeological funds.

...

At this moment, far away in Fengtian in the northeast, the British historian Toynbee is conducting field investigations.

This gentleman often runs around the world. Judging from his footprints, he can be called a global traveler. He was in Japan some time ago, then went to North Korea, and then arrived in Northeast China via North Korea. The next step is to visit Peiping and Tianjin.

Zhang Xueliang, who is the president of Northeastern University, personally met Toynbee. Scholars including Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin also accompanied Toynbee around these days.

Toynbee is not only a historian, but also an expert on international affairs. He is well-known in the political circles all over the world and even in China. His work "An Overview of International Affairs" has been widely praised by Chinese academic circles. Even the Beiyang government and the current Nanjing Nationalist government will refer to Toynbee's academic views when conducting diplomatic activities.

When Chinese diplomats encounter problems that are difficult to solve, they will also take out Toynbee's works and look through them. Because behind his books or papers, there are important documents such as international conventions and diplomatic letters from various countries, as well as various international maps and international status charts. These materials cannot be found in the library.

"General Zhang, thank you for your clarification. I think it's time for me to leave Northeast China." Toynbee shook hands with Zhang Xueliang with a smile.

Zhang Xueliang half-jokingly said: "It would be great if Mr. Toynbee could stay in Fengtian and be my international diplomatic advisor."

"Haha, maybe there will be a chance in the future." Toynbee is the British Royal International Affairs Advisor, how could he stay in the Northeast?

In fact, Toynbee set Fengtian as the first stop of his trip to China because he was very interested in the international situation in Northeast China, because it involved the Soviet Union, Japan and China. To put it bluntly, he is here to do academic research, and he has obtained a lot of first-hand information from Zhang Xueliang these days.

After a few jokes, Toynbee suddenly asked: "General Zhang, do you know a Chinese scholar named Zhou Hexuan?"

Zhang Xueliang smiled in surprise, "He was my secretary."

"That would be great," Toynbee asked cheerfully. "Do you know where he is now? I'd like to visit in person."

Zhang Xueliang knew that Zhou Hexuan was very famous academically, even in American political circles. But he never expected that even the British Royal Advisor would attach so much importance to Zhou Hexuan.

Zhang Xueliang immediately said: "Mr. Zhou lives in Tianjin at the moment, you can go to Tianjin "Ta Kung Pao" to find him."

"Thank you very much," Toynbee shook hands with Zhang Xueliang, "General Zhang, if you need an international affairs consultant, Mr. Zhou Hexuan is the best candidate, and I am also a loyal reader of his academic works."

Zhang Xueliang was reminded by Toynbee, and immediately came to his senses: Yes, although Mingcheng doesn't want to go into politics, he can be my advisor!