The Archaeological Research On The WEI In The Western Zhou Dynasty

The Wei state was enfeoffed in the early years of the Western Zhou dynasty and died in the Qin dynasty,the rise and fall of Wei is almost a miniature of the rise and fall of Zhou dynasty.The territory of the Wei state was only in the Anyang area during Kangshu.By the time of Kangbo,the southern territory of Wei state had expanded to the Xinxiang area.The first capital of Wei should be in the area around the Yin ruins of Anyang,and Qiwei was located in the coast of Qi River which was closed to the Xincun Cemetery,Qiwei has no relationship with Zhaoge city.Wei had moved from Kangqiu to Qiwei since Kangshu,Wei always took Qiwei as its capital before moving to east during Yigong,That is why Wei is called Wei.As the only capital which was excavated,Diqiu was built in the middle of the Spring and Autumn period when Wei moved its capital here,and was reinforced in the middle of the Warring States period.In the middle of Spring and Autumn period,the Di kept invading,and Wei control over the Hebi,Anyang,Xinxiang area which is the central area from the western Zhou dynasty to the early and middle Spring and Autumn period,should be greatly weakened.In the late Spring and Autumn period,with the rise of the three-Jin,Wei became its vassal state.In the late warring states period,the jurisdiction of Wei only contained Puyang,the cities may only had Diqiu and its adjacent Qicheng,Tieqiu,Xian,etc.According to the typology analysis of typical pottery and the stratigraphic relationship,the remains of Wei region in the Zhou dynasty can be divided into nine stages.Three stages are equal to the Spring and Autumn period,and other stages are equal to the Warring States period,the period system of the zhou dynasty remains in Wei region is preliminarily established.The cultural factors of daily-use pottery unearthed from the remains of the Zhou dynasty in Wei region can be divided into main cultural factors and secondary cultural factors.The main cultural factors include Shang culture,Zhou culture and local Innovation culture,the secondary cultural factors include Lijiaya culture,Dongyi culutre,etc.Xincun cemetery as the Western Zhou dynasty to the early Spring and Autumn period of the state of Wei cemetery,buried from Kangshu to Huigong and their wives,other high-level tombs.The cemetery can be divided into three phases,the early and middle Western Zhou dynasty and the early Spring and Autumn.The occupant of M21 is Weikangshu,M1 and M6 is the tomb of Weikangbo and his wife,M25 should be the chariot pit of Weikaobo,M42 is more likely to be Weisibo,M2 is one monarch of Wei between Weisibo and Weilihou,M17 and M5 are Weizhuanggong and his wife,M24 is Weihuangong.From the layout of Xincun cemetery,each monarch has his own domain.The whole tomb area,especially in the Western Zhou dynasty,is centered on M1 of Weikangshu’s tomb,which is in line with the records of ZhouLi,and has the meaning of ZhaoMu system.From the early Western Zhou dynasty to the early Spring and Autumn period,the number of tombs buried with clan members in weijun’s area changed and decreased,and the last one basically stopped being buried with them.The tombs of the princes and their wives were gradually separated from those of their clan members,this reflects the relaxation of the patriarchal clan system and the gradual weakening of the consanguinity.Through the analysis of the characteristics of archeological culture in different stages of Wei region of Zhou dynasty,it is concluded that the survival time and distribution area of A1 and A2 groups in tombs are close to the ruling time and region of Wei in this region,and A1 and A2 groups can be regarded as important parts of Wei archeological culture.In addition,the typical vessels found in group A2 namely Ca,Cb,Cc li were Wei-style pottery Li.Wei-style pottery Li integrates the Shang culture factors,like pan kou decorations,stamp patterns,and Zhou culture factors,like the style of high crotch,pillar,foot and high collar.It is a typical and representative vessel of the archaeological culture of Wei.In the early and middle of the Western Zhou dynasty,the archaeological culture of Wei was mainly distributed in the present Hebi region and Anyang region.As for the site,its cultural factors mainly consist of the Shang and Zhou cultures,and its cultural characteristics show a strong binary structure.In terms of tombs,there are not only the obvious dual structure of Shang and Zhou culture,but also the local cultural factors produced by the integration of the two.In the late Western Zhou dynasty,the archaeological culture of Wei state had expanded to Xinxiang Huixian and Jiaozuo Wenxian,Wei-style pottery Li was discovered in those areas.By the early Spring and Autumn period,group A1 and group A2 tombs were dominated by Zhou cultural factors and local innovative cultural factors,indicating that the archaeological culture of Wei had been established in Wei region.In the late Spring and early Autumn,the archaeological culture of Wei began to decline,which was reflected in the daily pottery combination of A1 group,and the cultural factors of Sanjin began to appear in this area.In the late Spring and Autumn period,the archaeological culture of Wei basically withdrew from Hebi and other areas in Xinxiang,and only remained in the C2 group tombs in today’s Anyang area.In the warring states period,the archaeological culture of Wei still has a small number of preservation in Wei region which should be the archaeological culture of Wei loyalists.The archeological culture of Wei is composed of the two elements of Shang and Zhou and the local innovative cultural elements formed by the integration of the two elements,the reason includes which Wei region was dominated by the Yin loyalists during the Western Zhou dynasty and the king of Zhou conferred the Wei state on the Yin loyalists,it is also related to the notification strategy of the rulers of Wei.In the eastern Zhou dynasty,the plain and primitive style of pottery in the tombs of Wei state should be related to the distinction of the literary quality recorded in the literature,which is another reflection of Wei’s strict observance of the rites of ZhouLi.The formation,development,expansion and decline of the archaeological culture of Wei are closely related to the political and historical evolution of Wei.Although the decline of the archaeological culture of Wei was directly related to the incident which Di destroied Wei,its root was the incomplete reform of Weiwengong and Wei’s strict observance of ZhouLi.At the same time,it should also be seen that the fundamental reason for Confucius to live in Wei for a long time and take wei as the orthodox culture of Qin and Western Han dynasty is the tradition of following ZhouLi.