Huanbei

Huanbei

洹北
Shown within Northern China
Location	China
Region	Henan
Coordinates	36.13°N 114.34°E / 36.13; 114.34
Type	walled city
Area	510 ha
History
Founded	c. 1350 BCE
Abandoned	c. 1300 BCE

Huanbei (Chinese: 洹北; pinyin: Huánběi), also known as Huayuanzhuang, is the site of a Bronze Age city on the northern outskirts of the modern city of Anyang in Henan province, China, discovered in 1999. The name refers to its position to the north (běi) of the Huan River. The city seems to have been burnt to the ground after 50 years of occupation, shortly before the construction on the other side of the river of the site now known as Yinxu, the source of the earliest Chinese written records, oracle bones relating to the last nine kings of the Shang dynasty. Huanbei is accordingly assigned to a "Middle Shang" period.

Artifacts had been recovered from the area since the 1960s. In 1999, a walled city eight feet beneath the surface was discovered in the course of a regional survey undertaken by the Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the Archaeometry Laboratory at the University of Minnesota. The city has since been excavated by joint teams from Institute of Archaeology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin and the University of British Columbia.

The city has walls of pounded earth forming an approximate square oriented 13 degrees east of north, with an area of 470 hectares (1,200 acres), including a palace-temple complex of 41 hectares (100 acres). Part of the site lies under Anyang's airport, limiting the scope of excavations.

See also

• Shang archaeology
• Periodization of the Shang dynasty

References

• Harrington, Spencer P.M. (May–June 2000). "Shang City Uncovered". Archaeology. 53 (3).
• Jarus, Owen (17 May 2010). "Torched Shang Dynasty City Huanbei Was Destroyed by its Own Rulers". Heritage Key. Archived from the original on 21 September 2016. Retrieved 12 January 2013.
• Li, Feng (2013). Early China: A Social and Cultural History. Cambridge University Press. pp. 81–83. ISBN 978-0-521-89552-1.
• Sawyer, Ralph D.; Sawyer, Mei-chün (2011). Ancient Chinese Warfare. Basic Books. p. 144. ISBN 978-0-465-02145-1.
• Tang, Jigen; Jing, Zhichun; Liu, Zhongfu; Yue, Zhanwei (2004). "Survey and Test Excavation of the Huanbei Shang City in Anyang" (PDF). Chinese Archaeology. 4. Translated by Jing Zhichun: 1–20. doi:10.1515/CHAR.2004.4.1.1. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-07-09.
• Tang, Jigen; Yue, Hongbin; He, Yuling; Yue, Zhanwei (2004). "A Brief Report on the Excavation of Palatial Compound F1 at the Huanbei Shang City in Anyang, Henan" (PDF). Chinese Archaeology. 4. Translated by Jing Zhichun: 21–28. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-08-22. Retrieved 2013-05-10.