Chapter XXVII: The Political System of the Xia Dynasty
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In the Xia Dynasty, there were many names for slaves, those engaged in agricultural production were called "Min", "Limin", "Zhongzhong", and "Zhong", those engaged in animal husbandry were called "Muzhu" or "Liyu", and the slaves in the slave owner's family were called "Chen" (male) and "concubine" (female). Pen × fun × Pavilion www. biquge。 infoIn the eyes of slave owners, slaves are just "talking tools". Slaves were herded into the fields by slave owners in droves to farm, graze, and perform all kinds of heavy manual labor. Slave owners were free to put their slaves in prison and torture them severely. At that time, the whole society was divided into three classes: the slave-owning class, the slave class, and the plebeian class. Slave owners were mostly converted from clan nobles and tribal leaders at the end of patrilineal clan societies.
They seized a large amount of wealth in exchange, expanded their power in war, and finally transformed into a slave-owning class that owned all the means of production and completely owned the producers themselves, and became the rulers of society. They indulged in drinking, hunting, and singing and dancing all day long, regardless of the lives of their slaves. It was not until the feudal society that it evolved into the meaning of the commoner (the lowest class).
The royal family divided the princes, and in addition to maintaining the surname from which it was born, it also established a new surname with the feudal state, and the doctor took the yi as the surname. Between the various levels of nobility, their respective clan relations were established according to the difference in surnames. Since the state organization of slavery was based on the patriarchal patriarchal family and developed continuously, this kind of clan relationship, although it inherited the legacy of the old clan organization, was actually based on the patriarchal patriarchal system as the core, and the hierarchical status of the nobles at all levels was determined according to their seniority and kinship. Therefore, after the formation of the state, the aristocratic organizations at all levels still had to maintain the old blood ties and strictly distinguish between surnames.
Erlitou culture refers to a type of archaeological cultural relics represented by the first to fourth phases of the Erlitou site of HN Yanshi, which is an archaeological culture between the Longshan culture (Yellow Emperor era) and the Erligang culture (Shang Dynasty) in the Central Plains. The archaeological culture is mainly distributed in southern Jin and western Henan, and was first found in the Luoda temple site, but especially the most representative and typical cultural relics found in the Erlitou site, so it is named after it. The Erlitou culture not only includes the culture of the Erlitou site, but also includes the cultural outlook reflected by hundreds of sites with the cultural characteristics of the Erlitou site outside the Erlitou site. The Erlitou site and the Erlitou culture have become recognized as the key research objects for exploring the Xia culture.
The Erlitou culture is a Chinese Bronze Age culture, mainly distributed in the vicinity of Luoyang in the central and western parts of HN, the Yi, Luo, Ying, and Ruzhu water basins, and the lower reaches of Fenshui in the south of SX. There are nearly 100 sites that have been discovered, including Luoyang Donggangou, Qianli, Dongmagou, Qilipu in S County, Coal Mountain in RZ City, Luoda Temple in Zhengzhou and Dongxiafeng and Yicheng Ganjun in Sxx County.
The ruins of Erlitou are the ruins of the capital city in the late Xia Dynasty, with a total area of about 3 square kilometers, and the ruins have been found in the ruins of palaces, residential areas, pottery workshops, copper casting workshops, cellars, tombs and other relics. A large number of stone tools, pottery, jade, bronze, bone and horn tools and mussel ware have been unearthed, among which the bronze jue is the earliest known bronze vessel in China.
The Erlitou site is the naming place of the Erlitou culture, and is preliminarily confirmed as the capital site of the late Xia Dynasty. The development sequence of Yangshao culture (Yandi) in the Central Plains - Longshan culture (Yellow Emperor) in the Central Plains - Erlitouxia culture and Erligang Shang culture was established.
The pottery of the Erlitou culture is mainly sand-filled gray pottery and muddy gray pottery, and the decoration is mainly Jomon pattern. Cooking utensils deep belly jars, round belly jars, dings, retorts, mustaches, food utensils, flat-bottomed basins, three-legged dishes, beans, gui, wine vessels, bowls, jue, goblet, receptacles, deep belly basins, large mouths and various jars and urns, food processors, carved pots, etc., constitute a characteristic pottery group.
According to the evolution of pottery, the Erlitou culture is divided into four successive periods, and it is divided into several local types due to the regional differences of cultural factors dominated by pottery.
The settlements of the Erlitou culture include super-large duyi (Erlitou ruins), regional central settlements, and small and medium-sized villages, while the buildings are divided into large and medium-sized rammed earth foundations, ground-based buildings, and semi-crypt-type houses. In the agricultural economy, millet cultivation and rice cultivation are carried out simultaneously, and there are highly developed handicraft industries such as copper casting, jade making, pottery and bone making, and the most remarkable thing is that it has mastered the superb technology of making bronze ritual objects with composite models.
On the basis of absorbing cultural factors from various places, the Erlitou culture exerted a large cultural influence on the surrounding areas, becoming the first "core culture" in the East Asian continent to enter the Bronze Age, laying the foundation for the future "Chinese" world.
According to the ranking of typical artifacts at the bottom of the Erlitou site, the Erlitou culture is divided into four periods:
In the first period, the pottery was mainly brown pottery, with a certain proportion of polished black pottery, and the pattern was mainly basket pattern, with a small amount of checkered pattern and thin rope pattern;
In the second period of pottery, the number of black pottery decreased, mainly with thin rope patterns, and the basket pattern and checkered pattern decreased significantly.
The color of the pottery in the third and fourth periods generally changed to light gray, mainly Jomon patterns, thick rope patterns appeared, and basket patterns and checkered patterns were almost extinct. In the relics of the third period, the first and second phases of the common ding, deep belly basin, retort and so on continue to be used, but there are local changes, at the same time, there are new utensils that are very close to the relics of the Shang Dynasty Erligang period, such as the mustache, the curly bottom basin, the large mouth zun, the small mouth high collar urn, etc. This group of new forms is increasing in the fourth period, and shows a tendency to merge with the former. The Dongxia Feng type is also divided into four phases.
In the center of the Xia culture, the Erlitou type and the Dongxia Feng type of the Erlitou culture were distributed, which were directly ruled by the Xia Dynasty, and the other types may be close to the Xia people or have a relationship with the Fang State by marriage.
Large-scale palace foundation sites, large-scale bronze smelting and casting workshops, pottery, bone-making sites, buildings related to religious sacrifices and more than 400 tombs have been discovered, and groups of bronze ritual vessels and jade have been unearthed, proving that it is a site with the scale of the capital city earlier than Luoyang Mall, and the Erlitou site and Erlitou culture have become recognized as the key sites to explore the boundary between Xia culture and Xia * Shang Dynasty.
The Erlitou site is the earliest known ruins of China's dynastic capital, and the earliest known large-scale palace complex, the earliest palace city, the earliest bronze ritual group and copper casting workshops have been found, and the earliest rut traces have also been found. The large turquoise dragon-shaped vessel unearthed at the Erlitou site was officially named "Chinese Dragon" by scholars.