There is indeed an ancient city underwater in Chaohu Lake. Chaohu Lake is located in the central part of Anhui Province, covering an area of ??800 square kilometers. It is one of the five largest freshwater lakes in my country. Regarding the formation of Chao Lake, many historical materials record that "it was formed by the subsidence of Juchao or Chaozhou during the Qin and Han Dynasties", which indirectly indicates that there should be a city underwater in Chao Lake.
In the past year or so, archaeologists have continuously discovered a large number of precious cultural relics in the Tangzui area on the north shore of Chaohu Lake. After several on-site surveys and demonstrations, it was finally confirmed recently that there is indeed an ancient city ruins underwater in Chao Lake, and it may have really sunk in a sudden disaster with a very high level of civilization and development at the time.
The water level dropped and a large number of pottery fragments were revealed
Speaking of finding clues to the ancient city underwater in Chao Lake, it dates back to more than a year ago.
In December 2001, some media reported the news that "the kiln site of the Sui Dynasty was discovered in Chaohu City." Later, local people provided clues that in the Tangzui area on the north shore of Chaohu Lake, whenever the water level dropped in winter, a large number of pottery fragments would be exposed on the riverbed. I wonder if it was related to the kiln site.
After hearing the news, archaeologists from the Chaohu City Cultural Relics Management Office immediately rushed to the scene not far from the city. Under the slope protection of Lakeside Avenue on the north shore of Chaohu Lake, archaeologists discovered that large and small pottery fragments were scattered everywhere on the riverbed above the water surface, about 300 meters away from the slope protection.
By combining pottery sherds, archaeologists found that the artifacts scattered on the river bed were mainly ring-footed vessels. Both the rim and the base had large curvatures, which showed that the volume of these artifacts when complete was very large. relatively large. It was initially determined that some of the scattered pottery fragments were fragments of daily necessities such as basins, pots, and pots, and some were fragments of tiles. These pottery are mainly muddy gray pottery and sandy gray pottery, as well as muddy red pottery, brown pottery, sandy black pottery and some hard pottery with slightly higher firing temperatures.
At the same time, archaeologists also discovered several wastewater wells with pottery railings on the river bed. Next to one of the wells, there was an ancient tree root that neither two people could hug.
According to local fishermen, the distribution range of pottery shards can extend four to five kilometers into the lake, and there is a thick layer where there are many pottery shards. They also said that there were four city gates underwater and roughly stated their locations. It is said that many locals have found bronzes, ancient coins, seals and complete pottery here.
In the homes of some villagers, archaeologists did see very complete pottery cauldrons, pots and other utensils that the villagers picked up on the lake beach.
After several on-site surveys and careful analysis, archaeologists confirmed that these items were products from the heyday of pottery production and use. From this, it is preliminarily concluded that the place where these things were found is probably a city ruins from the Qin and Han Dynasties that sank to the bottom of the lake.
Historical books and legends all reflect the existence of an underwater city
The archaeological workers’ judgment that “there may be ruins of an ancient city underwater in Chaohu Lake” is not unfounded. Because for a long time, history books and legends have vaguely reflected that there may be a city underwater in Chaohu Lake.
In the Hefei and Chaohu areas, a legend has been circulating for thousands of years that "Chaozhou and Changluzhou were trapped". It is said that the waters of Chaohu Lake were a city in ancient times, and the residents in the city accidentally ate the son of the Dragon King of the East China Sea. The "Little White Dragon" was retaliated by the Dragon King. Overnight, the city sank to the bottom of the lake. Except for the kind-hearted "Jiao Mother", everyone in the city was buried in the turbulent lake water.
Regarding the formation of Chao Lake, many historical materials record that it was formed from the subsidence of Juchao or Chaozhou during the Qin and Han Dynasties. Luo Yin, a poet of the Tang Dynasty, once wrote a poem: "I would like to ask about the sinking of the people in the city, which has been thousands of years in the Qin and Han Dynasties." According to Kangxi's "Chaohu Chronicles": "The lake collapsed on July 23rd, the 23rd year of Wu Chiwu (AD 239)." These descriptions of the reasons for the formation of Chao Lake all directly and indirectly point to this information: During the subsidence, a city sank to the bottom of the lake.
Since these historical records are only fragments, they cannot describe this event in detail and completely. At the same time, the legend of "Zhenchaozhou" is always accompanied by a story about "Jiao Mu" and "Xiao Mu". "White Dragon" myth, so historians have long been skeptical of its authenticity.
According to research by Professor Wei Songshan, former director of the Institute of Historical Geography at Fudan University in Shanghai, there was indeed a Juchao Kingdom in history. It was an important Fang Kingdom during the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, also known as Chao, Nanchao, and Chao. The Bo Kingdom was a Fang Kingdom that existed during the Xia and Shang Dynasties when it was extended to the early Zhou Dynasty. The inscriptions on the bronze vessels "Ban Gui" and "E Jun Qi Jie" all record the "Chao" country. There is a record in "Shangshu·Bohui's Edict" that "the Tang Dynasty released Jie in Nanchao", in which "Nanchao" refers to Juchao.
However, some historians have repeatedly argued the historical data literally, found some loopholes in terms of time and location, and thus concluded that the legend of "Trapped Chaozhou" recorded in the history books It's just a myth and has no basis in fact.
Some scholars have investigated the origin of Chao Lake from a geological perspective and believe that the formation of Chao Lake was indeed due to the subsidence of land during the crustal movement. It is a subsidence lake, but the time of subsidence It should be before the Qin and Han Dynasties, and has nothing to do with the legend of "falling into Chaozhou".
The history of the fracture shows that the "nest" disappeared
According to Qian Yuchun, an archaeologist at the Chaohu Municipal Cultural Relics Management Institute, since there are very few documentary records, future generations are exploring the ancient nest. There are always some unsolvable mysteries in the country. All these mysteries are related to the mysterious disappearance of Chao Kingdom.
First, its location is imprecise. Some say it is in Chaohu, others say it is in Tongcheng, and still others say it is in Shouxian County. There is no conclusive evidence to explain its exact location.
Secondly, before the Han Dynasty, many historical books mentioned the vassal states of "Chaobo", "Nanchao" and "Juchao". However, after the Han Dynasty, they were not related to the "Chao" state. There are very few records related to the city, which indicates that its social status has been greatly reduced or disappeared.
By analyzing the archaeological excavation results in Chaohu City in recent years, archaeologists can clearly feel the interruption of the development of civilization in this area - the unearthed cultural relics before the Han Dynasty reflect that this was a politically powerful and economically powerful country. prosperous area. For example, many very precious cultural relics have been unearthed from the Warring States Royal Tombs at Beishantou, Chaohu City; the discovery of the Han Dynasty Lu Ke Tomb in Fangwanggang was nominated for the Top Ten National Archaeological Discoveries Award in 1996. These tombs are among the largest in China today in terms of size and scale. The prominence of the tombs of the same period that have been unearthed. However, among the cultural relics after the Han Dynasty that have been unearthed in the area, almost no high-standard tombs and sites have been found, and the continuity of the development of this civilization cannot be seen.
The formation of Chao Lake and the exploration of the Chao Kingdom have always been within the scope of history based on ancient historical materials. This chance allowed modern archeology to get involved. The discovery of this ancient site at the bottom of Chao Lake has confirmed the possibility of the legend of "falling into Chaozhou" recorded in historical materials from an archaeological perspective. A large number of pottery fragments and relics of ancient people's lives tell us that there must be an extraordinary history under the vast lake of 800 square kilometers.
A large number of cultural relics were found in the surrounding search
In more than a year after the discovery of the clues, Chaohu City archaeologists conducted on-site surveys and research on the Tangzui underwater site in Chaohu several times, and An extensive search was carried out in Tang Tsui and surrounding areas. Through visits and surveys, archaeologists learned that this area is extremely rich in underground cultural relics. At present, the relics found on underwater sites and collected by the cultural relics management department include jade axes, stone axes, jade seals, silver seals, copper seals, and clay pots. There are more than 260 pieces, including pottery rackets, spinning wheels, net pendants, coins, iron ingots, copper belt hooks, copper arrowheads, bronze mirrors, and copper ornaments. Among them, there are many varieties of copper coins, ranging from the ant nose coins of the Chu State during the Warring States Period to the Qin Ban Liang and Han Ban Liang, Han Wu Baht, and the Dabu Huang Qian and Daquan Fifty coins of the Wang Mang period. The largest number is the ant nose coin. money. The pottery is mainly muddy gray pottery, with red pottery, sand pottery and so on.
Judging from the dozens of complete pottery pots collected, they are regular in shape and have relatively smooth surfaces. They have a unique feature, which is that there are fine checkered patterns and stripes printed on the bottom. Their function may be to increase the The density of the base makes it more durable and reflects the higher level of pottery making craftsmanship.
The earliest relics found on the site are jade axes from the Neolithic Age, and the latest ones are coins from the Wang Mang period. A large number of very complete pottery as well as relics of relatively high economic value such as jades and silverware found at the site are not found in some sites characterized by ruins. This further indicates that the ruins may have sunk to the bottom of the lake in a sudden disaster. Because the disaster struck suddenly, people had no time to take away or transfer items with high economic value and daily necessities. Based on this analysis, the time when the ruins sank to the bottom of the lake and the way they sank to the bottom of the lake are not inconsistent with the legendary "falling Chaozhou". The large number of ant-nosed coins and arrowheads confirm the records in historical books that Juchao State was the target of competition between Wu and Chu, and was a vassal state of Chu for a long time.
There are rubbles everywhere on the Tangzui underwater site in Chaohu Lake. Archaeologists say that these rubbles that look like rubbish are actually of high research value. These pottery and pottery pieces have gone through more than two thousand years of vicissitudes and are now exposed out of the water. Their shapes, patterns, colors and textures can bring us more ancient humanistic information. Through these, we can see from one side Understand the political, economic and cultural conditions of the time.
The pottery shards unearthed from the Chao Lake underwater site can be divided into three categories: building materials, production tools and daily necessities. The complete pottery currently collected at the Chaohu Cultural Relics Management Office includes spinning wheels, pottery rackets, fishing hook pendants, red pottery and black pottery. The building materials found at the site are mainly tube tiles, slab tiles and tiles. The number of tube tiles is obviously more than that of slab tiles, and there are more than a dozen varieties of gray pottery, red pottery and black pottery. The surface of tube tiles and slab tiles is generally decorated with thick rope patterns and the back has cloth patterns. This is a production technology that emerged after the era of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. The tile at the front of the eaves is a tile. The tiles on the site are all round in shape, decorated with cloud patterns on the surface, and are made of muddy gray pottery, black pottery and reddish brown pottery. An important piece of information they reveal is that these tube tiles, slab tiles and tiles were all used in large palace-style buildings at that time, which brought great excitement to archaeologists. There are very few bricks and other building components on the site, because before the Han Dynasty, most of them were earthen walls, and bricks were mainly used in tombs.
The three seals reflect the high level of civilization
Among the more than 260 cultural relics discovered at the Tangzui underwater site in Chaohu, three were made of jade, silver and copper. The seal is very eye-catching.
The jade seal is a double-sided seal carved on dark and shiny jade. It has no buttons or holes. The seal surface is square, 23 mm long, 22 mm wide and 8 mm high. The seal is well-made, with rigorous composition and round strokes. At first glance, the strokes are square and upright, but there is no sense of rigidity at all. One side of the seal is engraved with "Shen Zhai", and the other side is the seal "protective seal" used for the letter. The positive text has a border.
Archaeologists explained that after the unification of the Qin Dynasty, there were regulations on what kind of seal materials should be used for people with certain statuses. By the Han Dynasty, this restriction became even stricter. Jade is a special material for the emperor's seal, and the official seal cannot be made of jade. Jade seals from the Han Dynasty are very precious and rare among ancient seals. Most of the jade seals handed down or unearthed are burial seals rather than practical seals, so this seal is very precious.
The silver seal is a double-sided seal with perforations in the middle. Because it can be worn because of the perforations, it is also called the "band seal" and was popular in the Han Dynasty. The seal is chiseled (engraved) with a knife, square in shape, with a side length of 12 mm, a height of the seal pad of 8 mm, and a perforation diameter of 2 mm. Both sides have the name "Yuan Cha" in Yin script, with borders and thin fonts, and one side has a Japanese border. The strokes are slightly curved, combining hardness and softness, and the printed surface is plump and solemn, rich and elegant. Since this seal is used on both sealing mud and paper, the fonts on both sides are the same but differ in thickness.
The copper seal is an animal-shaped seal, covered with a bucket button, and has perforations for wear. Square, side length 12 mm, height 8 mm, perforation diameter 1 mm, made by casting process.
The details of this zodiac seal are clear and rich in layers, but when it is covered with paper, the animal patterns cannot be seen at all. Archaeologists explained that this was not due to the corrosion of the decorations, but because the decorations were not on the same plane when they were made. This seal is used to seal mud. When printed on paper, it will appear as a dull outline, but if printed on clay, it will immediately appear as a three-dimensional bas-relief statue with rich layers.
Remote sensing images first revealed the veil of the ruins
In May last year, Dr. Wang Xinyuan, a professor at Anhui Normal University and director of the Anhui Remote Sensing Archaeological Work Station, who had participated in the remote sensing exploration of Han tombs in Laoshan, Beijing, came to the site Chaohu conducted an on-site survey of the Tangzui underwater ruins. Through the analysis of remote sensing images and the application of geological principles, the theory of "falling into Chaozhou" was researched.
In the satellite image of Chaohu North Mountain brought by Professor Wang, it can be clearly seen that the strata along the northeastern shore of Chaohu Lake are as neat as a knife cut. It is obvious that there is a fault here. . In the image, the flow of the Zhegao River with its outlet on this fault is very short and disproportionate to the basin area. However, if it is connected with the Yuxi River with its outlet at Chaohu Lake, a complete river will be formed. It looks normal.
Experts analyzed that the main reason for the formation of this landform is that a geological subsidence occurred in the east of Chaohu Lake, which caused the original land to drop below the water level. The river on the ground was cut into two sections by the lake water, forming what is now of two rivers. This submerged area is where archaeologists discovered ancient ruins. Professor Wang believes that it is possible for large-scale geological subsidence to occur during geological tectonic movements, and it is also a common phenomenon. The water surface of Chaohu Lake is located on the Tanlu fault zone, so this situation is more likely to occur.
On January 15 this year, experts Yang Lixin and Li Guangning from the Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology visited the Tangzui underwater site in Chaohu Lake. After careful and careful investigation and research, it was confirmed that this is a Han Dynasty ruins, and it covers a large area. There are not only underwater ruins, but also a large area of ??ruins on the north bank of Hubin Avenue. Due to the large extent, they suggested using remote sensing archaeological methods to determine the extent of the site.
On January 17, Professor Wang Xinyuan and Qiu Shijing, my country’s famous Qin and Han archaeological expert and professor of Anhui Normal University, came to Chaohu to once again conduct on-site surveys of the Tangzui underwater ruins. Professor Qiu said that judging from the on-site investigation, this is a Han Dynasty site. Historically, the Chaohu area was a passage connecting the north and the south. In recent years, a series of ruins and tombs have been discovered in this area. As Chaohu's economic construction continues to advance, similar discoveries will continue to appear. Professor Qiu suggested that it is best to conduct exploration first and determine the scope and nature of the site through small-scale exploration, and then conduct planned excavations. He emphasized that everything still needs to be determined through excavation. At present, the site has not been damaged on a large scale. If excavation is carried out, there will definitely be major discoveries.
According to the hydrological data of Chaohu Lake, the retreat period of Chaohu Lake generally begins in September every year. The water level changes during the year were larger before 1959, ranging from 6.48 meters to 2.48 meters; in 1959 After the Chaohu Gate was completed, the amplitude decreased, only between 4.92 meters and 1.44 meters. The multi-year average water level of Chao Lake is 8.03 meters. It is currently the dry season in Chao Lake. As the water level continues to drop, the Tangzui underwater ruins will gradually "surface". According to the latest measurement by archaeologists from the Chaohu Municipal Cultural Relics Management Office, the site currently exposed above the water is 600 meters long from east to west and 180 meters wide from north to south. There are a large number of ancient pottery fragments scattered on the surface of the site, which is extremely beneficial for excavation work.
Possibly the ancient city site with the most archaeological value
Currently, there are many underwater civilization sites recorded or discovered in the world, but most of them are on the seabed, such as In the city of Turuma in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico, the city walls and palace walls still stand intact underwater. Since the relics and relics on underwater sites are located underwater, they can relatively reduce or avoid damage from human activities, and their preservation status is closer to the original historical appearance than the sites on the ground. Therefore, underwater ruins play a very important role in archaeological work.
According to experts, relatively few underwater ruins have been discovered in my country. Except for the ancient Yunnan settlement ruins discovered at the bottom of Fuxian Lake in Yunnan Province in 2000, almost none have been found elsewhere. Underwater ruins. Fuxian Lake is located in a remote area with a low level of civilization at that time. It is also the second largest deep-water lake in my country. The site is 70 to 90 meters deep from the water surface. Although a large amount of social resources have been used to conduct archaeological investigations on it, no results have been achieved. The cultural relics and archaeological data are very limited. As for the Tangzui underwater site in Chaohu Lake, part of it is exposed to the water in winter, so investigation, exploration and even excavation are relatively easy. Judging from the cultural relics found on the current site, this site was in a highly developed social state when it fell. The relics preserved at this site are much richer in quantity and variety than those at sites not caused by sudden natural disasters, and are of high exploration and excavation value.
If historical records are accurate, then this "Chaohu Tangzui Underwater Site" may become a city site with the most complete data preservation and the most archaeological value in Chinese history.
So, what kind of disaster forces people to give up the necessities of life and "luxurious" houses that they depend on for survival? What kind of treasures and legends are buried in the ancient city that has sunk for thousands of years at the bottom of Chao Lake? Nowadays, people's attention has been attracted by this mysterious underwater ruins, and I believe that the mystery will be revealed soon.