Posted on 04/09/2006 5:10:51 PM PDT by blam
Artifacts in Ancient Chinese City Reveal Superb Technology
Superb drilling technology and the world's earliest stone drill bits were found at site
Epoch Times Staff Apr 01, 2006
A worker looks over an excavation site. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)
In Lingjiatan, Hanshan County of Anhui Province in China, archaeologists have discovered a primitive tribal site that was inhabited 5,000 years ago. Superb drilling technology and the world's earliest stone drill bits were found at the site. Archaeology professor Zhang Jingguo said there are still many mysteries in the Lingjiatan ruins waiting to be solved.
The Lingjiatan ruins are located in Lingjiatan Village, Tongzha Township of Hanshan County in Chaohu City, Anhui Province, covering about 1.5 million square meters. Archaeologists say the 5,000 year old city was probably a prosperous city with developed construction, animal husbandry and handicrafts. Prior to the discovery of the Lingjiatan ruins, the oldest city in China acknowledged by archaeologists was in Dantu Village in Wulian County at Rizhao City, Shandong Province, which was built more than 4,000 years ago.
In the fall of 1985, a Lingjiatan villager by the name of Wan Chuancang found jade rings, stone axes and stone chisels when digging a grave for his mother. That was the beginning of the discovery of these most important ruins of the late Neolithic Age.
From 1987 to 2000, archaeologists performed four archaeological excavations at the site. They discovered more than 1,200 pieces of precious artifacts including: an altar, 66 graves, refined jade, stoneware and pottery dating back to the late Neolithic Age. Among these are the earliest Jade Dragon and the largest stone shovel discovered in China to date.
Archaeologists believe that 5,000 years ago, the area was highly developed, supporting the theory that Chaohu Lake Basin was a significant birthplace of Chinese culture.
Among catalogued pre-historic ruins, Lingjiatan has the most jade pieces. Professor Zhang Jingguo and his colleagues inspected these jade pieces with a stereomicroscope to research the jade treatment technology of that day. Under 50 times magnification, they found a little hole on the back of a jade statue. The diameter of the hole is only 0.15 millimeters. This would have required a drill with a diameter slightly thicker than a strand of hair. At that time, before metal was used for tools, the people in Lingjiatan, 5,000 years ago, already utilized such advanced technology.
Archaeologists also found a drill bit made of stone; it is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom with drills on both ends. This drill is screw shaped, indicating that the people in Lingjiatan knew about rotary power and centrifugal force. Their knowledge of physics, mathematics, geometry, and mechanics appears to have been quite developed. Many eminent archaeologists are surprised at how advanced the stone drill was.
Archaeologists also discovered huge stone relics as high as 10 meters (33 ft.) at Lingjiatan; built more than 1,000 years earlier than Britain's Stonehenge. Five thousand years ago, people of Lingjiatan should only have been using stone and wood tools; it is unknown how they cut and transported such huge and heavy stones.
GGG Ping.
The Chinese should ask themselves what went wrong between then and now.
Amazing discovery. Thanks for posting this.
Wow - I am impressed. The also made scrambled eggs with it.
Well, there may have been a world wide flood that took place about 500-700 years after this that eliminated all but 8 people in the world. That might have had an effect on their development. But that's another thread. :-}
there was a flood ...
http://wwwa.britannica.com/eb/article-9041275
Xia (22nd–19th/18th century BC; traditional dates c. 2205–c. 1766 BC), early Chinese dynasty, mentioned in legends but of undetermined historicity. According to legend, the founder was Yü, who was credited with having engineered the draining of the waters of a great flood ...
Archaeologists also discovered huge stone relics as high as 10 meters (33 ft.) at Lingjiatan; built more than 1,000 years earlier than Britain's Stonehenge. Five thousand years ago, people of Lingjiatan should only have been using stone and wood tools; it is unknown how they cut and transported such huge and heavy stones.
God knows how China would have been like today if what ever happened in those days didnt happen.
Who were those people anyway? Persia extended all the way to China, maybe well into China.
It was made by Wal-Mart.
"...archaeologists have discovered a primitive tribal site that was inhabited 5,000 years ago. Superb drilling technology and the world's earliest stone drill bits were found at the site."
and yet...
9,000-Year-Old Dental Drill Is Found
Yahoo (AP) | Wed Apr 5, 1:05 PM ET | SETH BORENSTEIN
Posted on 04/05/2006 4:33:23 PM EDT by The_Victor
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1609814/posts
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The only hint is the jade. At this time I think most of the jade was mined in northern China.
"Among catalogued pre-historic ruins, Lingjiatan has the most jade pieces. "
A Chinese archaeologist said Wednesday that a 4,500-year-old jade tortoise and an oblong jade article discovered in east China's Anhui Province were China's earliest fortune-telling instruments found so far.
The two jade objects were discovered in an ancient tomb in Lingjiatan Village, Hanshan County, Anhui Province.
Gu Fang, an expert with the jadeware research committee under the China Society of Cultural Relics, told Xinhua that the jade tortoise is made up of a back shell and a belly shell. Several holes can be found on the jade tortoise.
The oblong jade article, 11 cm long and 8.2 cm wide, was found between the back shell and the belly shell when the objects were excavated from the tomb. A pattern of some broken lines was carved on the oblong jade article.
"They were obviously not objects used in daily life, nor adornment, but instruments used in religious activities," said Gu.
He said the holes between the back and belly shells of the jade tortoise show that something might be put inside. And there should have been strings threading through the holes.
"It reminds us the action of dicing. Only when the strings were unfastened could the situation of the objects inside the jade tortoise be seen," Gu said.
Archaeologists inferred that the jade tortoise is an ancient instrument used to practise divination ahead of important activities.
During the Shang Dynasty, some 1,000 years later than the time of the Lingjiatan tomb, it was popular to use real tortoise shells to practise divination to foretell good or bad luck.
The pattern on the oblong jade article has also drawn the attention of archaeologists. Many experts said the pattern might be the origin of the "bagua" or Eight Trigrams, the eight combinations of three whole or broken lines which were used by ancient Chinese people in their divination.
Source: Xinhua
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