Erligang

alternative Erh-li-kang

1. A village in Henan, China, site of the Bronze-Age Erligang culture

   Shang bronzes predating the thirteenth century BC were first found at Erligang, in Zhengzhou City, Henan Province. The finds at Erligang include the site of an early Shang city wall and, around it, the remains of workshops that made pottery, bone implements and bronzes.

   1995, “The Early and Middle Shang: The Formative Period”, in Ancient Chinese Bronzes in the Shanghai Museum, →OCLC, page 12

2. a Bronze Age urban civilization and archaeological culture in China

   The third change appeared during the Erligang period (early and middle Shang dynasty), when wheat (Triticum aestivum) was adopted into the local farming system.

   2021 May 13 [2021 March], Hua Zhong, “On the advancement of agriculture during the Pre-Qin period in the Central Plain of China from archaeobotanical findings”, in SEAA Newsletter, archived from the original on 10 Sep 2024

   2 more examples

   In the Huai River valley, which as we saw has yielded good evidence of Shang occupation in the Erh-li-kang phase, there have been a number of late Shang sites that have been reported on, but the only site of any notable scale is the residential-plus-burial site at Ch'iu-wan 丘灣, north of Hsü-chou in northwestern Kiangsu, discovered in 1959 and excavated in 1959, 1960, and 1965.

   [1980, Kwang-chih Chang, “Shang Archaeology outside An-yang and Cheng-chou”, in Shang Civilization, Yale University Press, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, pages 311, 314

   Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan province, sits in the heartland of China: the central valley around the Yellow River that birthed ancient civilizations such as Erligang over 3,500 years ago. But today, Henan is one of the poorer provinces of eastern China, and Henanese are often the targets of discrimination.

   2021 July 21, James Palmer, “China’s Drowned City Is a Bleak Sign of a Changing Climate”, in Foreign Policy, archived from the original on 21 Jul 2021