Panlong City

Panlong City was praised as "Origin of Wuhan City" had slept for more than 3000 years. After several generations of archeologists' investigation and exploration, the true face of the mysterious and magnificent ancient city relic revealed gradually.

There were prosperous and bustling streets and magnificent palaces here about 3000 years ago. The military officers with bronze weapons in their hands, it seems that the exquisite relics were breathed telling an amazing history and left people a lot of doubts.

The First Doubt: A Governor or a King?

What is the real identity of the people who created this period of history?

Was he wore a high hat and equipped with a bronze sword? Was he a king, a governor or a mayor?

Researcher Li Taoyuan - master of Workstation of Panlong City of Institute of Cultural Relics of Hubei Province said that this problem is still a mystery among Chinese archeologists. Some people thought that it was a capital of a leud state; some people thought that it was a military stronghold of Shang Dynasty; some people held that it was a political, military and cultural center of south in Shang Dynasty.

The biggest tomb explored in Panlong City was on display in the exhibition hall. It was the biggest human sacrifice tomb of early Shang Dynasty discovered till now. In this tomb: three slaves were buried with the dead, 74 cultural relics were unearthed (including 5 suits of bronze ceremonial utensils, Yue - a rare bronze weapon of early Shang Dynasty, and a big jade dagger-axe which was praised as "king of the jade dagger-axe").

The archeologists are not sure was the owner of the tomb a governor or not till now.

The Sceond Doubt: Origin of the Disappearance of the Ancient City

The historical laws indicated that once a city was built, the place would be flourished in the later dynasties. But Panlong City is a special and rare case. The city was once glorious, but it disappeared in late Shang Dynasty, just two or three hundreds years later.

At the end of last century, people there constructed a dam at Wangjiazui in Panlong City, but the dam broke down just hardly it was completed. People there did that again and again. The experts of China University of Geosciences discovered that there was an ancient river course with silts. They also discovered a port there, and there were a lot of vessels in the nearby lake.

Li Taoyuan analyzed that Panlong City lied by Yangtze River when it was built, later people there constructed dams to prevent flood, and they impounded the water in the river channel. Then Panlong City was away from the river while people moved to the river gradually. After that Panlong City declined rapidly.

What leaded to the neglect of the city: War, flood or something else? The disappearance of the famous ancient city raised a lot of doubts.

The Third Doubt: How Many Undiscovered Treasures There?

People were surprised by the unearthed exquisite cultural relics of Panlong City. But only a small part of Panlong City has been excavated, how many treasures still under the ground?

Once, the experts explored Panlong City with Ground Penetrating Radar and discovered more than 100 anomalies. Archeologists explored several anomalies, but all of them were not tombs of Shang Dynasty. Archeologists believed that there are treasures under the ground.

The core protection area zone covers an area of 1.2 square kilometers. Only 1000 square meters were explored. Researcher Li Taoyuan held that there would be more discoveries optimistically.

38 tombs of Shang Dynasty have been unearthed in Panlong City, and there were a lot of tombs under the ground. What in the unexcavated tombs? Is there a more splendid palace?

The Fourth Doubt: How to Plan for the Future Panlong City?

It faces water in three directions and a high mountain in one direction. A lot famous men of letters lost in admiration of its special geographical position. It is a wilderness in the present, what the landscape here looks like in the future.

Once someone proposed an assumption: to reconstruct a city wall on the relics and restore the palaces of the ancient times. But this assumption was denied by the department of cultural administration hardly it was proposed. Nobody could describe what the city looked like in 3500 years ago exactly and it is easy to make it a "neither fish nor fowl".

Later, some people proposed to plant trees on the relics and plant grasses in the palace to leave people a vague impression of that time. There's also someone proposed to present its past image by painting on the relics, and then cover the relics by a watch-glass. People could stand outside the watch-glass and pay a visit to the past history of Panlong City.

E Xueyu- director of the Preparatory Office of Museum of Panlong Relics said that he doesn't know that those plans would be adopted or not. But Wuhan Municipal Government decided to invest one million RMB in Plan for Protection of Panlong City Relics. People will see the image of Panlong City in the near future.

History of Panlong City

The first ancient city of Yangtze River Basin came into being 3500 years ago. It is located in Panlong City Development Zone of Huangbei District in Wuhan City and it faces water in three directions.

There was a big flood in Wuhan in 1954. The soil city wall of Panlong City was moved to fill Zhanggongdi. That made the treasure of China appeared from thousand years of slumber. Experts from more than 30 countries were deeply surprised by its appearance. Panlong City was listed in the 100 Archeological Discoveries of China in 20th Century in the selection activity held by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 2001.