Discovery Of Archaeological Sites Of Silk And Clothing Stores In The Southern Song Dynasty On Zhongshan Road

There are few records of what exactly the Southern Song Dynasty imperial street 800 years ago, that is, the current Zhongshan Road, looks like. Fortunately, the archaeologists have lifted layers of veils with their hands.

The recently raised corner is on the southwest side of the intersection of Shiwukui Lane and Zhonghe Road, opposite the Drum Tower. Since the middle of May, archaeologists have carried out archaeological investigations here and discovered important relics from the Southern Song Dynasty to the Republic of China.

Within nearly 100 square meters of the site, the site of the Southern Song Dynasty is located in the northeast corner. Although it is only five or six square meters, a stove, three pools and some step stalls were found.

The stove is only exposed, the fire door is in the east, and there is obvious burning trace on the inner wall.

The three pools are interconnected and equipped with water outlets. The bottom of the pool is paved with square bricks with a side length of 31cm, and the four walls are paved with long bricks. At one corner of each pool, there are arc brick facilities, and there is a large stone slab outside the pool. Archaeologists judge from these relics that this is a handicraft workshop.

What kind of workshop is this? There are some more subtle findings on the site - there is a thin layer of black material at the bottom of the pool, mixed with soil.

Lin Zhengqiu, professor of the History Department of Hangzhou Normal University and chairman of the Hangzhou Ancient Capital Culture Research Association, published an article on the original appearance of the Royal Street in the Southern Song Dynasty in Hangzhou Research at the end of last year, which mentioned that during the Southern Song Dynasty, there were many silk and clothing shops on Zhongshan Road, some of which were front shops and back shops.

In the Southern Song Dynasty, Hangzhou was the largest silk textile center in China. Official and private silk workshops were all over the city, and there were many silk and clothing stores on the Imperial Street. Silk and clothing shops also have color silk shops, white clothes shops, headscarf shops, belt shops, silk shoes shops, velvet shops, pillow shops, table clothes shops and other specialty shops. The famous shop names known so far are:

Baojianying Street, Lijia Silk Shoes Shop. Sanqiao Street, Chaijia Rongsi Shop. Under the Sanqiao River, Yang Sanlang's head scarf shop. Along the bridge, raw silk is laid. Nanwazi, Xuanjiatai Clothes Shop. In front of the middle tile, Peng's oil boots shop. Shinanfang, Niujia belt shop, Xuguan Fu towel shop. These mats are of considerable scale, selling all kinds of clothes that meet the needs of urban people. In addition, the archaeologists also learned that there is a Fude Bridge not far from here. Because the river under the bridge is black and smelly, the old man called it "Black Bridge".

"Then, can this black material be a fabric? If so, this handicraft workshop is most likely a dye workshop. The water from the dye workshop has blackened the nearby river." The archaeologist speculated boldly.

Coincidentally, the remains of this handicraft workshop - stoves, pools, and drainage ditches - were also found in the next Ming and Qing Dynasty ruins. "Is it possible that the dyeing workshop operation here on Zhongshan South Road continued from the Southern Song Dynasty to the Ming and Qing Dynasties?" This is a difficult problem that has not been recorded in historical data. Yesterday morning, Wang Guoping, director of the Standing Committee of Hangzhou Municipal People's Congress and general consultant of the leading group for the comprehensive protection and organic renewal planning of Zhongshan Road, went to the scene to inspect.

Wang Guoping said that this archaeological discovery should be shown to the common people. Before, everyone thought that Zhongshan Road was the imperial street of the Southern Song Dynasty, with either royal buildings (such as the Imperial Temple) or government offices (such as three provinces and six ministries) on the side. In fact, there were also common people along Zhongshan Road. Through the display, people could further understand the life of the streets of the Southern Song Dynasty and the history of Hangzhou.

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