“長城之陽，魯也。長城之陰，齊也。”《管子》中所述之“長城”，即齊長城。2024年5到12月，為了解決齊長城的年代和建築特點等問題，進一步完善齊長城的防禦體系，考古工作者對位於濟南市長清區大街村南的齊長城廣里村北段進行發掘，進一步明確了齊長城的修建年代，項目入選了“2024年度山東省五大考古新發現”。

I found the chronology

The Great Wall of Qi is an important military defense system built by Qi in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, starting from Jishui in the west, connecting the sea in the east, crossing the Taiyi Mountains in central Shandong, with a total length of more than 17 kilometers, passing through 0 cities and 0 counties, and has played an important role in the history of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Today, the Great Wall of Qi is an important part of the Great Wall of World Cultural Heritage and a national key cultural relics protection unit.

Exploring the Great Wall of Qi is a relay of three generations of archaeologists. The fieldwork of the Great Wall of Qi began in the 50s of the 0th century, when Lu Dahuang of Shandong Museum and Zhang Weihua of Shandong University conducted field investigations on the Great Wall of Qi to varying degrees and wrote relevant monographs.

1996 years, Tai'an's Lu Zongyuan, Sun Lihua, Li Jisheng, Zhang Guangping, and into the sea to investigate the Great Wall of Qi on foot, the journey of two thousand miles, the conclusion of the investigation is that the Great Wall of Qi is not the main peak of Mount Tai, but through the Yin of Mount Tai to the east, the city wall is only repaired to the nail head cliff in the northwest of Mount Tai, the nail head cliff is replaced by mountain danger to the east, and the trend of the Great Wall of Qi is gradually clear.

In 2010 years, Shandong started the field resources survey of the Great Wall of Qi, which lasted 0 years and was basically completed in the summer of 0 years. This survey comprehensively collected and recorded the distribution, structural characteristics, direction, length, protection status, and construction age of the resources of the Great Wall, and basically found out the "family background" of the Great Wall of Qi.

In 2022, the Shandong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology carried out a key exploration of the Great Wall of Qi, mainly to solve the underground preservation of the disappeared section of the Great Wall of Qi, and to improve the distribution and nature of related sites of the Great Wall of Qi. During this exploration, it was found that there was a large area of cultural accumulation on the north side of the Great Wall of Qi in the north-east of Guangli Village.

2024年5到12月，山東省文物考古研究院對廣裡村北段新發現的遺存進行發掘，發掘面積為1100平方米。發掘採用多學科合作的方法，除收集傳統的人工製品外，還採集了植矽體、動物骨骼等標本，同時採集樣本進行光釋光測年和碳十四測年。

This excavation uncovered the remains of large rammed earth, roads, slope protections, house sites, moats, ash pits and other remains, the most important of which was the discovery of rammed earth walls from different periods. On the whole, the city wall found this time is divided into two phases, morning and evening, the early Great Wall is about 10 meters wide, belongs to the Spring and Autumn Period, and may be two weeks at the earliest. The late city walls mainly belong to the Warring States period.

The key to archaeology is to address the age of the walls. The early Great Wall in the northern excavation area has preserved 12 layers, and 0 ash pits H0 were found under layer 0, and H0 broke the rammed earth from layers 0 to 0. More pottery pieces were unearthed in the ash pit, there are mustaches, pots, rings, etc., and the era is mostly the late Western Zhou Dynasty, and the latest is not later than the early Spring and Autumn Period. The appearance of these artifacts provides an important basis for the dating of the city wall.

In order to further confirm the age of the early city wall, archaeologists collected 1 carbon samples for dating, which were collected from the rammed layer of the city wall, the slope protection of the city wall, H0, and H0. The dating data are all early, and the latest data are from 0 BC to 0 BC. In addition, the School of Resources and Environment of Lanzhou University was also commissioned to conduct a photoluminescence dating of the city wall. Combined with the dating data, experts believe that the age of H0 should represent the beginning of the construction of the early city wall of the Great Wall of Qi.

In addition to the city wall, archaeologists also found two Western Zhou period house sites under the early city wall in the northern excavation area. These two houses are rounded and square, and there are stove sites in the east, which are typical of the small semi-crypt houses of the Western Zhou Dynasty, indicating that there was a small settlement in the Western Zhou Dynasty before the construction of the city wall. This settlement may be related to the strengthening of Jishui defense during the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the old Xujiawa not far from here was found in the Western Zhou Dynasty in 2021 years, and it is also located on the east bank of the ancient Jishui.

The Great Wall of Qi was renamed again

The Great Wall first appeared in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, which is a major invention of the ancient Chinese ancestors to transform and upgrade the surrounding closed city walls that had been prehistoric in the prehistoric period into a large-scale linear land defense project, which is an epoch-making major progress in ancient China's military defense engineering and is of great significance for the study of Chinese military history. Scholars usually believe that the Great Wall first appeared in the Qi or Chu states, and there are different opinions on the specifics.

An earlier discussion can be found in Gu Yanwu's Rizhilu The Great Wall, which locates the appearance of the Great Wall of China in 350 BC, after Qin Xiaogong's "opening of Qianmo". In the "Shandong Archaeological Record", the construction time of the Great Wall of Qi is set at the time of King Xuan of Qi. Jing Ai's "History of the Great Wall of China" believes that "the Great Wall was built in the Warring States Period, and the Great Wall of Qi was the earliest", and "the Great Wall of Qi should have been built in the Xuangong period of Qi, and it was built many times before it was finally completed." The Great Wall should be built during the reign of King Qi Wei and King Xuan of Qi."

Shandong University has conducted an autopsy on the wall at the western end of the Great Wall and confirmed that the rammed layer "is about 1 cm thick in each layer, and the rammer is a wooden stick." The rammed layer layer is clear, and the rammed sockets are densely distributed. The rammed nests are all in the shape of a pot with a round bottom, with a diameter of 0 cm and a depth of about 0.0 cm." From the point of view of construction technology, the thickness of the rammed layer and the diameter of the rammed nest are slightly thicker than the thickness of the city wall in the early Spring and Autumn Period of the third phase of the ancient city of Luguo; The thickness of the rammed layer is slightly thinner than that of the Martyrdom Pit Tomb in the late Spring and Autumn Period, which is a typical representative of the "cluster stick ramming" in the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period. Some scholars believe that there was already a Great Wall in Qi in the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period.

The discovery of the early and late phases of the Great Wall clarifies the tectonic characteristics and distribution relationships of the Great Wall of Qi in different periods, and provides direct evidence for judging the construction age of the Great Wall. In particular, the superposition relationship between the early walls (from the late Western Zhou Dynasty to the Spring and Autumn Period) and the late walls (Warring States Period) provides important empirical evidence for the periodization and functional evolution of the Great Wall of Qi.

There are still many harvests from the archaeology of the Great Wall of Qi. Experts say that the evolution of the construction of the Great Wall of Qi from the Spring and Autumn Period to the Warring States period shows the trajectory of the development of the Great Wall of China from local control to an overall mature defense system. At the same time, the layout, site selection and construction of ancillary facilities of the Great Wall of Qi reflect the superb military planning level and strategy of the Qi state to deal with external threats. Its close connection with Pingyin City shows that the Great Wall of Qi not only assumed a defensive function, but also played a strategic control role in an important transportation hub.

對於齊長城的認知還將不斷深化。此前的2024年12月14日，山東省文物考古研究院曾召開齊長城現場會，來自山東大學、中國人民大學等單位的專家參加會議。專家們充分肯定了發掘成果，認為本次發掘意義重大，是長城考古的新突破。專家們也提出了一些建議，比如加強多學科的研究，為長城的年代判斷提供更多依據;東部剖面發現了四期夯土，但是一、二期的關係和第四期的性質還需要進一步發掘來解決;H1的性質和與夯土的關係也需要進一步理清。

With the new archaeological discoveries, who is the "earliest Great Wall" of the Great Wall of Qi and the Great Wall of Chu will trigger a new round of academic discussion. In the future, with the deepening of research, the story of the Great Wall of Qi will become clearer and clearer. (Source: New Yellow River client)

[Source: Aijinan News Client]