Recasting the past

The city ruins cover an area of 3 sq km, and according to Xu, the Erlitou site contains the oldest quadrangle palatial complex ever discovered in China.

"It's the earliest prototype of the Forbidden City in the country," he explains.

Other than that, China's earliest known handicraft workshop and remains of a bronzeware production site and turquoise-processing facilities, an urban road network featuring paths as wide as 20 meters, and ruts made by double wagon wheels over the centuries, were all found at the Erlitou site.

In 2002, Xu unearthed a dragon-shaped decorative object made up of over 2,000 pieces of turquoise in a tomb together with several bronze bells. This crucial finding is widely interpreted by archaeologists as a symbol of kingship due to the presence of the dragon totem.

Turquoise-inlaid bronze plates bearing animal mask patterns were other important pieces unearthed during these excavations. And the abundance of ceremonial bronze and jade artifacts and exquisite works of pottery all marked this site out as an exceptional one.

Nevertheless, Xu says while no written evidence found on the objects at Erlitou directly prove its connection with the Xia Dynasty, the final pieces of the puzzle in identifying the dynasty have still yet to be found.

Only simple inscriptions carved into pottery have been found at the Erlitou site to date.

"Nevertheless, this lack of clarity is not an obstacle for us to understand the unparalleled significance of this site in early Chinese civilization," Xu adds.