The story appears on

Page B6

September 13, 2016

GET this page in PDF

Free for subscribers

View shopping cart

Related News

Home » District » Songjiang

Park to showcase ancient civilizations

GUANGFULIN Relics Park, about 4 kilometers from the foot of Sheshan Hill, is under construction work and should be fully open to the public by year’s end.

The site will include a cultural zone, a farmland protection area and an old water town providing Chinese-style accommodation outside the park. In the farmland zone, rice, corn, sunflowers, pears and peaches will be cultivated.

Located on the banks of the Shenjing River, Guangfulin was a traffic hub of yore. It became a famous archeology site when farmers in the late 1950s accidentally discovered relics from a culture that thrived some 4,000 years ago.

The cultural zone will be the biggest highlight of the park, with more than 20 themed museum areas and memorial halls. They will include the Museum of Guangfulin Archaeological Remains, a memorial hall dedicated to Songjiang poet Chen Zilong (1608-1647) and the Fulin Porcelain Museum.

The museum complex is in the shape of three ancient jars, earning it the local nickname “jar museum.”

Each building in the park is constructed with old bricks, tiles and wooden posts collected from nearby villages. All the materials are more than 100 years old. The site will have cobblestone streets and buildings with whitewashed walls and grey roof tiles in the architectural style of old Anhui Province.

The Guangfulin archeology site was first discovered in 1958 by local farmers dredging a new waterway. In their digging, they found ancient pottery shards. In 1961, archaeologists began the first systematic excavation of the site, unearthing a large volume of pottery vases, spinning wheels, cooking vessels and dishes.

The park, located on Guangfulin Road, is comprised of two underground layers. The first covers about 10,000 square meters; the second, about 7,000 square meters. The greater park area has two tombs. One contains the complete skeleton of a ancient pig, while the other holds the bone remains of a dog.

Archeologists also unearthed sharpened stone weapons and tools used as axes, knives, chisels and shovels.

The excavation work stretched from 1961 to 2008, when experts found a large number of bronze shards, wooden craft items and turtle shells, which were used to foretell the future in ancient China.

The relics park, including the Zhiye Buddhism, Chenghuang and Guandi temples, is partially opened to the public now.

Many shops are setting up operations in the park. Several coffee bars, mutton restaurants and teahouses have already opened.

The Guangfulin Restaurant is run by a couple from Shaoxing in Zhejiang Province, a famous center for Chinese rice wine. In the courtyard, big vats of the wine are neatly aligned.

“The wine is made with water transported daily from Shaoxing and brewed in the traditional way,” the restaurant hostess said.

Good food should be accompanied by fine wine. The restaurant offers many traditional rural dishes, such as red-braised pork, wild carp cooked with eggs, sautéed bullfrog and iced abalone.

“We are going to host a mutton feast that includes goat soup, sliced goat meat, stewed goat head and simmered goat feet,” Chef Liu Dachu said.

The goats are all Songjiang-raised on quality grassland in Xinbang Town.

Though the park is not fully opened yet, a music fountain and light show at the northern side of Guangfulin and Longyuan roads is now operating during holidays and festivals.

The renovated park will include a 40,000-square-meter parking lot, which is said to be the largest of its kind in China.




 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend