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In the long history of China, regardless of the change of time, rise and fall of dynasties, Chengdu remained the central city in southwest China and became one of the six biggest cities as early as in Qin dynasty. Chengdu was the capital of kingdom Shu Han. In the late Tang dynasty, it was the largest international trading center in southwest China. A famous saying then referred to Chengdu as Yang f irst Yi (ancient name of Chengdu) second, which concisely described two most commercially prosperous cities at the time, Yangzhou and Chengdu. In Song dynasty, Chengdu reached its peak of prosperity and was known to the rest of the world as the city of abundance.
From a traditional point of view, Chinese civilization derived from Yellow River basin. However, a major archaeological discovery made in Chengdu plains in 1995--the excavation of Baodun Relics which dates back to 4500 years ago, completely overthrew all of the precedent knowledge of the ancient Shu civilization being a regional civilization attached to that of the central plains, and proved that Chengdu was the central origin of ancient civilization at upper Yangtze River and a cradle of the Chinese civilization.
Later archaeological excavations continued to update people’s knowledge of Chengdu and Chinese history: winery relics at Shuijing Street in 1999, verif ied to be the earliest winery in the world, fills up a huge archaeological gap regarding winery relics and brewing technique in ancient China. Relics of boat-coff in burial in Shangye Street in 2000 made the discovery of the largest boat-coff in burial site by far in the world. Discovery of Jinsha relics in 2001 set the history of Chengdu 700 years earlier. Relics of Jiangnanguan Street in Tang and Song dynasties in 2008 proved that even in Tang and Song dynasties Chengdu was already highly specialized in urban planning and construction management.
Archaeological site of Jinsha relics
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