The tomb, in Lijia village in Jing'an county...
The straight translation of Lijia:
Li Jia - Li family
The meaning has widened.
Ming dynasty administration
...provided community chiefs, who were intermediaries between the citizenry at large and the formal agencies of government. This system of social organization, called
lijia (later replaced by or coexistent with a local defense system called baojia), served to stabilize, regulate, and indoctrinate the populace...
Lijia culture
Early Neolithic (7000-5000 BCE) culture of northern China. Permanent villages of people living on dry cultivation of fox tail and broomcorn millet; domesticated dogs, pigs, chickens, and possibly sheep.
Zhouyuan have been a treasure trove of ancient bronze ware for decades. Just last week, Xinhua reported that local farmers there unearthed some 80 relics dating back to the Western Zhou Dynasty. Two were of bronze. In April last year, archaeologists were delighted to stumble upon the ruins of bronze workshops spreading across Zhuangbai and Lijia villages where, it is thought, this beautiful bronze ware was made.
The researchers named the ruins the Lijia Bronze Workshop. Here they found, among other pieces, pottery moulds with intricate engravings for the making of the bronze pieces.
The discovery of the Li Family bronze workshop ruins showed the high technical standard of bronze production of that period and will contribute greatly to the research of the manufacturing techniques of bronze ware, according to Xu Tianjin, who led a joint team of researchers from Peking University, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Shaanxi Archaeology Research Institute in the excavation.
