From 1973 to 1974, there were three archaeological excavations at the Wucheng site in Qingjiang, Jiangxi Province. More than 500 pieces of artifacts were found, including bronzes, shreds, jades, and lithic tools. Among them, a ceramic bowl was a special discovery since it was engraved with four glyphs ‘ . According to their style, these inscriptions can be dated to the first phase, corresponding to the Middle Shang era. Based on the orders of reading the glyphs from right to left first and then from top to down, the author transcribes them as ‘Bao Gong Tu Tian’, meaning ‘Pu You Tu Tian’ or ‘Pian You Tu Tian’. These inscriptions manifest that the owner of this bowl might have been a Marquis of a Jiangnan (south of Yangtze) state who possessed a huge area of land. It is worth noting that these inscriptions might be used to commemorate the event of land-awarding by the Shang King. If this guess is true, the Western Zhou system of ‘awarding land ’might start from the Shang Dynasty, and then spreaded to lands of the south of Yangtze River.
