On May 7th 2004, a large-scale graveyard was found in the Zhougong Temple ruin. Archeologists found 22 large-scale tombs, including 10 four-passage tombs, and 12 tombs with one, two, or three passages. The ten four-passage tombs were the first such tombs found in the process of looking for the Western Zhou capital. This finding shocked the archeological circle.

Four-passage Tomb

Problems with this claim:

Zhang Tian'en does not agree that the Zhougong Temple ruin is the location of the capital of the Western Zhou Dynasty. He argued that for a place to be considered the early Western Zhou capital, it must meet the following requirements. First, it must have relics of large-scale buildings and graveyard and a large quantity of bronze wares. Second, as the capital, it must have a large residential area. From the excavation of the Zhougong Temple ruin, it does not have either of these characteristics.

As for the problem that most of the bronze wares unearthed in Zhouyuan did not belong to those with the imperial surname, Yin Shengping claimed that this actually showed that Zhouyuan was the capital of the Western Zhou Dynasty. He argued that the aristocrats with the imperial surname were usually conferred a state to live and administer, but those whose surnames were not the imperial surname did not have their own states, so they usually lived in the capital.

Xu Gaoliang, a researcher in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, agreed. He argued that the most important archeological findings of the Western Zhou Dynasty were unearthed in Zhouyuan and two vessels used by the kings were also unearthed in Zhouyuan, meaning that people could not exclude the possibility of Zhouyuan being the location of the Western Zhou capital.

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