On March 29, “strong metal detection response” of the No. 8 pit has been dug to the ash layer, followed by more precious artifacts may be unveiled. This is after the excavation of more than 1,000 pieces of artifacts from the two “sacrificial pits” 35 years ago, the site of Guanghan Sanxingdui in Sichuan once again amazed the world.
According to the “Archaeology China” major project progress meeting on March 20, the newly discovered six “sacrificial pits”, has unearthed gold mask fragments, bird-shaped gold ornaments, painted bronze heads with eyes, giant bronze masks, bronze trees, ivory and other important artifacts More than 500 pieces.
“The archaeological site of “sacrificial pit
Sanxingdui is the largest and highest-ranking central site of the Xia and Shang dynasties found in the Sichuan basin. 1986, 1 and 2 “sacrificial pits” unearthed more than 1,000 pieces of precious cultural relics such as bronze statues of gods, bronze figures, bronze trees, gold masks, gold staffs, etc., many of which are uniquely shaped and never seen before, revealing a new bronze culture. face.
Chen De’an was the head of the Sanxingdui archaeological workstation for more than 20 years, during which he presided over the excavation of Pits 1 and 2. In December 2019, the No. 3 “sacrificial pit” was discovered, and he was retired at that time, but he still rushed to the site after hearing the news. When he learned that the fill of Pit 3 was similar to that of Pit 2, where significant artifacts had been unearthed, Chen De’an asserted that “there will be big artifacts.”
“This excavation has made the relationship between Sanxingdui and the cultures of the same period in the Yellow River and Yangtze River basins clearer.” Chen De’an said in a recent interview with Surf News that the Sanxingdui civilization was not a native civilization of independent origin, but was deeply influenced by the technology and ritual system of the Xia and Shang civilizations, and interacted with the civilizations of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Initially, the newly unearthed artifacts provide new evidence for this.
At the same time, there are still some mysteries to be solved. Why is there no writing at Sanxingdui, when the site of Yinxu (late Shang Dynasty capital, 1319-1046 B.C.), which is close in date to the “sacrificial pits” at Sanxingdui, has a mature writing system? After the introduction of bronze technology from the Central Plains to the Chengdu Plain, where were so many of the highly crafted works of art made at Sanxingdui? Where did they get their raw materials? These are yet to be proven by further excavation and research.
Gold mask fragment
“There is no evidence of cultural exchange between Sanxingdui and ancient West Asia and Egypt.”
It is widely believed that the ancient Shu civilization, represented by Sanxingdui, had inextricable ties with the Xia and Shang dynasties of the Central Plains. The ceremonial utensils and bronze zun, bronze earthenware and bronze bells evolved from jade cong, jade bi, jade go and tooth zhang in the Sanxingdui site are all in the style of the Central Plains. The relics of these styles were basically formed at the Erlitou site, the capital of the late Xia Dynasty, and a considerable part of them were inherited by the Shang Dynasty.
The bronze large-mouth zun, square zun, and other objects excavated in this Pit 3 are common bronze wares from the Shang dynasty, although they differ in their specific ornamentation. More intuitively, the newly unearthed artifacts of the “owl”-shaped zun, the first time found in the Sanxingdui, while thousands of miles away in the Yinxu site, the same “owl”-shaped zun.
“Some of the newly excavated artifacts are very closely related to the Shang civilization and the civilization of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.” Chen De’an told Surfing News.
For example, the early bronzes of Sanxingdui are similar in style to those of the Early Shang Erligang culture, the early Yinxu bronzes, and the Shang bronzes of Hebei Gaocheng; in particular, some bronzes including animal faces, jade artifacts and architectural footings are closer to the Early Shang Erligang culture; the Liangzhu-style jade artifacts, which are earlier than those of Sanxingdui, also appear in the Sanxingdui and Jinsha sites.
“Of course, these bronze and jade connections are not the flow of finished products, but the input of ritual concepts and technology.” According to Chen De’an, this also indicates that from the Early Shang Erligang culture period to the Late Shang Yinxu culture period, there was an exchange between ancient Shu and the Shang dynasty as well as the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. In addition to the politics and rituals of the Shang dynasty that influenced Shu, they also had technological and resource interactions, such as bronze smelting and casting and jade and stone tool production.
According to Chen De’an, there were two routes of foreign exchanges between ancient Shu culture to the east and north: to the east, from the Three Gorges region into the Nanyang basin and then to the Central Plains; to the north, through the Zao corridor into the Nanyang region and then to the Central Plains. He explained that the civilization of the Central Plains influenced both the ancient Shu and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and there was interaction between the Chengdu Plain and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, on the basis of which the unique “Sanxingdui civilization” was formed. “In the interaction between the Shu civilization and the Central Plains civilization, the Ba culture in the middle played a very important role.” According to Chen De’an, the Ba people of the Shang dynasty played the role of a medium or post in the interaction between Shu and the Shang dynasty.
According to different styles, Chen De’an divided the bronzes in the Sanxingdui site into three categories. “The first category is close in style to the Erligang culture of the Early Shang to the Yinxu culture of the Late Shang, the second has some elements common to the cultures of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the Chengdu Plain, and the last category is purely local, such as the unique style of bronze masks, longitudinal masks, large standing bronze figures, sacred trees, and gold masks.” Chen De’an said.
It is also the peculiar appearance of the “star” artifacts such as longitudinal masks and large standing figures that have made some netizens associate the Sanxingdui civilization with extraterritorial civilizations. “From the unearthed artifacts, there is no evidence of cultural exchange between Sanxingdui and ancient West Asia, Egypt and other places.” According to Chen De’an, ancient natural religions arose from natural phenomena, and the ancients saw that natural phenomena were the same and worshiped the same objects, and it was normal for them to shape the gods with the same or similar aspects, “The cultural connection depends on the genes of the culture, not on the surface phenomena.”
No. 3 pit artifacts outcropping Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology for the picture
Ritual artifacts were concentrated buried, experts speculate that the “change of power” caused
During the excavation, archaeologists noted that most of the Sanxingdui artifacts had been smashed or burned, in addition to the five stone slabs with flat surfaces found in pit 8, the fire-burned earth, while ash and carbon chips appeared in pits 4 and 3. Sanxingdui site excavation executive leader Ran Honglin previously said in a media interview, according to this series of phenomena speculation, these artifacts may have come from another ritual site, for some reason the building was burned, after the collapse of the house artifacts were transferred to sub-pit buried in this.
Previously, many scholars judged that these pits were formed at one time and belonged to the “burial pits of dead artifacts” according to pits 1 and 2 of the Sanxingdui site. But the latest excavation of pit 4 proved to belong to the late Shang dynasty, later than pits 1 and 2, which means that these pits were formed first and later.
“People tend to think that this was a burial area for ritual objects in ancient Shu from the early to late Yin market.” Chen De’an told the surging news, No. 8 pit found building components, etc., some pits may also include the ash produced by burning and blazing, which further indicates that the formation of the six pits at the Sanxingdui site, it is possible that the temple artifacts were moved out of the temple after the temple was abandoned and buried outside the temple in some form of ritual smashing and burning, “we still tend to think that the process from the temple to the pit behavior is ritualistic and belongs to the sacrificial pit”.
Chen De’an speculates that the aforementioned phenomenon of sacrificial pits at the site of Sanxingdui is either due to the change of the ruler, the new ruler will be the former ruler of the sacrificial artifacts concentrated buried. He believes that the influence of the Sanxingdui culture is quite large, and sites related to it have been found in the Chengdu Plain, along the Yangtze River in Fuling, Chongqing, the Jialing River Basin, the Fuling River Basin, and the Dadu River Basin, where different tribes were active.
“Sanxingdui was the political center of the ancient Shu state, and there were different clans that held power in this political arena – although all may have come from the same patriarch, the ancestor with closer blood ties would still be chosen to be sacrificed during the clan temple rituals.” That’s why, according to Chen De’an, the new generation in power may “destroy” the ritual objects used by the previous generation after they overthrow it. “It is not that they will just burn, smash or bury them, but they will hold a specific ceremony to replace the sacrificial objects of the clan temple.” Chen De’an said.
The artifacts were destroyed and buried, which also made the restoration work difficult. The master of heritage restoration Yang Xiaowu has “three-star pile of cultural relics repair titan”, although he has retired for many years, repair work by “disciples” to take over, but in recent times, he still can not help but go around the excavation site. “The degree of oxidation and rust varies for each artifact, and the restoration method is different, but in general, it will take a long time.” Yang Xiaowu said that some of the artifacts unearthed in pits 1 and 2 have not been restored to date.
“From this excavation, many ritual objects were knocked to pieces, even burned, and then buried in the pits, with layers of rammed earth, which were badly destroyed. Some were simply burned out of shape and melted.” Yang Xiaowu said, for example, the latest unearthed remnants of gold mask, is already “half-melted” state. According to him, it took him seven years to restore the “Bronze Tree of God” with his apprentice.
No. 5 pit ivory carving fragments Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology for the picture
Sanxingdui and Jinsha civilization used to “coexist”
Sanxingdui site and Jinsha site in the Chengdu Plain, only about 50 kilometers apart, because many excavated artifacts similar in style, the relationship between the two is often concerned by the academic community. Previously, because only two pits 1 and 2 were found at Sanxingdui, many archaeologists judged that there was a “civil unrest” at Sanxingdui, and the residents hastily buried the artifacts in the pits and then moved the capital to Jinsha, resulting in the disappearance of the Sanxingdui culture. The new evidence in the excavation has disproved this “assumption”.
Huang Yujie, director of the display and storage department of the Jinsha Site Museum, told Surfing News that from the earliest pits 1 and 2 of the Sanxingdui site to the recent excavations of several sacrificial pits, there is no doubt that the site and the Jinsha site have a lot of similarities.
“For example, this latest excavation of this remnant gold mask, and our Jinsha site gold mask, the style is very close to the ancient Shu people to the most honored gold made into a mask, and then used in the rituals, as a medium of communication between man and God.” According to Huang Yujie, this further reflects from the side of the two sites of Sanxingdui and Jinsha on the cultural lineage, absorption and integration. However, it is also necessary to realize that the artifacts excavated between the two sites have similarities and differences, “Jinsha is based on the inheritance of the civilization of Sanxingdui, with some development and some changes.”
The Sichuan Research Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, together with Peking University, recently analyzed 73 charcoal samples from six newly discovered pits at the Sanxingdui site using the carbon 14 dating method, and made a preliminary determination of the age distribution interval, in which the age of pit 4 is most likely to be between 1199 and 1017 B.C., that is, about 3200 to 3000 years ago. This confirms that the carbon 14 dating interval of the newly discovered Pit 4 at Sanxingdui belongs to the late Shang Dynasty.
Zheng Manli, deputy director of the Heritage Conservation and Research Department of the Jinsha Site Museum, believes that the rise of the Jinsha civilization was about 3,200 years ago, and that “the chronological distribution of Sanxingdui, especially Pit 4, now published, helps us to clearly understand that there was actually a coexisting relationship between the time when Sanxingdui and Jinsha ritual activities were carried out.” Zheng Manli stated.
“The relationship between Sanxingdui and Jinsha is not that one place finished as a political center before the other one emerged.” Chen De’an told Surfing News that Sanxingdui was an important political center of the ancient Shu Kingdom, “throughout the Shang Dynasty”, while Jinsha probably existed as a “sub-center”, “split from Sanxingdui “. “And this sub-center in the end because of the ‘internal struggle’ led to the split regime, or Sanxingdui ancient Shu State initiative to the southern Chengdu Plain development deliberately set the results, or what other reasons, is subject to further study.” According to Chen De’an, the original claim of treating Sanxingdui and Jinsha as two similar civilizations “is not quite right now. The two cultural heritage genes are the same, the artifact form almost the same, so they both belong to the ancient Shu civilization in the Shang dynasty with Sanxingdui as the political center.
Chen De’an introduced, after the destruction of the Shang dynasty, the Shang dynasty Shu cultural structure of Sanxingdui and Jinsha was broken by the Western Zhou culture, history has turned a new page, which is more clearly seen in the Western Zhou cultural remains in the Chengdu area centered on the Jinsha site. From the Western Zhou, the center of ancient Shu civilization was at Jinsha, and the time of Chengdu as a geopolitical center is counted from this point onward.
“The newly excavated artifacts and new discoveries at Sanxingdui will provide more physical examples for the subsequent clarification of the relationship between Sanxingdui and Jinsha cultures.” This will also help further refine the cultural development of the Chengdu Plain between the late Neolithic period and the late ancient Shu civilization, Huang Yujie told Surfing News.
The location of the ritual pit layout in the ritual area of the Sanxingdui site – Photo by Sichuan Research Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
The ivory at the Sanxingdui site may have come from the local area
As with the 1986 excavations at the Sanxingdui site, the excavations also found “ivory” in several pits. And in the Jinsha site, also unearthed tons of ivory, and according to the test, these tusks from the Asian elephant herd.
Huang Yujie told the Surfing News that the ivory tusks were regularly placed in the pit, which probably reflects its very important role in the ancient Shu people’s ritual activities, and may be an important offering to the gods of the ancient Shu people. Huang Yujie said, the Chengdu plain early river flooding, and ivory in the eyes of the ancient people have the role of killing the water spirit, so the ivory sacrifice may be the ancient Shu people in the spiritual trust.
Huang Yujie introduced, the Jinsha site in the excavation of a jade zhang, carved an ancient Shu people shoulders ivory sacrificial scene, which also for archaeologists to study the ancient Shu sacrificial activities at the time, providing a very important physical research materials. The bronze statue of a large standing man unearthed in pit 2 of the Sanxingdui site, with a double up and down, palms together seemingly holding items, some scholars speculate that this is the ancient Shu people’s hands clutching ivory ritual scene.
Where did these ivory come from? Previously, there are scholars believe that these ivory or through the trade with India and other civilizations and come. In this regard, Huang Yujie said, only the Jinsha site has unearthed tons of ivory, from foreign exchange is not very realistic, so the site of ivory or from the local elephant herd.
According to her, the temperature in the ancient Shu period should be higher than now, when the existence of elephants in the Central Plains was also recorded in the literature. In addition, the archaeologists found a large number of herbaceous remains at the Jinsha site, which means that at that time, at least the Chengdu plain area may also belong to the tropical and subtropical warm climate, the average annual temperature is higher than now about 2 degrees Celsius.
Huang Yujie said that the Chengdu plain has unearthed elephant tusks, jawbones and ivory, although no other parts of the elephant’s body have been found so far, but archaeology is a process of exploring the unknown, and whether more evidence will be found in the future is not yet known.
Will writing be found? Where is the “Sanxingdui Factory”?
The Sanxingdui site has eight ritual pits with a large number of bronze and jade artifacts, formed in a similar era to the Late Shang Yinxu site in Anyang, Henan Province. Yinxu is famous for its oracle bone inscriptions, but no writing has been found at the Sanxingdui site to date. He Yuling, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and deputy director of the Anyang Station, previously said that what he was looking forward to most about the excavations at the Sanxingdui site was finding writing on the unearthed bronze artifacts.
At the press briefing on March 20 on the archaeological results of the Sanxingdui site, the archaeological team leader Ran Honglin responded to the question of whether writing was found at Sanxingdui, which is of concern to many people. He said that at this stage of archaeological exploration at the Sanxingdui site, no exact writing was found, but relevant engraved symbols were found on the pottery, “we tend to believe that the Sanxingdui site is written”.
The Jinsha site Professor Sun Hua of the School of Archaeology and Literature of Peking University said in an interview with Interface News that in the era of Sanxingdui, the civilization of the Central Plains also only emerged in writing, so at that time Sanxingdui may not yet have writing. But in the cultures after Sanxingdui, such as the “Twelve Bridges Culture”, or the “Jinsha Period”, people should have mastered writing, because they had contact with the Zhou people.
Some experts speculate that the reason why no writing has been found at Sanxingdui is either because the ancient Shu people wrote their characters on more easily damaged objects, such as wood and textiles. The excavation did find “traces of silk”, which appeared in the ashes of the sacrificial pits, as well as around some of the bronze vessels, which appear to have been used as wrapping.
There is also no trace of the “bronze workshop area” of the Sanxingdui. Yang Xiaowu, a master restorer of Sanxingdui, told the Surfing News that unlike the Central Plains, Sanxingdui bronzes were made without “molds”, but one by one to build individually, so many bronze artifacts, including the “longitudinal mask”, have “minting” traces.
“(Bronze) after casting, or some broken, or copper water did not reach, but re-casting time consuming, labor-intensive, the ancient Shu people simply use the method of mending cast to repair.” Yang Xiaowu said, this can also explain, samsangdui bronze casting is in the local or nearby a “factory” to complete, especially some large bronze, it is difficult to transport from outside the Chengdu Plain, but “factory” where exactly. “have not found”.
The next urgent problem is the handicraft workshop area, especially the bronze workshop area,” said Lei Yu, station chief of the Sichuan Research Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology at the Sanxingdui site, in an interview with Xinhua. In addition, it is necessary to look for related ritual sites, ancient Shu king burial areas, etc.
According to the surging news, on March 29, five stone slabs with flat surfaces and fire-burned earth blocks, as well as oval-shaped carbonized wood, were found one after another in Pit 8, which is under excavation. The archaeologists deduced that Pit 8 is the first remains that have a clear association with a ritual building. However, it is inconclusive where the real ritual site was located.
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