Chinanews client, Beijing, March 20th (Reporter Song Yusheng Shangguanyun) Sanxingdui site, known as "one of the most important archaeological discoveries of mankind in the 20th century", has gained important gains.
On March 20, the "Archaeological China" major project progress meeting was held in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, and the important archaeological discoveries and research results of the Sanxingdui site in Guanghan, Sichuan were announced.
Location map of the sacrificial pits in the sacrificial area of the Sanxingdui site.
Source: WeChat official account of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage
What's new
According to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, 6 new "sacrifice pits" of Sanxingdui culture were discovered from November 2019 to May 2020.
The plane of the "sacrifice pit" is rectangular, and the scale is between 3.5-19 square meters.
At present, pits 3, 4, 5, and 6 have been excavated to the artifact level, and pits 7 and 8 are being excavated to fill the pits. Remnants of gold masks, bird-shaped gold ornaments, gold leaf, and painted copper heads have been unearthed. There are more than 500 important cultural relics such as giant bronze masks, bronze sacred trees, ivory, exquisite tooth carvings, jade congs, and jade tools.
Excavation cabin.
Source: WeChat official account of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage
It is reported that archaeologists make full use of modern scientific and technological means to build archaeological excavation cabins, integrated excavation platforms, and multi-functional excavation operating systems. With the support of multidisciplinary and multi-institutional professional teams, they constitute traditional archaeology, laboratory archaeology, scientific and technological archaeology, The deeply integrated working mode of cultural relic protection has realized the combination of archaeological excavation, systematic scientific research and timely and effective protection of the site, ensuring the high quality and high level of archaeological work.
What is Sanxingdui
The discovery process of the Sanxingdui site is quite narrative.
In 1929, a farmer in Sichuan accidentally discovered a pile of exquisite jade tools while working.
Since then, the tip of an iceberg has been exposed at the Sanxingdui site that has been "sleeping" for thousands of years, and the mystery of ancient Shu civilization has gradually been unveiled.
In 1934, Ge Weihan, the curator of West China University Museum at the time, organized an archeological team to conduct 10-day excavations in the vicinity of the suspected jade "cellar", and more than 600 cultural relics including pottery, stone and jade were unearthed.
The excavation site of the sacrificial pit in 1986.
Photo courtesy of Sanxingdui Museum
The excavation of the two sacrificial pits in Sanxingdui began in 1986.
When the brick factory workers were working, they dug up the "jade knives". After research, the things called "swords" by the brick factory workers turned out to be jade ge and jade zhang.
Soon, with the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Relics, archaeological excavations began rapidly. Golden rods, golden masks, bronze human heads, jade artifacts and other cultural relics were discovered in "Pit No. 1". A total of precious artifacts such as bronze, gold and jade were unearthed. .
When the excavation of Sacrificial Pit No. 1 gradually came to an end, Sacrificial Pit No. 2 was also discovered, and a larger treasure house was opened.
In 1986, the No. 1 and No. 2 "sacrifice pits" were discovered, and more than a thousand precious cultural relics such as bronze statues, bronze statues, bronze sacred trees, golden masks, golden rods, large jade Zhang, and ivory were unearthed. Kind of a new face of bronze culture.
The Sanxingdui ancient site covers an area of 12 square kilometers and has a history of 5,000 to 3,000 years. It is the ancient city, ancient country, and ancient Shu cultural site with the largest range, the longest duration, and the richest cultural connotations discovered in the southwest region so far.
Sanxingdui Ancient Ruins is also known as "one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of mankind in the 20th century."
What are the unsolved mysteries in Sanxingdui
Although the results of archaeological excavations in Sanxingdui have been richer today, there are still many unsolved mysteries.
For example, what is the specific age of the Sanxingdui site?
Although the archaeologists roughly determined the age of the site as the Xia and Shang period, the specific time remains to be further studied.
According to the excavation results, thousands of treasures in the ancient city of Sanxingdui were smashed and burned, and they were regularly buried in the ground.
How did this happen?
Why are these treasures buried?
Fragment of ivory carving in Pit No. 5.
Source: WeChat official account of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage
In addition, although many exquisite cultural relics have been unearthed in Sanxingdui archaeological excavations, no words or written records have been found so far.
So, is there any text in Sanxingdui?
A large amount of ivory was unearthed during the excavation, so where did these ivory come from?
Was there so many elephants in Sichuan?
How were the bronzes unearthed in Sanxingdui cast?
These unsolved mysteries still await further archaeological excavations.
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