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.
Song Xinchao, deputy director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, attended the meeting.
The Sanxingdui site is located in Sanxingdui Town, Guanghan City, Sichuan Province, on the south bank of the Mianjiang (Duck River), a tributary of the Tuojiang River in the northern part of the Chengdu Plain.
The site covers an area of about 12 square kilometers. The core area is the ancient city of Sanxingdui, with an area of about 3.6 square kilometers. It is currently the largest and highest-level central site discovered in the Xia-Shang period in the Sichuan Basin.
The site was discovered in the late 1920s.
After the founding of New China, the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics Department restarted the archaeological work of the Sanxingdui site.
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.
In 1987, archaeologists proposed the name "Sanxingdui Culture", inferring that the age is equivalent to the period from the late Xia Dynasty to the Shang and Zhou Dynasties.
In 1988, the Sanxingdui site was announced by the State Council as a national key cultural relics protection unit.
The State Administration of Cultural Heritage attaches great importance to the archaeological and research work of the Sanxingdui site. Since the 1980s, it has guided Sichuan Province to carry out large-scale surveys, explorations and excavations, and successively discovered the foundations of the Sanxingdui Ancient City, Moon Bay Town, Cangbaobao Town and Qingguan Mountain , Rensheng Village Cemetery and other important relics, constantly clarify the distribution range and structural layout of the Sanxingdui site.
Archaeologists have successively discovered Sanxingdui culture-related sites in the Chengdu Plain, along the Yangtze River in Fuling, Chongqing, Jialing River Basin, Fujiang River Basin, and Dadu River Basin, gradually clarifying the distribution scope of Sanxingdui culture, and also revealing the closeness between Sanxingdui culture and Xia-Shang culture in the Central Plains relationship.
In addition, archaeologists discovered eight Neolithic Baodun cultural sites in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, including Yibaodun Site, Pixian Ancient City Site, Yufu Village Site, Mangcheng Site, Shuanghe Site, and Zizhu Site in the Chengdu Plain. The bridge site, the Jinsha site and other important city sites in the Chengdu Plain during the Shang and Zhou dynasties have gradually explored the origin of the Sanxingdui culture.
During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage continued to support Sichuan Province in carrying out archaeological investigations and excavations of the Sanxingdui site.
From November 2019 to May 2020, 6 new "sacrifice pits" of Sanxingdui culture were discovered.
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.
The excavation work adheres to the concept of “subject pre-setting, protection synchronization, multi-disciplinary integration, and multi-team cooperation”, and coordinated the participation of many domestic scientific research institutions and universities such as the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Peking University, and the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. Joint team of archaeology, conservation and research.
Archaeologists make full use of modern science and technology to build archaeological excavation cabins, integrated excavation platforms, and multi-functional excavation operating systems. Supported by a multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional professional team, they constitute traditional archaeology, laboratory archaeology, scientific and technological archaeology, and cultural relic protection. The deeply integrated working mode realizes 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.
The new archaeological discovery of the "sacrifice pit" at the Sanxingdui site further demonstrates the rich connotations of the Sanxingdui site and the Sanxingdui culture, and helps to promote the in-depth study of the Sanxingdui culture.
The State Administration of Cultural Heritage has identified the "Study on the Civilization Process of Bashu in Sichuan-Chongqing" as a major project of "Archaeological China", focusing on the relics of Sanxingdui, Zhuwa Street, Xiaotian River, Chengba, etc., to deeply study the evolution of civilization in Sichuan-Chongqing region and its The historical process of integrating into the overall structure of the pluralistic unity of the Chinese nation.
At the same time, guide Sichuan Province and Guanghan City to promote the creation of Sanxingdui National Cultural Relics Protection and Utilization Demonstration Zone, make good use of archaeological and historical research results, and protect, inherit and promote the Yangtze River culture.