The discoverers of a century-old relay
China News Weekly reporter/Bao Anqi
Published in the 989th issue of China News Weekly on March 29, 2020
It was extremely hot in Guanghan, Sichuan in July 1986. There was no wind, and people would sweat when sitting still.
Under this kind of weather, a brick factory in Nanxing Township, a township enterprise, is still taking soil every day.
Nanxing Township was originally called Dongxing People’s Commune. After the reform and opening up, the name of the People’s Commune was removed for the first time in the country.
Brick factories need a lot of soil to make bricks, and Sanxingdui piles have become a good place to borrow soil.
When the Sichuan Provincial Archaeological Team (now Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology) moved in in 1980, there were two and a half piles in Sanxingdui. By 1986, only half of them were left, standing tall.
Local farmers call this kind of soil "sacred soil".
Digging from the lowest part of the steep ridge, digging like a tunnel, after reaching a certain depth, insert a steel drill from the top and pry hard, the large piece of soil will collapse, and you can dig about two in a day.
A peculiar "tacit understanding" relationship formed between the archaeological team and the local farmers.
The peasants can generally obtain soil from the places excavated by the archaeological team.
This is also a convenience for them, because the "clutter" in the soil has been cleaned up.
Sometimes they dug up some "rare" things, and they also took the initiative to show them to the archaeological team.
The problem is that the speed of peasants' excavation far exceeds the progress of the excavation by the archaeological team.
It's like a running race.
"The Sanxingdui site at that time was nothing, not a'provincial guarantee', not even a'national guarantee', not even a'county guarantee'. That was the most difficult time in Sanxingdui." At that time, the archaeological team leader and the famous "two" "Chen" Chen Xiandan lamented "China News Weekly".
Both Chen are the leaders of the archaeological team. The local migrant workers call Chen De'an "Mr. Da Chen" or "Ms. Chen Glasses", and Chen Xiandan as "Ms. Xiao Chen".
But the most difficult time is when dawn breaks.
On July 18, 1986, the "sacrifice pit" in Sanxingdui was born, waking up and shocking the world.
In 2005, Lei Yu succeeded Chen De'an as the leader of the Sanxingdui archaeological team. He is now the head of the Sanxingdui Site Station of the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.
Since contacting Sanxingdui archaeology in 1984, his deepest feeling is that he must persist.
"Persistence must be rewarded." Lei Yu told China News Weekly.
Discover Moon Bay
In 1963, Lin Xiang, a young assistant professor in the History Department of Sichuan University, came to Guanghan Moon Bay with another teacher from the Archaeology Teaching and Research Office.
They are here to fight for Professor Feng Hanji.
Feng Hanji went to the United States to study in the 1930s. He studied in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University Graduate School and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. In the summer of 1936, he received a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania.
After that, he taught at Harvard University and concurrently served as the director of Harvard University Hanhe Library (later renamed "Harvard Yenching Library").
At the invitation of Li Ji, he declined the retention of the school as a "tenured professor" and returned to China to co-found the Institute of Anthropology of the Academia Sinica with Li Ji.
After the relocation of the War of Resistance Against Japan, he prepared to build the Sichuan Museum and presided over the excavation of the tomb of Wang Jian.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, he served as the curator of the Sichuan Museum, concurrently as a professor of the History Department and director of the Archaeology Department of Sichuan University.
Lin Xiang completed his undergraduate and graduate studies in the History Department of Sichuan University.
At that time, the living conditions were difficult. There was no bookshelf, so I used bricks to support my bookshelf, but the academic atmosphere was very good, "it’s not like you are forced to publish papers in schools nowadays."
At that time, I wanted to buy a bicycle, so I asked the teacher to borrow it if I had no money.
One or two nights a week, he and his brother will go to the home of their tutor Feng Hanji.
Feng Hanji loves to drink, and often drinks with Professor Xu Zhongshu, the dean of the History Department and the famous pre-Qin historian, Lin Xiang and others will accompany him to drink a little and listen to their conversations.
Teachers would ask them what problems they encountered in school, and they would ask the teacher to answer them.
"That feels very good." Lin Xiang recalled China News Weekly.
During the period of the Anti-Japanese War, Feng Hanji was hired as a professor of the Department of Sociology at West China Union University, and had a close relationship with Ge Weihan, the curator of the West China Union University Museum.
Ge Weihan was the first excavator in Sanxingdui. In 1934, he organized an archaeological team to excavate near the Yanjia Yard in Moon Bay and put forward the concept of "Guanghan Culture", which opened the prelude to the archaeological research of Sanxingdui.
The archaeological unearthed cultural relics were donated by the local government to the West China Union University Museum hosted by Ge Weihan, and they are still intact in the Sichuan University Museum.
The various archive materials made by Ge Weihan that year are also well preserved, and each collection has a thread.
Due to such historical origins, Feng Hanji has been planning further archaeology of Moon Bay.
Lin Xiang waited and stood before the fight, and brought back some fragments of pottery beans, pots, etc. "Ms. Feng said something was going on."
In September 1963, the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Administration and the Archaeology Teaching and Research Section of the History Department of Sichuan University jointly formed an archaeological team, under the guidance of Feng Hanji, to excavate the Moon Bay site for the first time since the founding of New China.
15 students participated in this excavation.
Moon Bay is an earth ridge shaped like a crescent. The Yan's courtyard where a large number of jade artifacts were discovered back then is located here. The excavation proved to be the remains of the city wall.
The ridge of Moon Bay and Sanxingduizi face across the Mamu River, forming the so-called "Samsung Moon with Moon" landscape.
As for what Sanxingdui duizi is, there are still divergent opinions.
Some people think it is part of the city wall, and some people think it is a sacrificial stand. It is unknown whether it was originally a pile.
People used to think that Moon Bay and Sanxingdui were two separate sites. As the excavations deepened, they realized that they are actually the north and south parts of the same site. The north is the living area and the south is the sacrificial area, so they are now collectively referred to as the Sanxingdui site. .
At that time, there were still two and a half mounds in Sanxingdui.
The terrain of this area is high in the north and low in the south. Lin Xiang remembered that Feng Hanji was sitting on the ridge of Moon Bay, looking at Sanxingdui and said, "You see, this place is a king, it may be a city."
The excavation work was carried out from September 23 to December 3, and the excavation area was 150 square meters.
Feng Hanji digs with the students. The only tools are flat-head shovel and pointed-head shovel. The flat-head shovel is used to scrape the soil layer and the pointed-head shovel is used to pick up the soil.
Lin Xiang said that the archaeological excavations at that time were still very irregular. Some people dig 10 centimeters at a time, which is wrong.
The color and quality of the soil are different, so it needs to be layered.
Regrettably, Feng Hanji fell ill soon after the excavation, and his health continued to be poor. Therefore, the results of this excavation have not been sorted out.
It was not until 30 years later that Ma Jixian, who participated in the excavation work that year, wrote the "Excavations of the Guanghan Moon Bay Site".
After this excavation, Sanxingdui fell silent again.
"Treasure Digging Team"
In 1972, because the country wanted to hold an exhibition of cultural relics abroad, archaeological work was restored before other industries.
Zhao Dianzeng of the 62nd class archaeology class of the History Department of Peking University took the opportunity to apply to return to the team.
The Sichuan Provincial Organization Department directly sent him a letter and transferred him to the Sichuan Provincial Museum, which caused a sensation in the remote mountainous area of Huidong County, Sichuan.
In early 1973, he was on a business trip for the first time, and he followed Li Fuhua, Wang Jiayou and other old scholars to Pixian to excavate a sarcophagus tomb with Han Dynasty portraits.
During the May Day, they collated the materials of this excavation on Qingcheng Mountain.
During this period, fellow Liu Panshi was copying the "Supplementary Notes to Huayang Guozhi School" by Ren Naiqiang, an ethnic historian.
Everyone told him that Huayang refers to the south of Huashan, mainly the southwestern region of today, with Bashu as the main area.
"Huayang Guozhi" was written in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. It is China's first local chronicle and the most important document on the ancient history of Sichuan.
It was after reading this book that Li Bai wrote the famous "Difficult Road to Shu": "Can Cong and Yu Fu, how lost is the founding of the country. You are forty-eight thousand years old, and you don't live with Qin Sai."
"The history of the ancient Shu Kingdom that we are measuring now can be traced back to 4800 years ago. Li Bai just exaggerated it by 10 times." Zhao Dianzeng said with a smile.
Zhao Dianzeng also transcribed some chapters of the "Huayang Guozhi School Supplementary Notes", and began to use archaeological methods to explore the mystery of the history of Shu.
He was promoted quickly when he was young and from a professional background.
In 1975, he served as the deputy director of the Ancient History Department (later the archaeological team) of the Sichuan Provincial Museum, responsible for daily work.
He told China News Weekly that the archaeological work at that time was basically in cooperation with infrastructure. Once someone found traces of cultural relics, they would call them, and people would shout "Lao Zhao, call!" all day long.
He was like a "fire-fighting captain" and had no chance to realize his dream.
The opportunity finally arrived in the spring of 1980.
On April 13th of this year, he and his colleagues went to Pengxian County, Sichuan Province, and retrieved a batch of bronze wares that had just been unearthed from the cellars of the Western Zhou Dynasty, including two large bronze wares later designated as "national treasures."
They were afraid that the other party would go back, and hurriedly withdrew when they were happy. There was nothing on the way, so they decided to stop by the Guanghan Moon Bay site to have a look.
At that time, Sanxingdui's reputation was far less than that of Moon Bay.
They drove a big Beijing jeep and asked all the way, when they arrived at the entrance of Sanxingdui village, the fellow asked them what they were looking for. They said they were looking for broken tiles dug from the ground, and the other party said they were there.
They followed the villagers to the cross-section of the brick factory to take a look at the black cultural layer ("cultural layer" is an archaeological term, referring to the unnatural formation that contains the relics of human life), which is more than one meter thick and hundreds of meters long. .
In a short while, everyone selected more than 300 specimens, including small flat-bottomed pots, high-handled beans, stone axes and other roughly complete artifacts.
After I moved to the car, there was no place for my feet.
After reporting back to the museum, the curator's meeting immediately decided to organize a team to excavate.
Zhao Dianzeng was about to go to Ertan Reservoir to investigate cultural relics, and the other three also had their own work arrangements, so Wang Youpeng was transferred back from other construction sites to take charge of the excavation.
Wang Youpeng was the first batch of graduates of Sichuan University majoring in archaeology. In 1963, he participated in the archaeological excavation of Moon Bay with Feng Hanji.
The excavation site was chosen next to the third pile of Sanxingdui. The trial excavation area was about 100 square meters, and many pottery pieces and stone tools were unearthed.
Experts believe that further excavations are necessary. For this purpose, an excavation team was specially organized, which was headed by Wang Youpeng, with both Chen De'an and Chen Xiandan participating.
Er Chen is a classmate who just graduated from Sichuan University majoring in archaeology.
Chen Xiandan recalled that he was demobilized as a soldier in 1976 and worked in a cultural relics store in Sichuan Province. His monthly salary was more than 30 yuan. When the experts in the store bought a cultural relic, it cost two to three hundred yuan. He felt that this thing was very mysterious, 1977 I chose archaeology when I was in college.
Sichuan University has a strong archaeology specialty, and there are many famous teachers, such as Lin Xiang, Tong Enzheng, and Ma Jixian.
Teacher Yang Jianfang spoke slowly and quietly during class, and went to the dormitory to counsel them at night.
It is a pity that Mr. Feng Hanji passed away in the year he entered the school.
The excavation time is set at half a month, and the funding is 3,000 to 4,000 yuan.
The wages for hiring migrant workers are one yuan and two cents a day, which is more than 30 yuan a month, while the wages of Chen Xiandan and others are only 52 yuan and five cents.
The excavation team lives in the dormitory of Sanxingdui Second Brick Factory.
In November 1980, the excavation began.
A total of 6 detectives were deployed, and two Chen were responsible for two of them.
The local farmers called them "treasure digging teams" and watched the excitement every day. They were disappointed to see that all they were dug out were rubble and broken tiles. They persuaded them not to dig any more, and they would lose money by digging again.
But they continue to dig every year.
After the aerial photography and field mapping work is over, we are faced with the question of whether to protect the foundations of houses and tombs found in archaeology.
The leaders solicited opinions extensively. Some senior experts suggested that the time of the site will not be earlier than the Spring and Autumn Period, and there is no need to over-protect it. The leaders in charge of Guanghan County also proposed that “the farmers should eat”. The compromise was that the brick factory should not arbitrarily pick up the site. The land, the acquisition point must be approved by the archaeological team.
In 1982, the archaeological report was completed.
Chen Xiandan wrote the relic part, Chen De'an wrote the artifact part, and Wang Youpeng was responsible for compiling the draft.
According to the report, the site already has several conditions for naming a new archaeological culture as Xia Nai said. “If you dare not give it a new name it deserves, it would be too conservative.” Therefore, it is recommended that this The ancient culture was named "Sanxingdui Culture".
Soon, Wang Youpeng left the archaeological team and was transferred to the deputy curator of the Provincial Museum.
"Er Chen" became the head of the archaeological team.
The first "National Conference on Archaeological Excavations" held in Chengdu in 1984 is considered to mark the arrival of the golden age of Chinese archaeology.
At the meeting, Chen Xiandan reported on the excavation work in Sanxingdui in recent years. Su Bingqi, the chairman of the Chinese Archaeological Society, believed that it was "systematic and has characteristics", saying that this is the Bashu culture and should be regarded as the growth point of the discipline.
According to the decision of the Chengdu Conference, a leader system for archaeological excavations shall be implemented, and the leader must pass an assessment and hold a license.
Chen De'an and Chen Xiandan participated in the team leader training class organized by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage in Yanzhou, Shandong, and both obtained the team leader license.
Sanxingdui is like the best training ground
In early 1986, Lin Xiang approached Zhao Dianzeng, hoping to arrange the internship of the archaeological students in Sanxingdui.
Lin Xiang said that he has been the director of the archaeology teaching and research section of Sichuan University for many years. He always "pleased grandpa to tell grandma" in order to obtain internship opportunities, because in the archaeology circle, some people would have a kind of "this site belongs to me, you can't come to me." Here to dig" consciousness.
But Zhao Dianzeng readily agreed.
In February 1986, the Archaeology Teaching and Research Section of the History Department of Sichuan University cooperated with the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology to arrange archaeological excavation practice for more than 20 students in the 1984 archaeology class of Sichuan University.
The internship is divided into two stages. The first stage is archaeological excavation, and the second stage is data compilation. The duration is one and a half months.
This is the largest excavation in the history of Sanxingdui. It is divided into three excavation areas, one for each student, one for exploration, and four migrant workers.
The excavation has yielded great results. The excavation of 16 stratums proved that the Sanxingdui site has a continuous history from 5,000 to 2,600 years ago.
The outline of the development of the Ancient Shu Kingdom is ready to emerge.
Especially in the second excavation area, a bronze pit was found. Inside, there was a round copper yin, a square copper yin, and a jade yin. Unfortunately, they were all fragments, presumably a "tomb."
But this is not a "tomb", but the number one "sacrifice pit" that shocked the world.
It was 30 meters east of this excavation area, and it was discovered only a few months later.
"You were unlucky during the whole process, and that sacrificial pit was missed. Passing by, you didn't find it." Lin Xiang said flatly.
Chen Xiandan recalled that on the afternoon of July 18, 1986, the archaeological team was sorting out information at the station. Suddenly a migrant worker came to inform them that they had "taken out the jade" about 15 meters below the ridge, and everyone at the scene was robbing it.
Chen Xiandan and Chen De'an immediately put down their work and rushed to the scene.
Their station was about 100 meters away from the scene, and they arrived in less than two minutes.
What happened after that was a matter of course.
Chen Xiandan recalled that after the sacrificial pits No. 1 and No. 2 were unearthed one after another, they began to draft documents and applied for Sanxingdui to be listed as a national security unit.
He and a deputy director of the Guanghan Bureau of Culture and Education brought documents from the Sichuan Provincial Department of Culture and the Provincial Government to the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.
In January 1988, the State Council approved it and Sanxingdui was listed as a national key cultural relics protection unit.
"After getting this thing, we will get the Shangfang sword. You can no longer dig earth and burn bricks here. After that, we established the Sanxingdui site cultural relic protection workstation." Chen Xiandan said.
This time, Sanxingdui restarted the excavation, and Lin Xiang has been watching live TV.
He told China News Weekly that the director of the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau who guided the excavations was his student and has always had a lot of money.
He said that in this multi-sectoral joint excavation, they tested it while digging. In the past, they had to retrieve the materials first and then send them out for identification.
For example, the pottery he unearthed from the Sanxingdui site is so thick that it is likely to be a crucible used for smelting. However, because it is all dust, the migrant workers must clean it first. Once it is washed, it becomes an ordinary pottery. Up.
Archaeology is different now, "a piece of mud cannot be thrown away", and all are left.
This is the characteristic of modern archaeology. He has gone to foreign countries to conduct excavations, and it is like this in developed countries. There is a large team, and they tested it at that time.
Lin Xiang also felt that the public paid too much attention to the visual impact and sensational effect of the Sanxingdui sacrifice pit.
He said that in fact, in the excavation of Sanxingdui, the stratum is the most important, and the chronology can be determined.
What is Sanxingdui culture?
The "sacrifice pit" is not equivalent to the Sanxingdui culture, it is just a branch of the Sanxingdui culture.
The essence of Sanxingdui culture is the light of civilization in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
This is another civilization parallel to the Xia, Shang and Zhou civilizations, which are closely related but different from each other.
The "sacrifice pit" is like a melon knotted on a vine. How can there be a melon without a vine?
He said that it is best to use "ink stain tactics" in field archaeology.
Like a drop of ink in a basin of water, the ink will faint.
The same is true for academics. If you study it a little bit, you will get through.
In his view, Sanxingdui has not only produced many amazing cultural relics, but more importantly, it has cultivated people.
The centuries-old excavation in Sanxingdui is like the best training ground, and those who walk out from here are now the pillars of the archaeological world.
(Intern Xu Ying also contributed to this article)
China News Weekly, Issue 11, 2021
Statement: The publication of the "China News Weekly" manuscript is authorized in writing