[Explanation] With the archaeological excavation of the 6 "sacrifice pits" in Sanxingdui, the Sanxingdui culture once again attracted the attention of the world.
Facing "one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of mankind in the 20th century", people have been asking for decades: Who created the huge, mysterious and splendid Sanxingdui culture?
Huo Wei, dean of the School of History and Culture (School of Tourism) of Sichuan University and curator of the Sichuan University Museum, said in an interview recently that the origin of Sanxingdui was not an alien civilization.
[Concurrent] Huo Wei, Director of Sichuan University Museum
How can we say that there are some external factors, or when these factors are still a possibility, we will describe the entire Sanxingdui as a product of foreign civilizations, or even more bizarrely, say that Sanxingdui is from outer space? Astronauts, these are nonsense.
[Explanation] Huo Wei believes that a large number of archaeological evidence shows that the ancient Shu civilization represented by the Sanxingdui bronze civilization is an important part of the ancient Chinese civilization.
At the same time, in the development process, it has absorbed the factors of civilization in the surrounding areas, and these surrounding areas are mostly located in China from the perspective of today's territory.
[Concurrent] Huo Wei, Director of Sichuan University Museum
Therefore, we must correctly view the Sanxingdui culture with such multiple factors, but its foundation is still very solidly established on the land of China.
In a sense, it is also our Xia, Shang and Zhou period. Under the big framework, it is a distinctive regional culture. I think it is accurate to understand it in this way.
[Explanation] This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Chinese archaeology.
Huo Wei bluntly said that the nearly 90 years of archaeological excavations at Sanxingdui site reflect the development of Chinese archaeology.
Long ago, the Chinese archaeological community abandoned the concept of "aim at artifacts and excavate", but hoped to trace and restore ancient history through archaeological excavations.
[Concurrent] Huo Wei, Director of Sichuan University Museum
On the ivory, we have seen it from under the high-resolution microscope that it is carved, so now so many ivory burial, it seems that it is not just ivory, there may be some mysterious patterns on it.
If we can understand the problem in this way, why would a large amount of ivory be buried in Sanxingdui?
This phenomenon may also lead to some reasonable explanations.
So I believe that through the excavation of the latest six pits, it will definitely enrich and improve some new materials that were not available in the past one or two pits.
Some of our old problems are eager to be solved, and some new problems will give archaeologists and historians more research space after they are put forward, so this is of great significance.
[Explanation] Facing new archaeological concepts, new archeological techniques, and new archaeological organization systems, Huo Wei believes that Chinese archaeology has ushered in its "golden age".
But from a research perspective, the Sanxingdui culture poses more problems than can be solved.
At present, the research of various experts on Sanxingdui is still in its infancy, and mankind has just reached the gate of the mysterious "sacrifice pit" in Sanxingdui, and there are still many problems that have not been resolved.
Reporter He Xi from Chengdu
Editor in charge: [Ji Xiang]