Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, April 13 -
Feature articles: "Sanxingdui" dialogue "Maya" - across time and space "Locally Colored"
Xinhua News Agency reporter Chen Yao Huang Shunda Wu Hao
Sanxingdui, the Chinese civilization that "sleeps" for three thousand years and "woke up" to shock the world.
Maya, a mysterious and glorious American civilization that has been hidden for nearly a thousand years.
It seems that they are irrelevant, but archaeologists have found many similarities between the two.
Is it a magical coincidence across civilizations, or a tacit dialogue that intersects time and space?
As the "tellers" of historical relics, Chinese and Mexican archaeologists recently gave authoritative explanations in an interview with Xinhua News Agency.
The "sacred tree" myth
"The residents of Sanxingdui and the Mayans once looked up at the same sky and counted the same stars." Marco Antonio Santos, head of the Mayan civilization site in Chichen Itza, Mexico, said emotionally in an interview.
Chichen Itza is located on the Yucatan Peninsula in southeastern Mexico. It was once the most prosperous city-state in the ancient Maya country. It was built in the 5th century and was an important site at the peak of Mayan urban culture.
Li Xinwei, a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who had traveled to Central America to participate in the excavation of the Maya Copan site, explained that Sanxingdui and the ancient Maya country were located in subtropical and tropical regions respectively, and the climate in the Sichuan Basin was hotter during the Sanxingdui period than it is now, so the two civilizations The natural environment of formation and development is very close.
At the same time, residents of similar latitudes can see the same starry sky. Observing the stars to control the agricultural time is crucial to the formation of the agricultural-based Sanxingdui residents and the Maya cosmology.
All of these provide an idea for the study of the similarities between the two civilizations.
The relics of Sanxingdui's "new" cultural relics contain many fragments of bronze sacred trees.
According to the introduction of archaeologists, the image of the sacred tree has repeatedly appeared in the Mayan civilization.
Santos said that Maya has the image of the kapok holy tree, which shows the universe and symbolizes the combination of elements such as heaven and earth.
The bronze sacred tree in Sanxingdui has many similarities with the kapok sacred tree in the Mayan civilization, reflecting the similar cosmology of the two civilizations.
On this point, Li Xinwei has the same view.
He said that many experts have proposed that both Maya civilization and Chinese civilization divide the universe into three levels: underground, human, and heaven.
The sky tree connects the sky and the earth, becoming a communication channel between humans and supernatural gods.
The common purpose of their communication should be to hope that the weather will be smooth, everything will grow, and they hope to maintain the normal operation of the entire universe.
In a tomb found in the ancient city-state of Palenque, a Mayan site in Mexico, archaeologists excavated a large sarcophagus. The cover of the sarcophagus was exquisitely carved. Among them, there is a picture of the city-state king rebirth from the underground world and ascend to the heavens along the sky tree.
Technical dialogue
Santos has long been concerned about the progress of Sanxingdui archaeology, and his recent excavations have made him very excited.
He said that interdisciplinary experts and multiple institutions from all over China participated in the Sanxingdui archaeological excavation. "Excavating cultural relics is like performing a surgical operation. I am very interested in seeing such a high-level application of archaeological technology."
Santos and Li Xinwei both mentioned examples of unearthed silk.
Santos said that if archaeologists fail to use technology properly, they may destroy silk in the process of exploration and excavation.
With technical support, Sanxingdui successfully unearthed silk and other textile residues.
The unearthed silk showed that the weaving and planting technology was developed at that time, and further confirmed the prosperity of ancient Shu civilization at that time.
Li Xinwei said that during the excavation work, a number of laboratories were installed and built on the site. The archaeological "excavation chamber" filled with various equipment can control temperature and humidity. It can not only perform timely three-dimensional scanning, recording, and analysis of the excavation site, but also The unearthed cultural relics provide comprehensive protection.
In terms of restoration and preservation of cultural relics, Santos said that the Mayan civilization is located in the wet and rainy Yucatan Peninsula. Archaeologists often find it difficult to properly preserve human bones after excavating human bones due to climatic factors. The protection techniques used in the Sanxingdui excavation of ivory can be used to protect Mayan cultural relics. .
He hopes to have the opportunity to learn new technologies and experiences in China to be used in Mayan archaeological activities.
"Beauty together"
The Sanxingdui site is hailed as "one of the most important archaeological discoveries of mankind in the 20th century", and the Mayan civilization has the name "Greece of America".
Li Xinwei, who has visited the Mayan hinterland many times, believes that both the Chinese civilization and the Maya civilization displayed in Sanxingdui have shown "shocking creativity."
Li Xinwei once led a joint archaeological team between China and Honduras, using Chinese technology to preside over the excavation of a site in the ancient city of Copan in Maya.
He believes that it is exciting to bring Chinese archaeological technology overseas, while the Mayan civilization and other overseas civilizations help us better understand and understand the formation and development of Chinese civilization.
"Human society has different development paths. Respecting and maintaining this state of development of harmonious coexistence is what I understand as'the beauty of each, the beauty of the beauty, and the beauty of each other.'" Li Xinwei said.
"No matter which language we speak, cultural exchanges make us more united like brothers, and our friendship will continue to deepen." Santos said at last.
(Participating reporters: Xi Yue, Jiang Biao)