[Explanation] With more than half of the archaeological excavation process at Sanxingdui site, nearly 10,000 cultural relics have been unearthed from the sacrificial pits 3 to 8 in the current round of excavations.
On September 9, the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology announced the latest excavations at the Sanxingdui site since May 2021 in Guanghan, Sichuan. Archaeologists have discovered more than 500 new cultural relics, including a complete golden mask and a bronze god "Altar" and "National Treasures" such as the sacred tree pattern jade cong.
No. 3 sacrificial pit is called the "treasure bowl" among the eight sacrificial pits. It is located in the middle of the excavation area of the site. In this sacrificial pit, 478 relatively complete relics and 141 fragments have been unearthed.
In addition to the rare bronze statue of a kneeling statue composed of the upper part of the bronze statue and the lower part of the portrait, there are copper altars, sacred tree pattern jade cong and other artifacts, which are unique in themes, rich in details, and have never been seen before. .
So far, archaeologists have cleaned 68 bronze wares, 32 ivory, 1 gold ware, and 3 jade wares, and collected 721 samples.
The reporter learned at the scene that after a huge golden mask was found in Sanxingdui No. 5 sacrificial pit, another golden mask was found in No. 3 sacrificial pit.
This golden mask is relatively intact. It is 40 cm wide and 27 cm high. It is the largest one among the complete golden masks found at the Sanxingdui site.
The No. 3 pit god tree pattern jade cong, the whole object is processed from a whole piece of gray-white jade material, and the corresponding two sides are carved with god tree pattern, and the notch is relatively shallow.
The rare sacred tree pattern jade cong provides an important basis for studying the meaning and symbolism of the sacred tree in ancient Shu society.
[Concurrent] Ran Honglin, Director, Sanxingdui Institute of Archaeology, Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
These are some typical unearthed artifacts, including the kneeling figure of the top deity that has been announced to the outside world before, and the Lifa bronze figure in the middle that we jokingly call "Zhuge Liang".
Next to it is the bronze statue. Its most notable feature is that the image of the beast on the shoulders is more prominent. It is the image of the bird with the first title of the beast. It has not been seen before. This is the golden mask found in Pit 3 and additional A bronze cover that climbs a dragon.
[Explanation] All the relics of Pit 4, which have been excavated at a faster rate, have been extracted. A total of 79 complete artifacts and 1,073 broken parts have been unearthed.
The complete tool includes 9 pieces of jade, all of which are from buried deposits.
The three bronze statues unearthed in Pit 4, kneeling, all of the same size and shape, seem to belong to the same piece of bronze.
The portrait is in a kneeling font, the body is slightly tilted to the front left, the head is slightly twisted to the right side of the body, and the hands are held in a half-necked shape on the front left of the body, showing a strong sense of weight.
[Concurrent] Ran Honglin, Director, Sanxingdui Institute of Archaeology, Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
The overall shape of these three turned heads and kneeling portraits is basically the same, but the facial features are slightly different.
Compared with the bronze statues of human figures unearthed in the past at the Sanxingdui site, these three artifacts have more prominent features that resemble real people. These three artifacts are obviously different from the bronze artifacts unearthed before.
[Explanation] Ran Honglin also stated that the sacred tree unearthed in Pit No. 3 of the Sanxingdui site is related to the base of the sacred tree unearthed in Pit No. 2 in 1986. It belongs to the part immediately upward from the base, and both ends are connected by mortise and tenon pieces.
As for the remains of cultural relics unearthed in different sacrificial pits, in the future, they will consciously cross the pits to match them, and perhaps there will be more important discoveries from them.
At present, no written words have been found in the six sacrificial pits.
The excavation of the sacrificial pits at the Sanxingdui site led by the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and the field excavations of the six sacrificial pits, are expected to be completed before the Spring Festival in 2022.
Reporter He Xi from Guanghan, Sichuan
Editor in charge: [Ji Xiang]