Witnessed by Li Haichao, uncovering the discovery of "Sanxingdui's Largest Golden Mask"
2021 has passed, and Sanxingdui has not yet concluded a new round of archaeological excavations since 2020.
As the “super internet celebrity” who will do my part in the domestic archaeological community in 2021, three large-scale CCTV live broadcasts have made countless viewers excited. Every new artifact that appears attracts a lot of attention, and the mystery covering it remains undisturbed.
At the tip of the iceberg, archaeologists say these findings are just the tip of the iceberg.
They surrounded the top of this "iceberg", laid the most advanced instruments, equipped with the best experts, holding up layers of ivory, picking out tiny pieces of debris, and peeping into the depths of the sea of time. The ancient Shu civilization shimmers.
As the person in charge and witness of an archaeological cabin that was particularly difficult during the excavation, Li Haichao, a professor at the School of Archaeology and Cultural Sciences of Sichuan University, felt a lot of emotion when looking back on the "pit digging" experience in the past year.
The Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News reporter interviewed Li Haichao and asked him to tell the story behind the excavation of "Sanxingdui's Largest Golden Mask"...
Half a stunning golden mask
It looked like a crumpled ball of paper when it was first discovered
December 11, 2020 is the day when the Sichuan University archaeological team officially settled in the Sanxingdui archaeological cabin and began excavation work.
The six sacrificial pits newly discovered this time, numbered K3-K8, are behind the first two pits (K1 and K2) discovered in the 1980s.
Among them, K3, K4, and K8 each occupies an archaeological shelter, while the three pits of K5, K6 and K7 are covered in the same shelter—this kind of "unusual way" temperament has been from the beginning. Always accompanied by the archaeological excavations in this cabin.
"These three pits are relatively difficult to excavate. First, there is a broken relationship between No. 6 and No. 7. The later No. 6 pit destroyed part of the No. 7 pit. It is the only group that has a clear relationship between the date and the date. Sacrifice Pit.” Li Haichao said, “Although Pit 5 is the smallest, the contents are the most fragmented, the combination relationship is the most complicated, and the cleaning is the most difficult.”
What is even more daunting is that in the late No. 6 pit of that era, the ancient Shu people of Sanxingdui buried a wooden box.
The wood has long been charred, and the shape is supported by the soil filled in the box. The wooden box filled with soil is not only extremely heavy, but also very fragile. There is no possibility for archaeologists to lift it out of the pit with bare hands.
The two pits are like two entangled hands, one of which is still holding a fragile object.
In the process of separating the two hands, a little carelessness would ruin the things in his hands.
The rule of archaeological excavation is: first excavate the relics and sites with a later age, and then excavate the relics with an earlier age.
This sequence is also naturally reflected in the common ground stacking-the closer to the modern remains, the closer to the surface, slowly from top to bottom.
"Pit No. 5 and Pit No. 6 were dug at about the same time. On January 5, 2021, we found the half of the golden mask in Pit No. 5." Li Haichao recalled, “Because the artifacts in Pit No. 5 were generally more Small and finely broken. When I first showed up, I thought it was a small piece of gold."
The location where the mask was found is a bit southwest of the middle of Pit 5. As the archaeologists carefully cleaned the surrounding soil, they gradually discovered that it was a large piece of gold leaf.
The state of "gold leaf" originally unearthed resembles the famous sun bird at the Jinsha site-like a crumpled paper ball, completely squashed in the soil, and no real shape can be seen.
"But in the process of gradual cleaning, the shape of the nose and ears can be recognized. It is speculated that it may be a golden mask. Everyone is very excited." Li Haichao said.
This half of the mask is about 23 cm wide and 28 cm high, with a gold content of about 85%, a silver content of about 13% to 14%, and a weight of about 280 grams.
Based on this speculation, the complete weight of this golden mask should exceed 500 grams-larger and heavier than the golden mask unearthed at the Jinsha site in Chengdu, and also larger than the Sanxingdui Golden Rod (463 grams), the heaviest gold artifact of the Shang Dynasty unearthed in my country. It's even heavier.
"This golden mask is one of the earliest and most important artifacts in the new round of archaeological excavations in Sanxingdui, and it is also the largest golden mask ever discovered." Li Haichao said.
"There should be a large piece of gold under Pit 5, and new discoveries are still possible." If another half of the mask can be unearthed in subsequent excavations, then this complete golden mask will exceed the golden rod. It has become the heaviest gold object of the same period discovered in our country.
But most of these discoveries cannot be done on site: some round gold foils are distributed almost equidistantly in the pits, and there is a clear combination relationship with each other. This obvious rule is very special among the 6 pits.
In order to maintain the current distribution of these small gold pieces to the greatest extent, it is obvious that they cannot be extracted one by one individually.” Therefore, the experts’ suggestion is to cut them as a whole (including the clay gold pieces) and take them to the laboratory for further cleaning and research. ."
Archeology under the lens
Fragile wooden box
How to get out of the "difficulty in excavation cabin"?
Unlike most of the past and conventional field archeology, Sanxingdui, a "super internet celebrity", was exposed to various lenses and eyes during this round of archaeological excavations, in addition to live broadcasts. .
At the busiest times, the crowds entering and leaving the archaeological greenhouse can even be described as "a stream of constant flow"-archaeological colleagues who came to observe and exchange, teachers and students majoring in archaeology and cultural museums from major universities, and media reporters from all over the country occupied Quite a part of it.
Including in the archaeological cabins, there are also camera shots guarded by the pit at any time-CCTV and Sichuan TV will shoot the whole process, and use these valuable materials to edit documentaries in the future.
Documentaries also need plots. For this reason, in addition to objective records, these resident photographers are always looking for contradictions and conflicts in the process.
And they all "favored" the third cabin that Li Haichao was in charge of.
"The other pits are basically step-by-step and smoothly advancing. Only in our cabin, there are all kinds of difficulties from beginning to end."
The first two pits to be excavated have their own "unique problems"-the fine gold pieces of pit 5 dare not be easily disturbed, and even the cleaning work can only be done with the thinnest bamboo sticks, like picking between teeth. Do the work bit by bit.
Pit No. 6 is "a box is a closed door, and it is hard to open." It is necessary to protect the extremely fragile wooden box, and at the same time, to protect the original shape of the pit wall to the greatest extent.
“We just tried and revised the plan repeatedly. It took several months to find a balance between the protection of the relics and the relics.” Li Haichao said, “The wooden boxes in Pit 6 cannot be extracted a day, and Pit 7 is only one day. There is no way to dig. Watching other pits go down one after another, saying that it’s impossible not to worry about it. It’s not even possible for us to worry about it, because several cabins are opened. People in the next cabin often come over and look at it and bear it. Can't help worrying about us..."
They once considered tearing down part of the greenhouse and hoisting the wooden boxes out, but it was too much trouble to do so.
In the end, a relatively compromised method was adopted, which was still troublesome enough-densely packed scaffolding was set up in the cabin, steel pipes were laid on the ground, and the wooden box covered with a protective cover was slowly hoisted out of the pit and gently placed on the steel pipe, as in the past. When the ancient Egyptians were building the pyramids, they transported stones step by step through the door of cabin No. 8 next door.
Li Haichao clearly remembered that when the heavy wooden box finally "stepped out" of the door of cabin 8 and landed on the ground outside the cabin, he felt a big rock in his heart also fell to the ground.
"It took more than half a year to finally stand on the starting line with the other cabins, and you can let go and continue to dig pit 7."
Pit No. 7 was not very polite to them either: a large area of dense ivory intertwined, even through the gaps between the ivory, you can't peer into the deeper artifacts, you can only patiently lift it out one by one.
"So far, there have been 231 ivory pieces of various types-large and small, some with cut marks, some have been burned, and some have not been burned."
One of the most curious artifacts in Pit No. 7 is the tortoise-shaped grid-shaped bronze that appeared during the live broadcast in September this year but has not yet been extracted.
"It is certain that it has no practical functions"-a joke that some netizens say that the grid is like a barbecue grill-"It should be related to the sacrificial system of the ancient Shu people, but it is still difficult to speculate about its specific features in the sacrificial system What kind of function should it undertake?" Li Haichao said.
"It should be the most peculiar piece of bronze I have ever seen. I have never seen any similar to it before."
The mystery of the square hole in the bronze mask
Ancient Shu people are better than modern people
Imaginary go further
Li Bai's famous "The Road to Shu" describes the Sichuan Basin as a closed place isolated from the rest of the world.
"Can Cong and Yu Fu, how lost the founding of the country! You are forty-eight thousand years old, and you don’t live with Qin Sai..."
In fact, the communication between the ancient Shu people and the outside world, whether in closeness or the geographical distance spanned, far exceeds the imagination of most modern people.
"In the late Shang Dynasty, the entire Yangtze River Basin was connected by water to form a close network. Every point in this network was closely connected with the Shang Dynasty in the north." Li Haichao said, "The range of communication demonstrated by Sanxingdui And beyond this network-the jade cong with typical elements of Liangzhu culture, the shells from the tropical sea... and even the bronzes of Sanxingdui, many of them may not be produced locally."
He gave a very interesting example-many bronze masks in Sanxingdui Museum, with a square hole in the middle of the forehead.
"If you look closely, you will find that the shapes of these square holes are not consistent: some square holes are unconventional and are formed by casting at the same time as the mask; but there are also some square holes that are obviously cut out later. There are also scratches on individual masks that show: Maybe a craftsman tried to cut but eventually gave up processing."
Why did the ancestors of Sanxingdui put so much effort into "post-processing"?
"A reasonable guess is that the person who made these masks was not from Sanxingdui, and they forgot to leave this hole because of negligence. After the people in Sanxingdui got it, they had to perform secondary processing in order to use it." Li Haichao said, " Therefore, some of the bronzes may be customized products by the ancestors of Sanxingdui, not produced locally, and the source is not single. On the other hand, we also believe that some of the bronzes are probably made by the ancestors of Sanxingdui, and they must be Have this ability."
One of Li Haichao's main research topics is "Shang and Zhou bronzes from the perspective of resources and society".
In his eyes, the bronzes of Sanxingdui are a microcosm of the close connection between ancient Shu and the surrounding world.
"Which of these bronzes are produced by Sanxingdui itself? Which ones are produced in other regions? Why do people in other regions make such bronzes for Sanxingdui? I hope that by studying these issues, I can see how Sanxingdui and the surrounding world were formed in the same period. This kind of huge communication network can also better understand the significance and role of Sanxingdui in the development of ancient Shu civilization."
Chengdu Commercial Daily-Red Star News Reporter Qiao Xueyang
Interview Notes
The theory of time relativity in the archaeological cabin of Sanxingdui
The first time I entered the Sanxingdui excavation site was June 23, 2021, less than a month after the large-scale live broadcast at the end of May.
As a newcomer "pit explorer", my luck is very good: I saw a huge bronze mask unearthed from Pit 3 in the morning.
When we got to the edge of the pit, the big mask was lying face down in the pit, which had been carefully reinforced with wooden strips and wrapped with ropes.
I happily sat down by the pit, holding my phone and waiting for the moment when the mask came out of the pit.
Then I waited until 4 o'clock in the afternoon... During this period, I followed the archaeological team members on the spot to have lunch, and took a lunch break in their rented dormitory, and then followed them back to the archaeological cabin.
Sitting by the side of the pit, my eyes straightened. For the first time in my life, I had a deep understanding of the "slow progress" of archaeological excavations. There was almost a pit of loess in Pit No. 7, and the two workers shoveled unhurriedly. On the ground, the archaeological team went around in the pit, doing various recording work.
From time to time, people ran to the side of Pit 3 and looked at their pits full of artifacts enviously.
One of the most interesting details on the scene is a small game invented by the young archaeologists themselves: wearing white protective clothing, they walked to the exhaust fan in the cabin one by one, opened their cuffs to fill the protective clothing with a cool breeze, and the whole person instantly blasted. I got up and turned into the "big white" appearance in the animation "Big Hero 6", very happy.
Finally, when the bronze mask was slowly hoisted and put into the sponge-covered wooden box, the side of the pit was filled with people unknowingly-everyone in the four cabins came to watch and take pictures, and then I also have to take photos with the wooden box one after another, and the excitement is evident.
This kind of grand occasion is indeed rare.
Because later I went to explore the pit twice, and I was sure that most of the time they were only slowly erasing the ancient time deposited on the artifacts bit by bit, and few objects could be extracted from the pit in a few days.
I could not help but ask Li Haichao the first time: When you were sitting by the pit, did you feel that time flies particularly slowly?
He said no, all kinds of work are piled up on hand, and he can't be idle from morning to night.
I have also gradually realized the unique theory of time relativity in the archaeological site—for bystanders, there is only the surprise and curiosity of the moment of "new" in their eyes. Every minute of a careful search has its own academic significance.
For the artifacts in the pit that have been asleep for more than 3,000 years, time has already stagnated, and the soil wraps them like cocoons, drifting slowly in another dimension, forgetting civilization and the world, until we salvaged them ashore again. The coat of time slowly peeled off, retrieving the ancient memories that belonged to them.
(Qiao Xueyang)