Tracing the origin of the ancient Shu civilization, the word "Shu" appeared in oracle bone inscriptions and inscriptions in bronze
On June 13, the archaeological excavation of the Sanxingdui site, a major project of "Archaeological China", released the latest archaeological results. The unearthed tortoise-shaped grid-shaped objects, bronze pig-nosed dragon-shaped objects, bronze statues with snake bodies on top, and bronze heads with golden masks were unearthed. ...adding new evidence to the pluralism of Chinese civilization.
Regarding the ancient Shu Kingdom, the historical records are extremely brief, and most of them are of the nature of myth and legend.
Therefore, to correctly understand the history of the ancient Shu Kingdom, we can only rely on archaeological excavations and research results.
Among the many ancient Shu civilization sites, Sanxingdui is the most core site. Its discovery and excavation have gradually revealed the confusing early ancient Shu civilization to the world.
Lei Yu graduated from the Department of History, Peking University, majoring in archaeology, and is currently the head and researcher of the Sanxingdui Site Workstation of the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology.
For more than 30 years, he has presided over and participated in a series of important sites and tombs of the ancient Shu civilization from the Neolithic Age to the Warring States Period, such as the Longan Bridge Site in Shifang, the Sanxingdui Site in Guanghan, the Shaxi Site in Ya'an, and the Shifang Ship Coffin Cemetery, as well as the Yili Site in Vietnam. Field excavation, indoor sorting and report compilation work, currently presiding over "Sanxingdui - 1980-2005 Archaeological Excavation Report", 2012-2018 Sanxingdui site series archaeological excavation report, compilation, and "14th Five-Year Plan" period Sanxingdui site archaeological exploration and excavation work.
Before talking about Sanxingdui, Lei Yu first talked about a piece of "Ancient Shu History" recorded in ancient books.
He said: "The ancient state of Shu is an ancient country located in the western part of the Sichuan Basin. The name 'Shu' appeared many times in the oracle bone inscriptions and gold inscriptions of the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, and participated in the battle of King Wu to defeat Zhou. According to the Western Han historian Yang "The Chronicles of the King of Shu" written by Xiong records that the ancient state of Shu experienced successively five dynasties: Silkworm Cong, Baiguan, Yufu, Du Yu, and Kaiming. In 316 BC, Shu was destroyed by Qin, and the land of Shu was incorporated into the central government. Unified management of the dynasty."
The site covers an area of 12 square kilometers, and the Qingguanshan rammed earth platform is suspected to be "Miyagi"
After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the archaeological work of the Sanxingdui site entered a critical period, and new discoveries continued to subvert people's inherent understanding of the history of ancient Shu.
Lei Yu said that from the 1950s to the 1970s, a number of archaeological institutions in Sichuan conducted many investigations at the Sanxingdui site, and conducted small-scale test excavations on the Yueliangwan platform, realizing that the Sanxingdui site should be an ancient Shu cultural site, possibly an ancient Shu is an extremely important political and cultural center.
Many people have been to the Sanxingdui Museum in Guanghan, where the exquisite and uniquely shaped bronzes are amazing, but most people do not know much about the area and scale of the Sanxingdui site.
Lei Yu introduced that since the 1980s, the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and other units have continued to conduct comprehensive and systematic archaeological investigations (150 square kilometers), archaeological exploration (12 square kilometers) and archaeological excavations (20,000 square meters) at the Sanxingdui site. Work.
Lei Yu said: "At present, we have basically grasped the distribution range, accumulation and preservation of the site. The Sanxingdui site has a distribution area of 12 square kilometers, which is the largest pre-Qin period site in the southwest. The core of the Sanxingdui site is about 3.6 square kilometers. , Sanxingdui Ancient City, the largest ancient city in the Xia and Shang periods in southern China (a large city, several small cities, first small cities, then large cities), with the development of settlement archaeological work since the 'Twelfth Five-Year Plan', the layout of the city site has gradually become clear. The appearance of the urban site has gradually emerged."
It is understood that the Sanxingdui Ancient City is divided into several different functional areas by multiple city walls. Since a large-scale building complex of the Shang Dynasty was discovered on the Qingguanshan rammed earth platform in Moon Bay Town, it is speculated that Moon Bay Town may be the location of the palace city of Sanxingdui Kingdom. .
A total of 3 large-scale building foundations have been found in the Qingguanshan large-scale building complex, of which the No. 1 building foundation has an area of more than 1,000 square meters, which is the largest single building of the Shang Dynasty in South China.
The unearthed cultural relics have a strange shape and have been mistaken for a Taishi chair
So far, more than 50,000 cultural relics such as pottery, stone, jade, copper, gold, ivory, seashells, and silk have been unearthed at the Sanxingdui site. Unseen objects with strange shapes.
Lei Yu said: "Except for some common jade and bronze ritual (container) vessels in the Shang Dynasty in the Central Plains, many of them are new objects that have never been discovered in the past: such as bronze group statues (figures, gods, masks, etc.), sacred trees, gods, etc. Altars, sun-shaped objects, eyes (eye-shaped objects), golden rods, golden masks, etc., constitute the most brilliant and unique part of Sanxingdui culture."
From Leiyu's point of view, the bronze ware unearthed at the Sanxingdui site is dominated by figures, gods, demigods and sacrificial utensils that are between the figurative and the abstract. The image is heavily inked.
"Compared with the Central Plains business culture, the Sanxingdui culture has more intense and prominent colors of magic and theocracy, reflecting distinct local characteristics," he said.
Talking about this, Lei Yu showed a photo of Professor Chen Xiandan who discovered the bronze Zong-eye mask of Sanxingdui when it was just unearthed.
"When this mask was first discovered, it was buried upside down in the No. 2 'Sacrificial Pit'. For this hollow U-shaped object, even a historian like Professor Chen Xiandan had never seen it before, so it was misunderstood at that time. This is a bronze Taishi chair." Lei Yu said that the cultural relics unearthed at the Sanxingdui site reflect the unique understanding of the ancient Shu people's imaginative understanding of "people and gods" and the unique power structure of the upper levels of the ancient Shu Kingdom.
The diverse and complex cultural outlook shows that Sanxingdui is not "closed door"
In 2019, the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology conducted archaeological exploration and small-scale trial excavations in the sacrificial area in the south of the Sanxingdui site, and achieved major results: 6 more "sacrificial pits" were discovered around the No. 1 and No. 2 pits discovered in 1986. , area ranging from 3.5-19 square meters.
Lei Yu said that the cultural relics found in the Xinkeng present the multi-faceted and complex culture of Sanxingdui, "Generally speaking, the largest number of artifacts unearthed from the Sanxingdui site are pottery and stone tools, and most of these most common daily necessities have obvious Regional characteristics dominate the cultural factors.”
Lei Yu said that at the same time, Sanxingdui culture has been deeply imprinted with other regional cultures, reflecting the openness and inclusiveness of Sanxingdui culture.
"Traditions or customs that use human and god statues as the main body of bronze wares and advocating gold can not be found in the Chinese land of the same period. Therefore, it is objectively not ruled out that the Sanxingdui culture and civilizations in more distant regions have exchanged and learned from each other. But at present we can't find any direct evidence of this connection, or we have found similar devices with higher similarity in farther regions. Therefore, it can be understood that they are the unique creations of ancient Shu people who may have learned from other cultural factors. ."He says.
Lei Yu emphasized that there are many unseen artifacts unearthed in several "sacrificial pits" in Sanxingdui, which are quite different from people's understanding of Chinese civilization in the past, but the ancient Shu civilization represented by Sanxingdui is still a part of Chinese civilization. .
"The bronze casting technology from the Xia and Shang civilizations in the Central Plains, the bronze ritual system and the jade tradition, and the sculpture art monk Jin custom that may have originated from other civilizations have collided and blended in the Sichuan Basin, thus forming distinct regional characteristics. In this sense, the seemingly weird things unearthed at the Sanxingdui site can still be regarded as a regional cultural category," he said.
Elements of the Central Plains civilization abound
In the eyes of many attentive viewers and history enthusiasts, some cultural relics unearthed from the Sanxingdui site are inextricably linked with contemporary cultural relics in the Central Plains, and the thunderstorm's narrative has confirmed their conjectures.
"Even the most bizarre looking bronzes have many Chinese elements and symbols on them: such as the Yazhang (the Central Plains ritual vessel) held in the hands of the bronze kneeling figure; the flying dragon, bronze The dragon head seat of Daliren and the dragon pattern on it are typical symbols of the Central Plains, and there are as many as 29 dragon-shaped ornaments in pits 1 and 2 alone.”
In addition, Lei Yu also introduced that the cloud and thunder pattern, Kuilong pattern, animal face pattern, Hui pattern, Qiyu pattern, Jiong pattern, stealing curve pattern, cloud eye pattern, hook cloud pattern, ball pattern, heavy pattern appearing on Sanxingdui bronzes Ring pattern, wave pattern, geometric cloud and thunder pattern, cicada pattern, etc., are almost typical patterns on a whole set of bronze wares in the Central Plains of the Shang Dynasty.
"They have been applied to the most bizarre-looking objects such as Dali Man, Xiao Liren, beast-head crowned man, convex-eyed mask, human and bird-clawed man, sacred tree, altar, temple, etc.," he said.
Speaking of which, Lei Yu quoted a sentence from Li Xueqin, chief scientist of the Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties Project: "In view of the uniqueness of the ancient Shu civilization, if there is no in-depth study of the ancient Shu civilization, it cannot constitute the origin and development of the Chinese civilization. The complete picture."
Lei Yu said that the ancient Shu civilization represented by Sanxingdui is the most developed and unique branch of the many regional civilizations in the process of the formation of Chinese civilization. It is based on the distinctive regional culture and traditional Central Plains culture. Absorbing the cultural factors of surrounding and other regions, it presents unique and magnificent civilization characteristics, thus greatly enriching the cultural connotation of Chinese civilization.
"The second meaning of Li Xueqin's sentence is that although it is very unique, it is still an inseparable part of Chinese civilization. Although Sanxingdui is very special, it is still very Chinese." Lei Yu said.
Sanxingdui was included in the "Chinese Civilization Origin Exploration Project" twice in 2013 and 2022.
Lei Yu believes that the discovery and excavation of the Sanxingdui site has fundamentally changed the world's traditional understanding of the development level of the ancient Shu civilization.
"In terms of the degree of civilization development and its influence on later generations and surrounding areas, the ancient Shu civilization represented by the Sanxingdui culture has not reached the height of the Xia, Shang and Zhou civilizations in the Central Plains as a whole, but in terms of artistic imagination and creativity, large-scale copper The casting of utensils, the forging and utilization of gold, etc., surpassed those in the Central Plains."
In the end, Lei Yu concluded that the cultural relics unearthed from the Sanxingdui site, with their unique and magnificent shapes, showed the diversity in the development process of Chinese civilization, and also proved the development process of Chinese civilization from pluralism to unity.
West China Metropolis Daily-Cover reporter Yang Fan