[Explanation] Since the start of a new round of excavation work on the sacrificial pits at the Sanxingdui site in October 2020, stunning "Internet celebrity" cultural relics have been released frequently, attracting widespread attention, but the archaeological greenhouses of the sacrificial pits at the Sanxingdui site are still mysterious.
What was the excavation site like?
What does the sacrificial pit look like?
What process do cultural relics go through from unearthed to exhibition?
In late June, the reporter exclusively visited the archaeological greenhouse of the sacrificial pit at the Sanxingdui site and unveiled the "mysterious veil" of the sacrificial pit archaeological site at the Sanxingdui site.
[Explanation] As soon as you walk into the archaeological greenhouse, you will see the No. 2 sacrificial pit and the archaeological excavation cabin with constant temperature and humidity that has been excavated.
Looking around the excavation cabin, except for the sacrifice pits No. 7 and No. 8, there are still archaeologists busy, and the other archaeological excavation cabins are empty.
[Same period] Zhao Hao, head of the excavation site of No. 8 sacrificial pit at the Sanxingdui site and associate professor at the School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University
The excavation work of Sanxingdui this time is quite special in terms of process and environmental settings.
This is the first time we have used this kind of excavation capsule, that is, an on-site laboratory method for excavation.
One problem with the excavation cabin is that it can better control the temperature and humidity conditions at the site, that is, it will be better for the long-term preservation of cultural relics.
[Explanation] In the excavation cabins of Sacrificial Pit No. 7 and 8, which are still being excavated, in order to avoid contaminating the unearthed artifacts, archaeologists in protective clothing are working intensively.
[Same period] Zhao Hao, head of the excavation site of No. 8 sacrificial pit at the Sanxingdui site and associate professor at the School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University
The main group of our site is divided into three groups.
One is the excavation group, the other is the scanning group, and the other is the cultural preservation group.
The excavation team is mainly responsible for the cleaning and extraction of all the cultural relics on the site; the scanning team is responsible for the digital part of the site, mainly doing 3D scanning and laser modeling.
The cultural preservation team is to cooperate with the excavation team to temporarily reinforce some fragile cultural relics on the site, or to provide a kind of assistance in the extraction plan for some heavy artifacts, when we extract some large artifacts.
[Explanation] It is reported that at present, 400 ivory have been unearthed in Pit No. 8, and nearly 70 bronze heads have been found.
Because of the discovery of many large, relatively complete and never-before-seen bronze heavy objects, such as bronze altars, bronze statues of snakes and other "national treasures" cultural relics, Pit No. 8 is also called "cornucopia" by netizens.
[Same period] He Xiaoge, a staff member at the excavation site of No. 8 sacrificial pit at the Sanxingdui site, and a Ph.D. from the School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University
We have now entered the stage of what should be the last large-scale artifact layer in Pit No. 8. Above this artifact layer, we have excavated the filling layer, the ash layer and the ivory layer, and then under the ivory layer are dense large-scale bronze artifacts , and then we have also extracted a part of this layer of large bronzes, and now there is still a part left.
Our current work is mainly on the bronzes of this layer, and then for the convenience of our work, we perform a work of extraction and recording in small layers.
[Explanation] Regarding the unearthed cultural relics, Ran Honglin, director of the Sanxingdui Archaeological Research Institute of the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said that after the excavation of Sanxingdui No. 1 and 2 sacrificial pits, archaeologists have excavated cultural relics unearthed in the sacrificial pits or can "cross the pit" correct" guess.
With the successful matching of the newly unearthed bronze figure with a snake's body on the top of the No. 8 sacrificial pit and the remnants of the bronze bird-foot figure unearthed in the No. 2 sacrificial pit, the excavation work of the Sanxingdui site also has a new idea.
[Concurrent] Ran Honglin, Director of Sanxingdui Institute of Archaeology, Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
From the very beginning, we felt that the cultural relics in these pits could be matched with each other, and our finishing work will definitely work in this direction.
In fact, we have not yet done cross-pit matching of these cultural relics, because most of the cultural relics have not been cleaned and protected, so we will not match these cultural relics until such work is completed.
[Commentary] Ran Honglin introduced that the field excavation of the Sanxingdui site is now nearing completion, but the archaeological research work of Sanxingdui is far from over.
[Concurrent] Ran Honglin, Director of Sanxingdui Institute of Archaeology, Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
The next step should be to transfer it indoors, including the cleaning, protection and restoration of these unearthed cultural relics. This is a lot of work, because after all, there are more than 10,000 unearthed cultural relics. Maybe Pit No. 7 and No. 8 can be extracted again. It may have gone to 20,000 (pieces), so this volume is very large.
The second is that these unearthed cultural relics, these 6 newly excavated pits, and even the entire sacrificial area have obtained a large amount of data and information through archaeological exploration and excavation. We need to sort them out in time and then write an excavation report.
The work of Sanxingdui is far from over, and it may take several generations, or even countless generations of archaeologists, to keep trying and keep struggling to get the job done.
The major archaeological discoveries in Sanxingdui are always unfinished.
Yang Yudi, He Meikun, Chen Xuanbin, He Xi, reporting from Guanghan, Sichuan
Responsible editor: [Li Ji]