China News Service, Chengdu, October 6th, title: Why did the Golden Sands Sun Bird become a symbol of Chinese cultural heritage?
——Interview with Professor Huo Wei, Curator of Sichuan University Museum
China News Agency reporter Yue Yitong He Shaoqing Xu Yangyi
2021 is the 100th anniversary of Chinese archaeology and the 20th anniversary of the discovery of the Jinsha Site.
Distinguished Professor of Sichuan University, Director of the Museum of Sichuan University, Dean of the School of History and Culture, and Director of the Chinese Archaeological Society Huo Wei said in an exclusive interview with China News Agency "Ask East and West" that the Sanxingdui and Jinsha sites have not only enriched, developed and perfected ancient Chinese The bronze civilization system, the gold products they created representing the concepts of sun and moon worship, yin and yang four seasons, are the most simple and natural expression of the Chinese nation to the universe, the world, the world, and all things, providing an extremely precious model for the history of world art and the history of ancient thoughts. For.
Data map: Bronze tree imitations on display in Sanxingdui Museum.
Photo by An Yuan
The summary of the interview record is as follows:
China News Agency reporter:
What are the similarities and differences between the six sacrificial pits discovered in the new round of archaeological excavations at Sanxingdui site and sacrificial pits 1 and 2?
What are the unsolved mysteries of Sanxingdui that "sleeps for three thousand years, wakes up the world"?
Huo Wei:
Facing "one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of mankind in the 20th century", Sanxingdui has attracted the attention of the whole world since the first and second sacrificial pits were discovered in 1986.
A large number of bronze wares with different cultural styles from the Central Plains bronze culture were unearthed in No. 1 and No. 2 sacrificial pits, such as bizarre bronze masks and figures, tall bronze sacred trees, masks made of gold, and golden rods.
Among the six newly excavated sacrificial pits, Sanxingdui bronzes are more diverse in types and images, including not only the large kneeling figures that have never been discovered in the past, but also the complex bronze altars and beasts, as well as three turning heads and kneeling. Bronze portrait.
In the past, the bronze figures of Sanxingdui were mostly abstract and symbolic, and these three figures were full of anger and raised their hands. They were close to realistic human sculptures, and they probably represented a powerful image of a warrior in Kongwu.
Archaeologists also discovered a new jade cong engraved with leaves and branches of the sacred tree in Sanxingdui, and a jade brick engraved with the image of beasts and birds. The image of humans and birds made of gold foil, and gold with small round holes. Golden objects such as leaves, small golden beads with extremely high gold content, and bronzes in the image of gods and monsters.
In addition, archaeologists found a tortoise-shaped grid-shaped bronze vessel in the sacrificial pit. Whether there are more precious artifacts buried under it remains to be further excavated.
These artifacts have greatly enriched the sacrificial scene in Sanxingdui. While solving some puzzles, they also put forward more unsolved mysteries.
To answer these mysteries, in addition to further accurately determining the age of the sacrificial pit, restoring the burial process and procedures of the artifacts unearthed in the pit, but also using a variety of scientific and technological methods to study the micro-signs that are invisible to the naked eye and mixed in the soil. Strengthen the observation and analysis of unearthed objects from casting process, alloy composition, trace elements, etc., and extract more archaeological information.
It is also necessary to integrate disciplines such as mythology, religion, ethnology, and history, and conduct comprehensive research on the functional nature of sacrificial pits and the symbolic uses of unearthed cultural relics from different levels.
Data map: The picture shows the No. 3 bronze sacred tree in Sanxingdui.
Photo by China News Agency reporter An Yuan
China News Agency reporter: The opening of the 6 "blind boxes" in Sanxingdui's sacrificial pits has also brought the Jinsha site into focus. What are the similarities and differences between the cultural factors of the Jinsha and Sanxingdui sites? From the perspective of the scale of the site and the unearthed cultural relics, what is the relationship between the two?
Huo Wei: It
shares the world-famous reputation with the Sanxingdui site, and the Jinsha site located in the west of present-day Chengdu.
As the continuation and development of the Sanxingdui civilization, the Jinsha Site has many cultural factors similar to those of the Sanxingdui civilization, including golden masks, jade, ivory, bronze statues, pottery, etc.
Among them, the one that can connect the two most closely is a set of mysterious patterns engraved on gold objects.
A golden rod body was unearthed from the sacrificial pit of Sanxingdui No.1, and scholars generally identified it as a "scepter" or "scepter" or "king scepter" representing power, prestige, and rank in the Sanxingdui site.
The upper end of this golden rod is preserved with a decorative pattern carved with two sets of Yin threads, each with a head of a person wearing a crown and a large ring on one end, and two sets of the same decorative pattern on the other end. Composed of arrows, a bird, and a fish, the mysterious meaning is intriguing.
The pattern on a "Golden Crown Belt" unearthed at the Jinsha Site is almost identical to the pattern on the Sanxingdui Golden Pole.
This "Golden Crown Belt" has a circular ring shape, which was broken into a long strip when unearthed. The diameter is large and small. The surface is engraved with four sets of the same patterns. Its basic composition is also characterized by an arrow, a bird, and a fish. And a circular pattern that resembles a human face.
Although it is still impossible to explain the meaning of these two sets of mysterious patterns, the similarity of the patterns on the two gold artifacts is so high that it is enough to show that this is some kind of primitive information between Sanxingdui and the highest-ranking people in Jinsha.
The two sites share a common heritage of civilization, and it is very likely that they also share a common symbol of power. People can't help but think of whether the ancestors of Sanxingdui and Jinsha were using symbols to express, record and inherit their thoughts.
Although the Jinsha Ruins are inextricably related to the Sanxingdui Ruins, they are different from Sanxingdui in terms of the objects of sacrifice, the use of the sacrificial vessels, and the places of worship.
Sanxingdui people worship birds, and their sun worship is done through the sacred tree.
Take No. 1 Bronze Sacred Tree as an example. There is a bird standing on each of the 9 branches of the existing 3 floors. Although the branch in the middle is broken, it is conceivable that a bird stayed in the center.
According to ancient Chinese legends, the sun is carried by birds. It rises from the east and falls from the west every day from the branches. The tree in the east is called hibiscus, and the tree in the west is called Ruomu. 10 birds may symbolize 10 suns.
The sun worship of the Sands people is shown through the sun god bird.
There are no less than 7 frog-shaped gold leaves unearthed at the same time as the sun god bird, which is reminiscent of "Moon Toad".
If the sun god bird is connected with the toad in the moon, it coincides with the record in the "Huainanzi·Spiritual Training" that "there is a black in the sun and a toad in the moon".
This shows that the Sands worship system has further developed and evolved on the basis of Sanxingdui.
Combined with the various farm tools unearthed at the Jinsha site, the evolution of the Jinsha worship system is closely related to the agricultural society.
Data map: sun god bird pattern.
Zhang Yanshe
China News Agency reporter: Why did the golden sun bird gold ornament pattern of the Jinsha site stand out from the more than 1,600 candidate cultural relic patterns and become a symbol of Chinese cultural heritage? How to treat the Sanxingdui site will join the Jinsha site to declare the world cultural heritage?
Huo Wei:
The sun god bird gold ornament, which has become a symbol of Chinese cultural heritage, is the most representative among the Jinsha sites.
This is a highly creative and imaginative cultural relic. The overall shape is circular and is made of gold foil with a gold content of 94.2%. The pattern is divided into two layers, the inner and outer layers, and is meticulously portrayed and cut.
The outer pattern is composed of four equidistantly distributed birds end to end, and the inner pattern is the same accurately divided and equidistantly distributed twelve awn leaves, rotating to the left toward the center of the circle.
People call it "the bird of the sun", and this round gold ornament is likely to symbolize the view of the universe centered on sun worship.
The circular pattern symbolizes the sun. The twelve rotating golden ray lines radiating outward from the center and the four "sacred birds" that connect end to end on the outermost periphery are naturally reminiscent of celestial phenomena and things like the four seasons and December. .
During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, many core knowledge of the ancient Chinese thought world gradually formed. Ancient astronomical and geographic experiences such as the sky round the place, the center and the four directions, the change of yin and yang, the alternation of the four seasons, the positioning of the sun, moon and stars, and the frame model of the universe began to be expressed in different ways. Appears in archaeological materials.
If the bronze sacred tree in Sanxingdui symbolizes the cosmic tree and the sun tree in the ancient civilization of mankind, then the profound meaning of the sun sacred bird unearthed at the Jinsha site is similar to it.
At present, the Sanxingdui Site and Jinsha Site are jointly applying for World Cultural Heritage.
The two not only enriched, developed, and perfected the ancient Chinese bronze civilization system, but they created gold products representing the concepts of sun and moon worship, yin and yang four seasons, and the most simple and natural expressions of the Chinese nation to the universe, the world, the world, and the world’s art. History and the history of ancient thoughts provide extremely precious model works.
(over)
About the interviewee:
Photography Zhang Lang
Huo Wei is currently the dean of the School of History and Culture (School of Tourism) of Sichuan University, the curator of the Museum of Sichuan University, and the director of the Chinese Institute of Tibetan Studies of Sichuan University, the key research base of the Ministry of Education of the Ministry of Humanities and Social Sciences. He is one of the judges of the National Social Sciences Fund, a member of the Undergraduate Teaching Steering Committee of the Ministry of Education, a director of the Chinese Archaeological Society, the vice president of the Sichuan Provincial History Society, and the vice president of the Sichuan Museum of Museums.