This article is excerpted from Yue Nan's History of Greater China in Yue Nan
Sanxingdui site is located in the northwest of Guanghan City, Sichuan Province, on the south bank of the Yazi River, with a distribution area of 12 square kilometers, dating back to 5,000 to 3,000 years ago, is the largest range, the longest duration and the richest cultural connotation of the ancient city, ancient country and ancient Shu cultural site found in the southwest region so far. The Sanxingdui site is known as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of mankind in the 20th century, showing that the Yangtze River Basin, like the Yellow River Basin, belongs to the matrix of Chinese civilization and is known as the "source of Yangtze River civilization".
01 "Dragon's Den" encounters treasure artifacts
It all started with an old man in Western Sichuan named Yan Daocheng. For the convenience of irrigation, the Yan family installed a keel water wheel next to the ditch next to the courtyard wall, and there was a small water canal of about two meters long between the car and the ditch, and under the car was a puddle called "Dragon's Nest" by the local people.
On the eighth day of the first month of the lunar calendar in the eighteenth year of the Republic of China (1929), Yan Daocheng asked his son to dig the "dragon's nest" deeper, while he slowly smoked a cigarette and watched from the sidelines. Digging and digging, as soon as the hoe landed on the ground, there was a muffled sound of "bang", and it turned out that underneath was a stone slab about 5 feet long and 3 feet wide. When the old and young Yan clan moved their eyes to the bottom of the stone slab, they couldn't help but be shocked. Under the stone slab, there was a rectangular pit, which was piled with jade treasures of different sizes, shapes and colors. It came to be known as the "Moon Bay Ruins".
The Yan family dug out the jade
Later, the news reached the ears of Dai Qianhe, an American professor and geologist at West China Union University. In order to find out the authenticity, he decided to go to Guanghan Moon Bay to see for himself. Yan Daocheng took out several jade knives, jade bi, stone axes, stone rings and other utensils from a cellar in his home, and muttered in his mouth that he did not want to ask Dai Qian for identification, but actually wanted to show off in front of foreigners. After Dai Qianhe took over the utensils and carefully examined them, he agreed that the first few pieces belonged to the same cultural type, and further speculated that they were Shang Zhou ceremonial vessels.
After some inspection, Dai Qianhe sent the treasure to his good friend, the director of the BGI Museum and the American professor Ge Weihan. In the name of the BGI Museum, Ge Weihan received the jade artifacts handed over by Dai Qianhe, regarded them as treasures, and devoted himself to research with great enthusiasm and energy. Before that, Ge Weihan had seen and personally rubbed many jade tools, but had never seen such exquisite artifacts, so he was shocked and had the idea of on-site archaeological excavations.
Ge Weihan repeatedly asked Dai Qianhe for advice to find out the excavation of Guanghan jade, and together with Lin Mingjun, deputy director of the BGI Museum, conducted a detailed study of the photos taken, and initially believed that "the area around Moon Bay is likely to be an important ancient site." At the same time, he had a premonition that there would be other relics buried in the ground near this excavated artifact pit. If found and excavated, it can be used as circumstantial evidence for this artifact pit and buried artifacts, and can be investigated and studied.
As a result, the first scientific excavation, named the Sanxingdui site a few years later, officially began in 1934, a sunny spring full of rape flowers.
02 Unveiling the corner of the ancient Shu civilization
In 1936, Ge Weihan published the first archaeological excavation report of the ancient Shu cultural site of the Guanghan Dynasty in history in the sixth volume of the Proceedings of the West China Frontier Research Society, "The Initial Report of the Excavations in Hanzhou". The report compares the artifacts and ornaments excavated from the Moon Bay excavation with the artifacts excavated from Anyang Yin Ruins in Henan, Yangshao Village in Shichi, Henan, and Fengtian Shaguotun, boldly and scientifically puts forward the theory of "Guanghan culture", and concludes that the upper limit of this culture is the late Neolithic period, and the lower limit is the early Zhou Dynasty, that is, around 1100 BC. At the same time, it is pointed out with great foresight:
The current data can only stay in the temporary hypothesis stage, and after finding more archaeological evidence in the future, as well as the extremely detailed first-hand materials of the Guanghan collection and the comparison of early collections in other parts of China, we will change or determine the conclusion.
After the publication of Ge Weihan's report, it attracted widespread attention in Chinese and foreign academic circles, which was the first time in history that Guanghan Moon Bay was named and analyzed as an ancient cultural site, and the excavated artifacts were discussed in more detail about the cultural connection between the excavated artifacts and the site, revealing the intentions and secrets of the buriers, and opening up the corner of the ancient Shu civilization hidden in the depths of history.
Just when Ge Weihan and Lin Mingjun of West China University were holding their breath and preparing to go to Guanghan Moon Bay again to excavate and do further research, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, which shocked the world, broke out in an all-round way. It was not until 1980 that the archaeological excavations at Sanxingdui were once again on the agenda.
From 1980 to 1986, Sanxingdui carried out many field archaeological excavations, each time achieving fruitful archaeological results. Archaeological excavations have further proved that within a radius of 6,000 square meters around Sanxingdui and Moon Bay, the excavated cultural relics and house ruins have the same characteristics and should be two organic components of the ancient Shu cultural sites. The 16-layer cultural accumulation formed underground was determined by carbon 14, and the earliest age was about 4800 years ago.
According to this data, combined with the cultural characteristics of other discoveries and excavations, the archaeologists who presided over the excavation believe that the rich stratigraphic accumulation of the Sanxingdui site can establish a chronological system for the archaeological research of the 5,000-year civilization history from the late Neolithic period in Sichuan to the Three Dynasties of Xia and Shang dynasties, and become a watershed and touchstone for the intergenerational staging of the ancient Shu culture.
In June 1986, the period for field archaeological excavations at the Moon Bay and Sanxingdui sites expired, and the excavation team announced the withdrawal from the site. No one thought that at this juncture, the great archaeological discovery that shocked the world broke out.
Regarding the specific situation of this excavation, many years later, Chen De'an, an archaeologist who has nearly known the year of destiny, recalled:
Excavations were first carried out in two exposed areas, and archaeologists worked around the clock despite the summer heat. Everyone uses hoes, small hand shovels, bamboo sticks, etc., little by little, to scrape over and over again, which can be described as a veritable "scraping the ground".
On July 26, the rammed earth in the pit was roughly cleaned up, and when archaeologists cleaned up the incinerated bone residue under the rammed earth, a large bronze dragon and tiger statue, bronze plate, bronze cover and other bronze vessels with the style of the early Shang Dynasty were excavated one after another.
The most familiar to us is this bronze longitudinal human head -
Bronze longitudinal human heads unearthed from Sanxingdui have just emerged
Only to see that this unearthed bronze human head is the same size as the head of a real person, the head is the shape of a mother-in-law mouth, a garlic nose, a high nose bridge, a gentle expression, kind and dignified, and a vigorous look in the eyes, with a strong realistic art style. Unfortunately, from the neck down to the damage, from the neck to see, the entire head of the inside hollow, the cylinder wall found that there is a residual mud core, which is commonly referred to as the inner model or inner mold.
Unexpectedly, the head was like a sentry who came to report the news in the dark of night, indicating that a huge army was behind it. Based on this revelation, archaeologists focused on starting targeted excavations. The next bronze human head is like the mythical hero Haojie, with different postures and styles. Some wear flat hats and a neatly combed single hair braid behind their heads; some wear double triangular pointed helmets and a mysterious mask, whose image looks serious and mighty, tiger and tiger.
A bronze human face image excavated from the Sanxingdui sacrifice pit
At a little after 2:00 a.m. on July 27, Yang Yunhong, a migrant worker participating in the excavation of this group, suddenly found a yellow object in the shape of bamboo skin shining under the light. After a while, Yang Yunhong found that the yellow object in front of him was not the "bamboo skin" he had just imagined, but a metal object.
A golden staff excavated from the Sanxingdui sacrifice pit representing the highest power
After careful observation, it was found that the original inferred "gold belt" was incorrect, and from the remaining traces, this object was beaten into gold skin with gold bars, and then wrapped in a wooden rod to become a whole. At the time of excavation, the inner core of the wood had decayed, but there was still carbonized wood slag, and it was known that there was a wooden rod inside. Because the gold skin has been flattened and deformed at the time of discovery, its length and width are similar to the belts of modern people, so archaeologists believe that they are the "golden belts" of the King of Shu. In fact, the artifact is a golden staff.
Based on the fact that most of the excavated relics were burned by fire or broken before burial, and that there were tunnels in the middle and on both sides of the artifact pits, archaeologists preliminarily concluded that this was a sacrifice pit left by the ancient Shu people for the worship of the gods, and in the excavation briefing written later, the pit was officially named the No. 1 sacrifice pit.
Coincidentally, just when the archaeologists escorted the cultural relics excavated from the No. 1 sacrifice pit back to Chengdu, they suddenly encountered the No. 2 pit. I saw the bronze human face that had been planed out, the eyes and nostrils were clearly visible, and the whole face seemed to be painted with color. Underneath the bronze human face, a large barrel-shaped bronze vessel also reveals the edges. Next to it, there are several other bronzes that are faintly recognizable-
Bronze masks excavated from Pit 2 of the Sanxingdui site
After the large mask was unearthed, it was followed by one stick after another until dozens of ivory sticks were introduced. Beneath the ivory layer, the pits of treasures are dazzling. Tall, exquisite bronze figures, bronze heads, different sizes of human faces, protruding "longitudinal" human faces, bronze standing figures with disconnected bodies, as well as glittering gold masks, gold-faced bronze heads and magical tung trees, etc., are astounding, as if falling into a dream. The gentle jade ring, jade bi, jade zhang, jade ge and other jade tools, one by one, the same, as if opening the door of the Shu national treasure house.
Excavation of no. 2 pit artifacts
03 The ancient Shu kingdom in the historical shadow
During the Tang Dynasty's Kaiyuan Tianbao period, the poet Li Bai once issued such a sigh: "The difficulty of shu dao is difficult to go to qingtian." Silkworm bushes and fish skeletons, the founding of the country is at a loss. From this, we can see how confused these two ancient Shu founding princes named Silkworm Bush and Yu Wei were when they established the country.
According to the continuous examination of the clues left by the ancient Shu people by historians throughout the ages, the ancient Shu state was indiscriminately coveted by the Xia Shang and destroyed in the late Warring States period, which lasted for 1600 years. It has experienced several generations of dynasties such as silkworm bush, cypress irrigation, fish, Du Yu, and enlightened.
Since the history of ancient Shu already has a vague succession combination system, the next step is to see whether the cultural relics excavated from the two sacrificial pits at the Sanxingdui site match this history and this system. On May 26, 1987, through the joint efforts of Yang Xiaowu, a restoration expert at the Sichuan Institute of Archaeology, and others, the artifacts excavated from the No. 1 and No. 2 sacrifice pits of the Sanxingdui site were cleaned up and restored.
Restoration of excavated artifacts
A total of 54 bronze longitudinal figures and masks have been unearthed from the two sacrificial pits at the Sanxingdui site. These masks look strange and strange, the whole shape is like a human non-human, like a beast and not a beast, so the excavation host of the two pits "Er Chen" in the co-authored "Excavation Briefing", the earliest to call this batch of artifacts "bronze animal face", "longitudinal animal face", "bronze longitudinal animal face" and so on.
According to the so-called "Straight Eye Positive Ride" record of the so-called Heavenly God Candle Dragon in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, some scholars believe that this bronze longitudinal face is not the so-called ancient Shu ancestor - silkworm bush, but is likely to be the "Candle Dragon" recorded in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas and the Great Wilderness of the North Classic". The Classic of Mountains and Seas says it is "straight-eyed and positive." The meaning of "positive multiplication" is vague and has always been quite divergent, but for "straight eye", most commentators agree with the Jin Dynasty scholar Guo Pu's statement, that is, the meaning of "eye longitudinal". From the eyes of the "Candle Dragon" associated with this extra-large bronze human face unearthed from the Sanxingdui No. 2 Pit, some scholars began to believe with confidence that this is the true portrayal of the "straight eye" of the Candle Dragon, and it is also the reason why the Sanxingdui site has many dragon images in the excavated artifacts.
Of course, archaeologists also noticed a fact that cannot be ignored, and at the same time as the old ancestor of the Shu people, known as the image of the silkworm bush, there was also a bronze longitudinal human mask with "dragon" or "snake" on the bridge of the nose, which is a gem in the entire group of excavated bronzes. The mask is 78 cm wide and 82.5 cm high, and in the square hole in the middle of the forehead, a dragon-shaped forehead ornament of up to 68 cm is recast, the ears and eyes are cast by inlay casting, and a pair of large ears in the shape of a ruler are fully extended to the sides. The most peculiar is a pair of eyes, the columnar extrusion of the eyeball extends forward for about 10 centimeters.
The perfect shape design and exquisite production process make this artifact appear to be mighty and powerful, and there is a mysterious and shocking feeling of the sudden descent of the gods to the world. Such a bold and wild plastic art with a rich imagination through time and space is not only unprecedented in Shudi, but even compared with the bronze art of the same period in the Central Plains and even the whole world.
Bronze longitudinal mask
In addition, a considerable number of scholars believe that the bronze bird head excavated from Sanxingdui No. 2 Pit is very close to the shape of the fish, which should be the symbol of the King of Shu, and also has the meaning of the family name and emblem of the Shu people. Combined with the fact that a huge number of fish-shaped spoon handles excavated from the site, that is, bird-headed spoon handles, and combined with various other factors to analyze, it is believed that the most prosperous era of the ancient Shu kingdom of Sanxingdui belonged to the Yu dynasty period. If we are further linked to the vast distribution area of the Shu culture, a large number of fish-shaped spoon handles have been excavated, and it can be speculated that the power of the Sanxingdui ancient Shu Kingdom during the Yu dynasty has reached a fairly broad range.
Since the past and present lives of the ancient city of Sanxingdui already have a relatively clear clue, how did the ancient city of Sanxingdui, which was once brilliant in the history of ancient Shu mankind, embark on the road of destruction? Unfortunately, there is no click record in ancient documents, and experts and scholars can only explore and pursue according to the bits and pieces of information revealed by archaeological excavation data, in the hope of new discoveries and breakthroughs.
According to Chen Xiandan, the main excavator of the Sanxingdui site, the ancient city of Sanxingdui was destroyed by the ancient Shu people's participation in a military operation to destroy the Merchants in the Zhou Dynasty. In response to Chen Xiandan's statement, Professor Lin Xiang of Sichuan University clearly pointed out that the ancient city of Sanxingdui was neither destroyed by the war of Du Yu's attack nor ended in a military incident to aid Zhou Andhang, but was destroyed by a huge flood.
According to Lin Xiang's recollection, one day when archaeologists excavated at the site, several engineers from the Sichuan Water Conservancy Research Institute specially visited the construction site and inspected it for a long time in the face of the huge "key pillar" deliberately left for research purposes after excavation. On the profile of this "key column", of the 16-layer cultural accumulation, the 7th layer is a distinct demarcation layer, which is a layer of flood silt 20 cm to 50 cm thick, the top surface is horizontal, and the bottom surface is inclined with the shape of the top surface of the 8th layer, which is uneven. It can be seen from this that the information revealed by the profile of this "key column" that the cultural accumulation suddenly interrupted may be related to the irresistible flood. This coincides with the legend of the flood in the ancient Shu state recorded in the literature.
Whatever the reason for the demise of the ancient Shu, there is only one result: the ancient Shu civilization of the Bronze Age gradually merged into the Chinese civilization of the Iron Age. The old Ancient Shu Kingdom is dead, and a new era of great unification has arrived.
This article is excerpted from the History of Greater China in Yuenan