Cover news reporter Dai Zhuxin pictured according to CCTV News
You can always trust Sanxingdui! Recently, in a new round of archaeological work in the Sanxingdui sacrifice area, a new dragon-shaped artifact was discovered. Amazingly, this dragon with its body raised had a tiger head. Some netizens joked that "seeing that the Year of the Tiger is coming, Sanxingdui has launched a limited edition of the Year of the Tiger Dragon." "Tiger baby in time!"
This bronze artifact was found in crater 8 of Sanxingdui. In October this year, in the middle of Pit 8, a triangular bronze base was gradually revealed, and on the feet of the base stood bronze birds. At first, archaeologists thought that there might be a sacred tree on the base. After a month and a half of excavations, a bronze statue in the shape of a dragon was finally revealed. Surprisingly, this dragon looks like a "tiger head".
"Its head resembles a tiger's head, it has round ears, it has a relatively long horn on its head, and it has something like a knife in its mouth." Zhao Hao, the archaeological team of the Sanxingdui site sacrifice area, said. This dragon-like and tiger-like artifact, the forefoot stands on the triangular base, the body is raised, and the overall shape is thick.
It is worth mentioning that on the bronze sacred tree excavated in the Sanxingdui No. 1 pit excavated in 1986, there was also a dragon with its body facing upwards, falling from the top of the sacred tree and descending from the sky, which is somewhat similar to the dragon-shaped instrument discovered this time.
What is the overall shape of the mysterious tiger-headed dragon body artifact? Archaeologists speculate that for now, this should be only a part. "We now speculate that the artifact is not a complete part, but only the base or bottom of a larger artifact." Zhao Hao said.
This tiger-headed tiger brain dragon image is about 80 centimeters high, about half a meter away from it, and is a previously discovered Sanxingdui star cultural relics with a snake-shaped statue. The figure of this artifact has his hands on the base, his body flipped upwards, the dragon figure has no seat, and the whole body is beyond the base.
Combined with this new discovery, experts speculate that in order to maintain a stable center of gravity, it is very likely that it will be connected by the dragon's hind feet and lean on other objects. The top-shaped statue of the snake is currently 1.5 meters high, top-heavy, and also needs to lean on other objects to maintain stability.
Zhao Hao said that from the overall modeling logic, this set of utensils looks relatively similar. He speculated that the two artifacts were most likely complete. "Maybe you'll have to connect together and rely on each other for final confirmation." If the speculation is finally successful, this will become another huge bronze artifact in Sanxingdui.