"From Sanxingdui to Jinsha": Unveiling the mystery of the ancient Shu civilization

Due to the lack of written records, the history of ancient Shu has been cloudy and foggy. In the han and Jin dynasty records such as Yang Xiong's "Benji of the King of Shu" and Chang Xuan's "Huayang Guozhi", the ancient Shu state located in the inland basin of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River had dynasties such as silkworm bushes, cypress irrigation, yukai, Du Yu, and enlightened. But are they legendary figures or are they really people? Is it a personal name or the name of a clan or tribe? How long did the dynasties they represent lasted? What about the rise and fall of each other? What about the social system and living conditions in the ancient Shu era? These many questions have smeared a strong mysterious color on the history and culture of ancient Shu, and have also left all kinds of imaginations and speculations for posterity.

The obliterated ancient Shu civilization has gone through a long historical period, and in the 1980s, after the archaeological discovery of the amazing Sanxingdui No. 1 and No. 2 pits, it finally lifted the mysterious veil and revealed its brilliant true appearance. The group of bronze statues excavated from Sanxingdui, exquisitely cast and of different shapes, constitute a mysterious group of diverse and vivid; at the same time, bronze sacred trees and numerous bronze statues of birds, tigers, dragons, snakes and various birds and beasts were unearthed; a large number of exquisite cultural relics such as golden rods, golden masks, various jade zhangs, bronze statues, and copper dragons were unearthed, providing an extremely important key to unlocking the mysterious mystery of ancient Shu history and culture, truly confirming the records in the ancient books of literature, and proving that the legendary ancient Shu kingdom was not a figment. Sanxingdui archaeological discoveries have fully revealed the splendid splendor of the ancient Shu civilization, telling us that in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties or even earlier, the Chengdu Plain had a prosperous ancient culture, ancient city and ancient country, indicating that the Minjiang River Basin is also one of the important birthplaces of Chinese civilization, with a history and culture as long and developed as the Central Plains and other regions.

The bronze statues excavated from Sanxingdui and a large number of precious cultural relics show distinct regional characteristics, providing us with rich and informative information for us to understand the sacrifice activities, living customs, etiquette systems, economic culture, and ethnic relations, spiritual concepts, and aesthetic tastes of the ancient Shu people in the Yin Shang period. Archaeological results tell us that the ancient Shu kingdom, located in the inland basin of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, was a prosperous and powerful kingdom that developed independently at that time, and was politically, economically and culturally self-contained. However, the ancient Shu people were not closed, and had long-standing economic and cultural exchanges and influences with the Yin Shang Dynasty in the Yellow River Basin and other surrounding areas. The interaction between the ancient Shu culture and the Yin Shang culture may have both water and land routes. One is to go up and down the Yangtze River, which may be the main way for ancient Sichuan to communicate with the Central Plains. The other is the northern passage through the land of Hanzhong or through Longshu, which is also an important communication channel between ancient Shu and the Central Plains. It is worth noting that the cultural exchange between ancient Shu and the Central Plains is an exchange that does not lose the main body. Artifacts unearthed from Sanxingdui show that when the ancient Shu people were influenced by the Shang culture, the characteristics of the ancient Shu culture represented by the superb bronze statue plastic art always occupied a dominant position. At the same time, we should also see that the ancient Shu people not only had extremely rich imagination and creativity, but also had a strong openness and compatibility, and showed a strong pioneering spirit. The ancient Shu people had long-term and positive economic exchanges and cultural exchanges with the outside world, which played an important role in promoting the splendid development of ancient Shu civilization. It is precisely because of the distinctive characteristics of the Sanxingdui ancient Shu culture and the Central Plains Yinshang culture that they show the brilliant and colorful cultural systems of the yangtze river basin and the yellow river basin. And with the mutual dissemination and influence and exchange and integration, in the history of the development of Chinese civilization, wrote an outstanding and brilliant chapter of the Bronze Age.

Thanks to the archaeological discoveries of Sanxingdui, we finally have a real and deep understanding of the colorful ancient Shu civilization. But after Sanxingdui, the sudden annihilation of the ancient Shu civilization is still a big mystery. The whereabouts of the ancient Shu civilization after the annihilation left us with a blank space to be deciphered. Academia and the world are looking forward to new archaeological discoveries and the day when mysteries will be revealed. Sure enough, in the first year of the 21st century, there were new archaeological discoveries at the Chengdu Jinsha site.

In 2001, the archaeological discovery of the Jinsha site in Chengdu once again attracted the attention of the world and attracted widespread attention at home and abroad. We know that since the middle of the 20th century, cultural relics workers engaged in field archaeology on the Chengdu Plain have made arduous and diligent efforts to find the traces of ancient Shu civilization. After a long period of unremitting exploration, they have successively discovered eight early ancient city ruins such as chengdu twelve bridge cultural sites and Xinjin Baodun, and discovered the ruins of chengdu commercial street ship coffins and single wooden coffins, which provide rich empirical evidence for revealing the habitat and migration activities of the ancient Shu ancestors and the prosperity of the ancient Shu civilization and the rise and fall of the ancient Shu Dynasty. The major archaeological discoveries at the Jinsha site are of far-reaching significance, and are particularly important in revealing the mysterious mysteries of ancient Shu history and culture. After Sanxingdui, the Jinsha site gives us a clearer view of the true face of the ancient Shu society. The cultural relics unearthed at the Jinsha site are not only numerous, but also have many exquisite artifacts, some of which are discovered for the first time, which is breathtaking. For example, gold masks, sun god bird gold leaf ornaments, gold crown belts, gold leaf frog ornaments, gold trumpet shapes, gold boxes, etc. in gold ware; jade face patterns in jade, axe-shaped jade with animal face patterns, jade heads, jade sword sheaths, jade zhang, jade bi, jade ge, jade spears, jade swords, jade swords, jade chisels, jade bracelets, jade shells, jade card shapes, etc.; small bronze standing figures, bronze standing birds, bronze bull heads, bronze beast faces, bronze three birds in bronze three birds have collar-shaped objects, bronze eye-shaped instruments, etc.; stone kneeling figures, stone tigers, stone snakes, stone axe-shaped instruments, etc. in stone tools In addition, there are large amounts of ivory, as well as antlers and so on. These excavated cultural relics have extremely precious value, especially the vivid and unique shapes, exquisite production techniques, colorful cultural connotations and rich artistic charm they show, which add new precious materials to the study and understanding of the ancient Shu civilization.

The large-scale archaeological excavations at the Jinsha site have revealed that whether it is the vast area covered by the entire area, or the huge number of excavated cultural relics, the variety of types and the degree of exquisiteness, it shows that this place should be an extraordinary large site, an important settlement of the ancient Shu people in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. The ancient Shu people built cities and capitals on the Chengdu Plain, initially starting from the northwestern edge near the Min Mountains, and then gradually advancing along the terraces on both sides of the tributaries of the Min River to the hinterland of the plain. The early city that was originally built was small in scale, but has been expanded continuously, and by the time of the Yin Shang, the ancient city of Sanxingdui has become spectacular, and the Jinsha ruins of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties are even more grand. This is not only related to the geographical conditions of successive sites and cities, but also has a great relationship with the strength and weakness of the human and material resources of the ancient Shu state or the ancient Shu people in different periods.

Let us approach and carefully observe the many exquisite cultural relics excavated from the Sanxingdui and Jinsha sites, through the analysis of their stylistic characteristics and cultural connotations, interpret the lost ancient Shu stories, reveal the truth of the ancient Shu history, and see what these magical and precious relics of the ancient Shu era tell us.

The above is excerpted from "From Sanxingdui to Jinsha: A Shocking Discovery of Chinese Civilization", by Huang Jianhua, published by Zhonghua Bookstore in September 2021.