Witness Li Haichao, unveiled the "Sanxingdui Largest Gold Mask" discovery and excavation

Witness Li Haichao, unveiled the "Sanxingdui Largest Gold Mask" discovery and excavation

2021 has passed, and Sanxingdui has not yet completed a new round of archaeological excavations that will begin in 2020.

As a "super internet celebrity" in the domestic archaeological community in 2021, the three large-scale live broadcasts of CCTV have made countless viewers very interested, and every new artifact appears has attracted a lot of attention, while the mystery hanging over it is still unsettled.

The tip of the iceberg, archaeologists say, is just the tip of the iceberg. They surrounded the top of this "iceberg", laid out the most advanced instruments, equipped with the best experts, picked up layers of ivory, picked out tiny fragments of debris, and immersed themselves in peeking into the glimmer of the ancient Shu civilization that sank into the depths of the sea of time.

As the person in charge and witness of an archaeological cabin with great difficulties in the excavation process, Li Haichao, a professor at the School of Archaeology and Literature of Sichuan University, has a lot of feelings when looking back on the experience of "digging pits" in the past year. Chengdu Business Daily- Red Star News reporter interviewed Li Haichao and asked him to tell the story behind the scenes of the excavation of the "Sanxingdui Largest Gold Mask"...

Half a stunning gold mask

When it was first discovered, it looked like a crumpled ball of paper

December 11, 2020, is the day when the archaeological team of Sichuan University officially entered the Sanxingdui archaeological capsule and began excavation work. This time, the six newly discovered sacrificial pits, numbered K3-K8, are behind the first two pits (K1 and K2) discovered in the 1980s.

Among them, K3, K4 and K8 each have an archaeological capsule, while K5, K6 and K7 are covered in the same cabin - this "unusual" temperament has always accompanied the archaeological excavation work in this cabin from the beginning.

"The excavation of these three pits is relatively difficult, first of all, there is a broken relationship between No. 6 and No. 7 - the later No. 6 pit destroys part of pit No. 7, and is the only group of sacrificial pits with a clear relationship between early and late." Li Haichao said, "Although pit No. 5 is the smallest, the things inside are the most finely broken, the combination relationship is the most complicated, and the cleaning is also the most difficult." ”

What is even more head-starter is that in the No. 6 pit of that late era, the ancient Shu people of Sanxingdui buried a wooden box. The wood has long been carbonized, and it is all supported by the soil filled in the box, and the wooden box that fills the earth is not only extremely heavy, but also very fragile, and archaeologists have no possibility of carrying it out of the pit with their bare hands.

The two pits resemble two entangled hands, one of which is holding a fragile piece. In the process of separating the two hands, the slightest carelessness destroys the things in the hands.

The rule of archaeological excavation is to excavate the ruins of the later years first, and then excavate the older ones. This sequence is also naturally reflected in the common stratigraphic superpositions – the closer you get to modern remains, the closer you get to the surface, slowly descending from top to bottom.

"Pit 5 and pit 6 started digging at about the same time. On January 5, 2021, we found the half of the golden mask in Pit 5. Li Haichao recalled, "Because the utensils in Pit 5 are generally relatively small and fine." When I first appeared, I thought it was also a small piece of goldware. ”

The location where the mask was found was a little southwestern in the middle of Crater 5, and as the archaeologists carefully cleared out the surrounding mud, they gradually discovered that it was a large piece of gold leaf. The original excavation of the "gold leaf" resembles the famous sun god bird at the Jinsha site — like a crumpled ball of paper, completely squashed in the dirt, unable to see the real shape. "But in the process of gradual cleaning, the shape of the nose and ears can be recognized, and it is speculated that it is probably a gold mask, and everyone is very excited." Li Haichao said.

The half mask is about 23 cm wide and 28 cm high, has a gold content of about 85%, a silver content of about 13% to 14%, and weighs about 280 grams. According to this speculation, the complete weight of this gold mask should exceed 500 grams – larger and heavier than the gold mask excavated at the Jinsha site in Chengdu, and heavier than the most heaviest gold vessel of the Shang Dynasty excavated in China, the Sanxingdui Golden Wand (463 grams).

"This gold mask is one of the earliest and most important artifacts in the new round of archaeological excavations in Sanxingdui, and the largest gold mask ever found." Li Haichao said. "There should be large gold objects under pit 5, and new discoveries are still possible." If in the subsequent excavations, the other half of the mask can be unearthed, then this complete gold mask will surpass the golden rod and become the heaviest gold artifact found in China at the same time.

But most of these discoveries could not be completed on the spot: some round gold leaf was almost equally spaced in the pits, with a clear combination of each other, and this obvious law was extremely special in the 6 pits. In order to maximize the current distribution of these small gold pieces, it is obvious that they cannot be extracted individually, "so the experts' suggestion is to cut them as a whole (even the soil with utensils of gold pieces) and take them to the laboratory for further cleaning and research." ”

Archaeology under the lens

Fragile wooden box

How to get out of the "excavation difficulty tank"?

Unlike most of the field archaeology in the past and the conventional, Sanxingdui, as a "super internet celebrity", in this round of archaeological excavations, in addition to live broadcasting, is usually exposed to a variety of shots and eyes. At the most lively time, the crowds coming in and out of the archaeological greenhouse can even be described as "endless flow" - the archaeology colleagues who come to observe and exchange, the teachers and students of archaeology and literature in major universities, and media reporters from all over the country occupy a considerable part of them.

Including in the archaeological cabin, there are also follow-up shots guarding the pit at any time - CCTV and Sichuan TV must shoot the whole process, and use these valuable materials to edit into documentaries in the future.

Documentaries also need plots, and for this reason, these resident photographers, in addition to objective records, are also always looking for contradictions and conflicts in the process. And they all "favored" the third cabin that Li Haichao was responsible for. "The other pits are basically in order and smooth progress, only our cabin, from the beginning to the end of the difficulties."

The first two pits dug have their own "unique problems" - the fine pieces of gold in pit 5 do not dare to be easily disturbed, and even the cleaning work can only be done bit by bit with the thinnest bamboo sticks, like picking the gap between teeth.

Pit No. 6 is "a box when closed, it is difficult to open", to protect the incomparably fragile wooden box, but also to protect the original state of the pit wall to the greatest extent, can not be said to facilitate the extraction and arbitrary excavation.

"We just tried and went over and over again, spending months trying to find a balance between protecting the relics and the relics." Li Haichao said, "The wooden box of Pit 6 cannot be extracted for a day, and Pit 7 cannot be dug for a day." Watching other pits go down layer by layer, it is impossible to say that your heart is not in a hurry. It's not even just us who worry about it, because several cabins are open, and often the people in the next cabin come over to look at it, and they can't help but worry about us..."

At one point, they considered tearing down some of the greenhouses and hanging the wooden boxes out, but it was too much tossing. In the end, a relatively eclectic approach was adopted, which was still troublesome enough - the cabin was densely packed with scaffolding, the steel pipe was laid on the ground, and the wooden box with the protective cover was slowly lifted out of the pit, gently placed on the steel pipe, and pushed out step by step through the door of the next 8th cabin, just as the ancient Egyptians used to build the pyramids to transport stone.

Li Haichao clearly remembered that when this heavy wooden box finally "stepped out" of the door of Cabin 8 and landed on the ground outside the cabin that day, he felt that a large stone in his heart also fell to the ground. "It took more than half a year, and finally the other cabins stood on a starting line, and they could let go and continue to dig pit 7."

Pit 7 was not very polite to them: a large patch of dense ivory was intricately intertwined, and it was impossible to even peer through the gaps between the ivory and peek deeper utensils, but could only patiently lift them out one by one. "So far, 231 tusks have been brought up before and after, and there are various types of tusks – large and small, some with cut marks, some burned, some unburned."

One of the most curious artifacts in Pit No. 7 is the turtle-back mesh bronze that appeared during the live broadcast in September this year but has not yet been extracted. "It is certain that it has no practical function" - in response to some netizens saying that this grid is like a barbecue grill joke - "it should be related to the ancient Shu people's sacrifice system, but it is difficult to speculate on what kind of function it undertakes in the sacrifice system." Li Haichao said. It was probably the most peculiar bronze I've seen so far, and I've never seen any one that resembles it slightly before. ”

The mystery of the square hole of the bronze mask

Ancient Shu people are more modern than modern people

Imagine going further

Li Bai's famous essay "Shu Dao Difficulty" describes the Sichuan Basin as an isolated and isolated place. "Silkworm bushes and fish, the founding of the country is at a loss!" Erlai is forty-eight thousand years old, and is not inhabited by Qin Saitong..."

In fact, the ancient Shu people's communication with the outside world, whether it is close or the geographical distance they cross, is far beyond the imagination of most modern people. "In the late Shang Dynasty, the entire Yangtze River basin was connected by waterway into a close network, and every point in this network was closely related to the Shang Dynasty in the north." Li Haichao said, "Sanxingdui shows a range of communication beyond this network - Yu Chun, which has typical factors of Liangzhu culture, shells from tropical oceans... Even sanxingdui copperware, many of which may not be produced locally. ”

He gave a very interesting example – many bronze masks in the Sanxingdui Museum have a square hole in the middle of the forehead. "If you look closely, you will find that the shape of these square holes is not very consistent: some square holes are irregular and formed by casting them at the same time as the mask; but there are also some square holes that are obviously cut out later. There are even scratches on individual masks that suggest that there may have been craftsmen who tried to cut but eventually abandoned processing. ”

Why did the ancestors of Sanxingdui go to such great lengths to carry out "post-processing"?

"A reasonable speculation is that it is likely that the person who made these masks was not the person of Sanxingdui, who forgot to leave this hole because of negligence. After the people of Sanxingdui got it, they had to carry out secondary processing in order to use it. Li Haichao said, "Therefore, some bronzes may be customized by the ancestors of Sanxingdui, not produced locally, and the source is not single." On the other hand, we also believe that some of the bronzes were probably made by the ancestors of Sanxingdui themselves, and they must have had this ability. ”

One of Li Haichao's main research topics is "Shang Zhou Bronze Ware from the Perspective of Resources and Society". In his eyes, the bronzes of Sanxingdui are a microcosm of the close connection between ancient Shu and the surrounding world. "Which of these bronzes were produced by Sanxingdui itself?" What are produced in other regions? Why would people in other areas make such bronzes for Sanxingdui? I hope that by studying these questions, we can see this huge communication network formed by Sanxingdui and the surrounding world in the same period, and I can better understand the significance and role of Sanxingdui in the development of ancient Shu civilization. ”

Chengdu Business Daily - Red Star News reporter Qiao Xueyang

Interview Notes

The theory of time relativity in the Sanxingdui archaeological capsule

The first time I entered the Sanxingdui excavation site was on June 23, 2021, less than a month after the large-scale live broadcast at the end of May.

As a newcomer to the pit, I had good luck: I came to see a huge bronze mask unearthed from Pit 3 in the morning. When we reached the edge of the pit, the large mask "face down" lay in the pit, carefully reinforced by wooden strips and wrapped in ropes.

I happily sat down at the edge of the pit, holding up my phone and waiting for the moment when the mask came out of the pit. Then I waited until almost 4 p.m. ... During this time, I followed the archaeologists to the scene to rub lunch, and took a lunch break in the dormitory they rented, and then followed them back to the archaeological cabin.

Sitting at the edge of the pit and waiting with my eyes straight, for the first time in my life, I had a profound understanding of the "slow progress" of archaeological excavations - pit 7 was almost a pit of loess, two workers were not in a hurry to shovel the ground, and the archaeologists were circling around in the pit, doing various record-keeping work. From time to time, people ran to the edge of pit 3 and looked enviously at their pit full of utensils.

One of the most interesting details on the scene is a small game invented by the young archaeologists themselves: wearing white protective suits, they walked in turn to the exhaust fan in the cabin, pulled open the cuffs to fill the protective clothing with cool breeze, and the whole person instantly bulged up, transforming into the "big white" appearance in the animation "Super Marines", which was very joyful.

Finally, when the bronze mask was slowly lifted and placed in the large wooden box covered with sponges, the side of the pit was unconsciously crowded with people - everyone in the four cabins came to watch and take pictures, and then they had to take photos with the wooden box, and the excitement was evident.

This kind of pomp and circumstance is really rare to see. Because later I went to the pit twice, and made sure that most of the time they were just slowly erasing the ancient time deposited on the artifacts bit by bit, and there were few objects that could be extracted from the pit for a few days.

At the beginning, I couldn't help but ask Li Haichao: When you sit by the pit, do you feel that time passes very slowly? He said no, all kinds of work are piled up at hand, and you can't be idle from morning to night.

I also gradually understood the unique time relativity of the archaeological site - for onlookers, there is only the surprise curiosity of the moment of "Shangxin" in the eyes, and they are eager to produce things every day; for archaeologists in it, every minute and second of the careful search in the pit has its own academic significance. And for those artifacts in the pit that have been sleeping for more than 3,000 years, time has long stopped, and the soil wraps them like a cocoon, slowly drifting in another dimension, forgetting civilization and the world, until we re-salvage them ashore, slowly peeling off the cloak of time and retrieving their ancient memories. (Qiao Xueyang)

Source: Chengdu Business Daily