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Sichuan dug up a sacrificial site, tens of thousands of ivory in the pit were unearthed, and the Sanxingdui that disappeared overnight finally found its destination? Can experts uncover the earth-shattering secrets behind this?
Ivory excavated from the Sands site
preface
In the first year of the twenty-first century, on a construction site in Chengdu, the excavator was working in an orderly manner, digging the driver felt that the soil was a little strange, some white soil appeared in the soil, watching this scene, the migrant workers began to dig manually, and this digging actually dug out a large number of jade and pottery fragments, which caused an uproar for a time, they had never seen such a thing, what was this?
There is a peculiar village in Chengdu, Sichuan Province--- Jinsha Village. If you don't ask, the villagers may not think about why the village name was given, experts after reading the information, this is because a long time ago, the villagers living in Jinsha Village, while washing clothes by the river, when they were farming in the fields, they could always find gold fragments, which gave jinsha village its name, and one thing that can be proved is that Jinsha Village was called this name fifteen hundred years ago.
Jinsha Village
On February 8, 2001, experts who were far away in Mianyang received news that jade had been excavated from the construction site. They immediately assembled the best experts and drove to Chengdu overnight.
When they arrived in Chengdu, it was already the next day, and they came to the construction site without rest, and as soon as he arrived, he found that the scene was full of onlookers, and people were talking about it. And when they came in, the first thing they saw were two ditches, one of which was already piled up with rainwater, and it was obvious that they could see a lot of fragments of cultural relics, and from one section they actually found fragments of ivory. And after follow-up observation, there were a lot of ivory fragments at the scene. They hurriedly sent the dirt back for inspection, and a scene that no one expected happened!
Under the shovel of the excavator, a large number of cultural relics were exposed, and the scene made the experts dare not believe it. In previous archaeological excavations, the unearthing of one or two artifacts is enough to make experts happy.
But this place is different, the tusks unearthed need to be counted in tons, and jade and pottery are all over the ground. According to post-event statistics, more than a thousand precious cultural relics were excavated at the construction site, and this did not include the uncountable ivory, which alone was enough to sensationalize the entire archaeological community.
The Jinsha site, which covers a total area of up to three square kilometers, runs through the site from east to west by a small river called the Modi River, and the site is also divided into two parts, north and south, where ivory and jade are found next to Jinsha Village.
In its northwest direction, traces of houses and tombs have been found, and experts have preliminarily judged that this should be the former living area and burial area, and the area located in the north of Jinsha Village is likely to be the original palace area.
Map of the distribution of excavated remains
It is not difficult to see that the Jinsha site is the place where the ancients lived and lived, once it should be very luxurious, the ancestors lived and multiplied again, but they did not know what happened, and finally only a ruined ruin remained.
After the excavation, experts found that the cultural relics in other areas have no value to study, people have set their sights on the central area of Jinsha Village, and simple excavations have unearthed such luxurious cultural relics, so what greater harvest will be hidden underneath it?
The excavations officially began
In the order of excavation, they carefully excavated the probe. One of the first excavations was a pit full of jade, gold, bronze, and ivory, and although it looked disorganized, it seemed to have some sort of order.
In the following archaeological excavations, a series of pits appeared. Some are filled with large and small stone walls, while others are filled with large quantities of wild boar fangs, antlers and a small amount of ivory. Although the items are messy, but there is no such thing as animal skeletons, this is certainly not the area where the ancients discarded the items, it is likely to be a sacrificial place.
Experts soon confirmed this conjecture, in the center of the Jinsha site, archaeologists found 19 turtle shells, he is not like the other skeletons in the funerary pit, each piece of tortoise shell has the same size of the small hole, very similar to the previous excavation of the Yin Ruins oracle bone.
When the ancients were divining, they would use a red-hot iron rod to make a hole in the tortoiseshell, and then use the cracks on the edge of the small holes to divinate the evil luck and predict the future. The size of the tortoiseshell also indicates the right position of the sacrificer, and the tortoiseshell found in Jinsha Village is 59 centimeters long, and once excavated, it is confirmed to be the largest tortoise shell ever found, and the sacrifice is likely to be the king. This also indirectly determines the central location of the Jinsha site, which is a large sacrificial pit.
Turtle shell at the Jinsha site
Experts determined that the age of the Jinsha site is probably from the late Shang Dynasty to the early Western Zhou Dynasty, which is about 3,000 years ago. The tusks unearthed at the Jinsha site were so astonishing that experts were pleasantly surprised to find that the size of these tusks far exceeded that of elephants in China, and even far beyond the entire Asia.
From the historical and geographical point of view, 3,000 years ago in the Central Plains, there should be a group of elephants, the oracle bones have recorded the Shang king hunting elephants, Yin Ruins site has also unearthed elephant bones, which proves that more than 3,000 years in the Sichuan Basin, there should be a large number of elephants, ivory may be the ancestors of the sacrifice of sacrifice. On one of the unearthed pieces of jade, there are two little people carved, and they are half kneeling and carrying ivory.
Jade artifacts excavated from the Jinsha site
Key artifacts unearthed
One day, the expert came to the excavation site as usual, and suddenly he was attracted by a group of noises, and he hurried over to see that Jinsha had unearthed a large jade qun.
This piece of jade has a very obvious Liangzhu culture, Liangzhu culture about 5,000 years ago, the unearthed exquisite jade marks the prelude to the Chinese ceremonial society, and in the Liangzhu culture, the largest and most exquisite production is the jade, the Jinsha site has found dozens of pieces of jade, some of which seem to be the same as the Liangzhu jade. There is a difference of more than 1,000 years between the Jinsha site and the Liangzhu culture, which is likely to be the "old antique" left by the ancestors of Jinsha.
A total of more than 5,000 pieces of jade have been excavated from the Jinsha site, most of which are the same shape and shape as Liangzhu, and five of the six sacrificial ritual vessels recorded by the Zhou Li have been excavated from Jinsha. This shows that the Jinsha people have the custom of advocating jade, and the worship of jade is a custom of the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, which proves that the Jinsha culture and the Central Plains culture are closely related.
The cultural relics excavated from the Jinsha site have to make experts think of a place, just 60 kilometers away from Jinsha Village, there is a shocking discovery at home and abroad------ Sanxingdui site. In his two sacrificial pits, more than 1,700 cultural relics of very different styles were found.
The bronze human face mask and the bronze sacred tree all prove that there was once a highly civilized race here. But archaeology shows that this high civilization actually disappeared overnight, just like I didn't know how it appeared, there is no source, there is no destination, everything is full of mystery and unknown.
The discovery of the Jinsha site seems to have found clues. The Jinsha site once unearthed a delicate bronze vessel, dressed in a long coat, with his hands held high, and seemed to be holding something in his hands, which was very similar to the two-meter-high bronze man unearthed at Sanxingdui.
Artifacts excavated from the Jinsha site
Artifacts excavated from the Sanxingdui site
In subsequent excavations, experts also found a piece of gold leaf, about 12.5 centimeters in diameter and only 0.02 centimeters in thickness, with a spiral in the center of the circular gold leaf surrounded by a figure similar to the year. Experts believe that this should be a kind of "god bird", and the gold leaf symbolizes the sun.
Gold leaf excavated from the Sands site
Traces of sun worship can also be found in the cultural relics excavated from Sanxingdui. For example, artifacts that look like modern steering wheels have been identified by experts as the shape of the sun.
Artifacts unearthed from Sanxingdui
The birds perched on the bronze trees are reminiscent of the ancient legend that the sun rises from the Fuso in the east and finally falls on the weak trees in the west.
In the Jinsha site, a carved stone statue was also unearthed, he knelt on the ground, his hands tied behind his back, and with him unearthed two stone tigers and a stone snake. Although tigers and snakes do not know what they mean, since ancient times there has been an ugly custom of using humans or animals to sacrifice. The use of stone carvings instead of sacrificial living objects is likely to represent the progress of a civilization.
But the question arises, if Jinsha Village is really a continuation of Sanxingdui, then what really happened that year? Why did they migrate here?
There is a legend in Sichuan folklore that there were several kings in the ancient Shu kingdom, from du cong, who could first raise silkworms, to the cypress irrigation that could be planted, and finally to the fish that would control the flood. Some have speculated that these kings may represent totem motifs of the ancient Shu kingdom, but this basis has not been confirmed until the cultural relics of Sanxingdui and Jinsha sites appear.
The gold belt unearthed from the golden sands and the golden staff unearthed from Sanxingdui are actually the same on the surface, both of which are composed of people, birds, fish and arrows. The large number of fish and bird motifs validates the reliability of folklore, which also shows that there are similar religious beliefs between the two, but the only difference is that only half of the patterns on the golden staff are recorded on the gold belt unearthed from the golden sands.
And there is also a point that the bronzes unearthed at the two sites also have different points. The sanxingdui bronze man's hair bun is pinned, while the small bronze man of the golden sand is combed with a whip. Archaeology has found that all the hair tied up in the Sanxingdui is a sacrifice of higher status, and this humble little detail provides experts with significant information.
Experts speculate that the collapse of sanxingdui is likely to be related to these buns. The differences in religious beliefs between the two, the divergence in the distribution of power, and eventually the internal struggle, which may be the reason for the split of Sanxingdui.
The people who had the most resources in Sanxingdui moved their territory to Jinsha Village, 60 kilometers away from Sanxingdui, and built a brand new city. The gold belt pattern was also explained a little, and the people who came to Jinsha Village were only a race of the Sanxingdui Kingdom, so they only used half of the pattern.
Golden Sands Ruins
According to the latest news, the original speculation on the age of Sanxingdui is between 5000 and 3200 years, but in fact, there are some deviations, after the inspection of Sanxingdui No. 4 tomb, it was found that Sanxingdui actually existed until 2966 years ago.
The Jinsha site, which dates from 3200 to 2600, overlaps for more than two hundred years, and the correlation between the two seems to be growing.
Comprehensive map of the Jinsha site
epilogue
Whether this conjecture is correct or not, the emergence of the Jinsha site has solved a doubt in the archaeological community, Sanxingdui did not disappear mysteriously overnight, at least a small number of his people moved to the Jinsha area, these active ancestors, broke through the restrictions, combined with the culture of the Central Plains and even the culture of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, became the people who stepped out of the footsteps of the "new era".
There are still many cultural relics buried in the dirt, they may be able to explain the secrets hidden in Jinsha Village and even Sanxingdui, let us look forward to the future day, archaeologists to unlock this secret left by more than 3,000 years ago.
(The picture and text originate from the original author of the online copyright)
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