The "Year of the Tiger Mascot" is here! The person in charge of the Excavation Site of Sanxingdui dismantles the "blind box"

Photo according to Xinhua News Agency

A dragon with a raised body and a tiger head... This strangely shaped bronze artifact was discovered on December 26, 2021 at Sanxingdui No. 8 Sacrifice Pit.

"At present, its whole is still being cleaned up and excavated, but because of its appearance of 'tiger head tiger brain', it has been booked by the majority of netizens as the 'year of the tiger mascot'." Ran Honglin introduced its latest progress.

"Looking back at 2021, the archaeological excavations in the Sanxingdui Sacrifice Area have made a major breakthrough." Ran Honglin, director of the Sanxingdui Archaeological Research Institute of the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the person in charge of the archaeological excavation site in the Sanxingdui Sacrifice Area, said that more than 2,000 relatively complete artifacts were found last year. The discovery of these artifacts has played an irreplaceable role in gaining an in-depth understanding of the ancient Shu civilization and its important position in Chinese civilization.

Ran Honglin told me that he spent 350 days a year in the sanxingdui archaeology frontline to understand the excavation situation and guide the site work.

"Maybe it's 'providence in the darkness', but I chose archaeology in the first place." Ran Honglin recalled, "There was a semester of animal archaeology in college, and every time I finished eating, I had to pull the bones of the animalS I ate to identify its species, location and age. A few classmates often fight over the age of a bone, and the people next to us look at us like crazy people. ”

On July 17, 2013, after graduating with a master's degree, Ran Honglin came to the Sanxingdui Site Workstation of the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology to start the sanxingdui archaeological journey.

"After discovering that there were several pieces of pottery that looked relatively complete in the ash pit on the inner side of the walls of Zhenwu Palace in the northern area of Sanxingdui, I took out one of the pottery cups with three flat bag feet and a bird's head on the top, and because I had never found anything similar before, I jumped up with excitement." At the recording site of the program, Ran Honglin told his experience of excavating the first Sanxingdui cultural relics.

"Many people say that archaeologists can see so many strange and exquisite cultural relics every day, and as soon as their brains are hot, they think I also want to study archaeology." Ran Honglin laughed and said that not every time you can find such "heavyweight" cultural relics as the bronze statue of the head and kneeling on the knee, the sacred tree pattern jade, and the broken pottery pieces are the regular visitors.

"Not only that, the conditions at the archaeological site are harsh, at the excavation site of the sacrificial pit, the excavators need to often lie on or kneel on the crane to clean and record, and the limbs may be sore due to long-term lying, archaeology is not an easy task." Ran Honglin said.

Since March 2021, Sanxingdui has dismantled six "blind boxes" in a row, and found six sacrifice pits next to the original Sanxingdui No. 1 and No. 2 pits, and social attention has repeatedly risen.

God mysterious, fantasy and strange, what kind of civilization is Sanxingdui?

At the scene of the program recording, Ran Honglin answered the public's doubts about whether the Sanxingdui site belongs to an alien civilization or an extraterritorial civilization.

"The economic base determines the superstructure." Ran Honglin said that the Sanxingdui site shows the ancient Shu people's eating, wearing, living and traveling, and through plant flotation and testing, the rice, millet and silk seen, as well as the pottery, buildings and city walls used in large quantities, can feel that the ancient Shu people and the Chinese people are exactly the same, and there is nothing special.

"Not only that, the shape of the sacred tree found at the Sanxingdui site is highly consistent with the one recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, indicating that the ancient Shu people in Sichuan and the Dongyi people in Shandong are all similar mysterious and strange novels." For example, Ran Honglin said that the statue of the kneeling figure found in Sanxingdui reproduces the prototype of the "Zun" at the core of the Chinese state of etiquette, which is undoubtedly a vivid embodiment of "losing the courtesy and seeking the wilderness".

"The ancient Shu civilization to which the Sanxingdui site belongs is a part of the Chinese civilization, which is not published." Ran Honglin said.

In the process of excavation of the Sanxingdui Sacrifice Area, different work industries and work fields broke down the barriers between each other, carried out deep integration, truly realized the "fusion of water and milk", and opened a new model of archaeological work at large sites with Chinese style.

When he took the baton from his predecessors, Ran Honglin had just graduated with a master's degree. At the Sanxingdui archaeological site, Ran Honglin led the new archaeological force to bravely pick up the beams and become the backbone.

"Generations of archaeologists have forged ahead, so that the profound chinese excellent traditional culture has been continuously carried forward." Ran Honglin said.

After the program was recorded, Ran Honglin and I started to make a home. He told the story of his field life of "picking chrysanthemums under the eastern fence and leisurely seeing the South Mountain".

At the excavation site, Ran Honglin would often raise some chickens and ducks, raise a sheep, plant some plants and vegetables, melons and fruits, he told me, this can not only be hungry, but also a small trick to eliminate anxiety and embellish life.

"I belong to the people who do a line of love, and since I have chosen archaeology, I must go all the way to the black, and I must go wonderfully." Ran Honglin said. (Xiao Congcong)