Some time ago, 6 more sacrificial pits were found at the Sanxingdui site in Sichuan, and this news made the mysterious Sanxingdui ruins enter people's sights again. Speaking of Sanxingdui, everyone must be very familiar with it.
At the end of the 1920s, a farmer in Guanghan, Sichuan Province, accidentally excavated a large number of jade objects while working, and since then, the ruins of Sanxingdui, which have been sealed for more than 3,000 years, have reappeared in the human world.
In the subsequent archaeological excavations, the Sanxingdui site unearthed a number of exquisite cultural relics such as huge bronze masks, tall bronze statues and sun god trees.
One of the cultural relics similar to the "steering wheel" makes everyone very curious, and many people exclaim that as early as 3,000 years ago, the ancient Chinese invented the "car"!
This statement has aroused widespread discussion, is it true that as some people say, the ancients who lived in Sanxingdui more than 3,000 years ago already had a means of transportation similar to "cars"?
First, the mysterious Sanxingdui
When many of the artifacts in Sanxingdui were first discovered, even archaeologists did not know the specific use of these artifacts.
Because before the discovery of Sanxingdui, similar cultural relics had never been found in the history of Chinese archaeology, and there had never been a relevant record. But soon some scholars conducted in-depth research and unveiled the mystery of Sanxingdui.
After sanxingdui was discovered, Professor Dai Qian of West China University in Chengdu and Dong Yidu, a British pastor, went to the Guanghan area of Sichuan to investigate and write relevant investigation articles, which opened the prelude to the cultural investigation of Sanxingdui.
Subsequently, Guo Moruo, who lived in Japan, judged from the inspection reports of some local scholars in Sichuan that the history of the Sanxingdui site can probably be traced back to the early Western Zhou Dynasty, which was left over from the ancient Shu people, which pointed out the direction for the study of sanxingdui culture.
In the 1940s, the Sanxingdui site was named "Bashu Civilization".
From this point, we can judge that in the field of historiography, the Sanxingdui site is recognized as a remnant of the Bashu civilization. Therefore, although the site of Sanxingdui is not recorded in the history books. But the "Bashu civilization" has a history to examine.
In The Classic of Mountains and Seas, the oldest collection of myths in China, it has been recorded that the origin of the ancient Shu kingdom was "Shushan Clan", "Shushan Clan" good "weaving clothes", and the Yellow Emperor's concubines and ancestors were from this tribe. This account shows that the ancient Shu state has a very long history, appearing almost at the same time as the powerful tribes in the Central Plains.
From the excavations of the Sanxingdui site, we can also infer that thousands of years ago, there were tall walls and moats, a wide ancient city and a splendid culture.
The use of these artifacts excavated at the Sanxingdui site, combined with the history of the Bashu civilization, can also be inferred. For example, the huge bronze longitudinal human face is very consistent with the image of the silkworm bush of the ancient Shu king recorded in the ancient books.
Sanxingdui site as a "sacrifice pit", these excavated cultural relics are bound to be related to the beliefs of the ancient Shu people, such as the huge bronze human face, it is likely to represent the ancient Shu people's belief in the ancient Shu kings. So will the "steering wheel" that arouses people's curiosity also represent some kind of "god object" believed by the ancient Shu people?
Second, the real use of the "steering wheel"
First of all, from the appearance of this relic, the entire artifact structure is circular, the middle is convex, from the middle to the surrounding area of the five spokes, and this spoke and the outer circle connection. From this appearance alone, it does look a lot like a "steering wheel" or a "wheel".
However, according to historical records, although there were bronze carriages in ancient times, no other "wheels" were found as a supplementary evidence in the ancient Shu land, and no other parts similar to the "car body" were unearthed in the Sanxingdui site. Therefore, it can be basically judged that this cultural relic has nothing to do with the "car".
In addition to the "wheel" or "steering wheel", we can actually think of it as the "sun". The center of the circle in the center of this artifact symbolizes the sun, the five spokes are the rays emitted by the sun, and the outer circle should be a halo. At the junction of the five spokes and the halo, there are five small round holes, which should play a role in installation and fixation, so that they can be installed at a high place for worship. This speculation is much more reliable than the "steering wheel" inference.
In the archaeological community, this "steering wheel" is also known as the "sun-shaped bronze".
In ancient times, the ancestors' belief in the sun was very common. In Sumerian mythology, Akkadian mythology, Greek mythology, Egyptian mythology, Mayan mythology and other myths around the world, there are relevant records of sun belief. A huge bronze sacred tree has also been excavated from the Sanxingdui ruins, and nine sacred birds rest on the tree, which is the image of the mythical Fuso sacred tree.
The Fuso Sacred Tree, the Sun God Bird, all show that the ancient people living in Sanxingdui had a tradition of believing in the sun. This "steering wheel"-like artifact is the most direct manifestation of the sun totem.
Therefore, this "instrument that has aroused heated discussion" is not a real "steering wheel", but an "artifact" worshipped by the ancient Shu people, and a "symbol" of the sun. In ancient times, the ancient Shu people placed this artifact on the wall or roof of the temple and worshipped it.
In the Sanxingdui site, numerous artifacts with obvious "sun beliefs" have also been found. For example, the bronze sacred tree mentioned above, as well as the gold leaf sun pattern and the tall bronze statue suspected of being the "sun god", these artifacts prove the worship of the sun by the ancient Shu civilization. So why did the ancient Shu people worship the "sun" so much?
3. Descendants of "Yutani"
At the time of the existence of the Sanxingdui civilization, there is no detailed historical record, but as a collection of myths passed down by ancient ancestors, the Classic of Mountains and Seas records a large number of human geography of the Bashu region. Therefore, if we want to know why the ancient Shu people worshipped the sun so much, we still have to look for the answer from the Classic of Mountains and Seas.
The Classic of Mountains and Seas records that the Yellow Emperor and shushan's daughter Concubine Zu had two children, one named Shaoyang and the other named Changyi. In order to win over the Shushan clan, the Yellow Emperor asked Changyi to marry changyi, the leader of the Shushan clan at that time, and their children were the ancestors of the legendary ancient Shu kingdom.
Since childhood, he was arranged by the Yellow Emperor to study in the Shaohao tribe. Tanggu, where the Shaohao tribe is located, is where the ten suns and the Fuso sacred tree in the myth are located.
According to legend, the Fuso Sacred Tree was planted by the father of Fuso in the ya'an area of present-day Sichuan. At the same time as Shao Hao and Chang Yi's will, he also inherited his devout faith in the sun.
Therefore, it makes sense for the ancient Shu people to inherit the beliefs of their ancestors and be full of respect for the sun. That's why in the Sanxingdui, so many artifacts related to the belief in the sun have been unearthed. And in different periods, Many relics related to the sun have been unearthed in Shudi, proving that this belief has been passed down and not broken.
Thousands of years have passed, and it is difficult to fully restore the activities of the original ancestors, and the origin of this sun belief has gradually become unknown with the passage of time. In the end, when we saw this "artifact", we no longer had a little reverence, and even speculated whether it was a "steering wheel".
Fortunately, the word of mouth of the ancestors and the discovery of the Sanxingdui civilization site allow us to follow the clues and traces to restore the truth of history and appreciate the style of the ancestors.
Text/Leyu
Resources:
1. "The Aesthetic Thought of Sun Worship in Shudi Culture: Taking Sanxingdui and Jinsha as Examples", Zhang Ying
2. "Sanxingdui Bronze Ware Research", Wu Haofu