On the evening of January 31, the night of the lunar Chinese New Year's Eve, the "bronze mask" excavated from the Sanxingdui site appeared at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, allowing the audience to appreciate the bronze civilization at the same time, but also further promoting the public's understanding of archaeology and archaeology.
Located in Guanghan City, Sichuan Province, about 40 kilometers south of Chengdu City, sanxingdui ruins are one of the most important ancient sites in the pre-Qin period in southwest China. In 1986, the excavation of the First and Second "Sacrifice Pits" unearthed thousands of precious cultural relics such as bronze sacred trees, bronze da liren, bronze masks, and golden scepters, and the Sanxingdui site "woke up and shocked the world", attracting worldwide attention.
At the beginning of 2021, archaeologists began excavations of the third "sacrificial pit". By 30 January, more complete bronzes began to be revealed. On March 16, the buried cultural relics in the pit were fully presented, including bronze, jade, gold, ivory and other precious cultural relics. Located in the south-central part of Pit 3, the Large Bronze Mask is the earliest emerging bronze artifact, which is particularly striking.
On June 23, 2021, the mask was extracted from the pit. Archaeologists and cultural relics conservators analyzed and studied the casting process of the bronze mask and believed that its production was first cast and formed, cast by the face, the back of the cheek, the eyes, the ears and other parts, and then combined into one, and the right eye of the large mask was also found to have silk fabric residues of warp and weft tissues. The bronze mask is 131 cm wide, 71 cm high, 66 cm deep and weighs 131 kg, which is the largest and well-preserved large bronze mask excavated at the Sanxingdui site, dating back more than 3,000 years.
As a major project of "Archaeology in China", the excavation of sanxingdui site is also a typical representative of China's century-old archaeological achievements, since its discovery in 1929, several generations of archaeologists have continued to struggle for a hundred years and explore the roots of civilization. By the end of 2021, Sanxingdui has only discovered six new sacrifice pits with a total of more than 10,000 pieces of numbered cultural relics, including gold masks, top statues, round square figures, large masks, altar models, kneeling bronze figures, more than 500 ivory and many other exquisite cultural relics, some of which can be viewed at close range in the Sanxingdui Open Cultural Relics Restoration Museum. Many cultural relics such as Tongzun, Tongzun, Yuzhang, and Yuqun show the close connection between Shudi and the culture of the Central Plains and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and empirically demonstrate the historical development process of the pluralism and integration of Chinese civilization.
According to the Beijing Youth Daily reporter, in order to ensure the safety of the Display of Sanxingdui Cultural Relics at the Spring Festival Gala, the State Administration of Cultural Relics inspected the details of safety and security on the spot, guided and supported the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau, the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and the Sanxingdui Museum, together with professional cultural relics transportation and exhibition units, dispatched business backbones, formed a special work class, accurately formulated a cultural relics safety guarantee plan, prepared and implemented a cultural relics reinforcement and protection plan, and carefully organized and implemented various work such as cultural relics protection, cultural relics transportation, cultural relics preservation, and exhibition operations, ensuring the safety of cultural relics.
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Cui Yifei
Courtesy photo: State Administration of Cultural Heritage
Editor/Tan Weiping