◎ Science and Technology Daily reporter Zhang Galen
On the stage of the Spring Festival Gala of the Central Radio and Television Corporation, the bronze masks excavated from the Sanxingdui site were unveiled and met with hundreds of millions of viewers.
This mask can be very promising.
The large bronze mask is 131 cm wide, 71 cm high, 66 cm deep, and weighs 131 pounds, which is the largest and well-preserved large bronze mask excavated at the Sanxingdui site. Its wide forehead, angular edges, smooth eyebrows, eyes, lips and other lines, all protruding from the face, thick and long eyebrows as a raised shape, the two sides of the mask up and down and in the front of the forehead in the square perforation, may be used for fixed purposes. The bronze mask is a typical artifact of the Sanxingdui culture, dating back more than 3,000 years, reflecting the understanding and thinking of the ancient Shu ancestors on the natural things and the world of gods and gods.
Sanxingdui bronze large mask. Photo courtesy of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage Photo by Jiang Cong
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.
Since December 2019, under the guidance and support of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, the Sichuan Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics has organized the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and other units to discover six new "sacrifice pits" in the area where the first and second "sacrifice pits" are located, numbered from three to eight pits.
At the beginning of 2021, archaeologists began excavations of the third "sacrificial pit". By January 30 of that year, relatively 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.
Large mask out of the pit. Photo courtesy of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage Photo by Yu Jia
Archaeologists clean up large masks of sea shells in the nasal cavity. Photo courtesy of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage Photo by Yu Jia
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.
The bronze mask at the Spring Festival Gala not only allows people to appreciate the brilliant and colorful bronze civilization, but also makes people sigh the breadth and profundity of Chinese civilization. I believe that it also allows more people to be more curious about archaeology, more interested and more understanding.
Netizen comments
Source: Science and Technology Daily
Editor: Liu Yiyang
Review: Wang Xiaolong
Final Judge: He Yi