Sanxingdui ruins were first found in 1929, a farmer accidentally found, but at that time there were frequent wars, basically did not do reasonable professional excavations, and at that time people thought that this was just a humble ancient ruins, and did not expect that the scale of Sanxingdui was so large, until the founding of New China, there was a follow-up to the Sanxingdui ruins, and then found that this is actually a relic that implements the ancient civilization of the mainland.
Newfounds in Sanxingdui, gold masks, lots of ivory
On May 28, sichuan found the latest batch of relics of sanxingdui ruins, archaeologists excavated a total of 6 different sacrificial pits, in addition to some of the more common jade bronzes, more strikingly, in this excavation process found a large number of ivory, with a relatively well-preserved gold mask, and a special sacrificial object.
Although this golden mask is mutilated, in terms of facial features, the outline of the ears and mouth is well preserved, and the ancient people's sacrifice habits can be better studied through this mask. Because experts have long determined that these things are mainly used for sacrifice, these places are also known as sacrificial pits.
So because a bronze ware seems to have attracted much attention, there was originally a bronze man, his image is kneeling on the ground, his hands are intertwined on the chest, the expression is very religious, which fully shows the importance of the ancients to sacrifice, but also reflects the fear of the gods of that era, in addition, the bronze man's head, with a bronze large mouth of about half a meter, the top of the jar, this looks very much like the customs and habits of some primitive tribes in Africa, so it seems that even in different continents, there is no way to communicate and communicate, But people in ancient times also had similarities.
Finally, a batch of ivory was found, the number is very large to reach a hundred roots, in fact, as early as the previous Sanxingdui excavation process, people have already found ivory, and at the same time in other ancient ruins on the mainland, there are often ivory products unearthed, so why are people always interested in the topic of ivory? It turns out that thousands of years later, there are almost no native elephants in China, only the Xishuangbanna area of Yunnan has a small wild elephant population, and the total number of elephants in China is only 300.
Then the question is, Yunnan did not belong to the Central Plains in ancient times, and since there were no elephants in the countries of the Central Plains, why did there also be many ivory? And the excavation of ivory is particularly large, in the ancient literature is often recorded, and even there are wild history records, people will ride elephants to fight known as elephant cavalry, through these records this fully shows that there were many elephants in the mainland, where did these elephants come from?
Trading elephants across the ocean?
The world's elephants can be simply divided into two kinds, one is an African elephant, one is an Asian elephant, but today the number of African elephants in the world is rare, only 400,000 wild elephants, has been listed as endangered protected animals, Asian elephants are even more miserable in Southeast Asian countries, a total of only 50,000 remain, through excavations and documents, we can determine that in ancient times, elephants in Asia is actually quite large, then is not the monarch of the ancient Central Plains countries like elephants, And then a lot of elephants or ivory products were imported from the Southeast Asian region through the trade? Otherwise, why in ancient China, so many things related to elephants could be unearthed.
In fact, this is not the case, in a long time ago, ancient elephants were not only distributed in Southeast Asia, they were even very widely active in the core of the central plains of the mainland, that is, the Yellow River Basin of the Yangtze River, but in ancient times, there was no wildlife protection law, in the man-made hunting that lasted for many years, the migration places of elephants began to move south, and the original habitat was destroyed, so it was not that the ancient elephant trade business was very good, but that elephants were widely present in all parts of China in ancient times.
However, the elephants that once had such a prosperous race have become such an endangered species today, which is also a lament, but in many backward and poor areas, including Southeast Asia and Africa, because people are too poor, illegal elephant hunting profits still exist, and it is not known how long elephants can last.
Sanxingdui and Bashu culture
In other words, Sanxingdui as an ancient cultural relic that has been studied for a whole century, what era of civilization is it? In fact, the uniqueness of Sanxingdui is that it is one of the few ancient civilization witnesses, but also the best preserved ancient civilization relics, the history of Sanxingdui contains the early Zhou Dynasty at the latest, the earliest can be traced back to 2000 years, the Neolithic people's use of tools, the concept of gods, are reflected in the ruins.
Sanxingdui ruins are located at the birthplace of Bashu culture, Li Bai has a poem called, The Difficulty of Shu Dao, It is Difficult to Go to Qingtian, Liu Bei once made his fortune in Shu, the far-reaching influence of Bashu culture in ancient times can be seen, and after the end of the Shang Zhou, the Spring and Autumn Warring States led to the mutual annexation of hundreds of countries, but the Shu Kingdom due to unique geographical reasons, that is, Li Bai said that shu Dao is difficult, it rested peacefully in the border of the Seven Kingdoms for hundreds of years, Sanxingdui culture can have such a long span of time, so well preserved, It is also inseparable from the unique environment of Shudi.
Speaking of Bashu culture and Sanxingdui, many of the things in it are sacrificial supplies, in fact, people are still very concerned about ancient sacrifice behavior, the speciality of sacrifice behavior is that not only in Asia, in Africa and Europe, etc. All ancient civilizations have sacrifices, some people sacrifice gods, some people sacrifice ancestors, and some people will simply sacrifice natural things, but this is also a manifestation of sacrificing gods, because according to pantheism, all things have animism, sacrifice weather, food, flowers, birds and trees, are sacrificing gods.
Sacrifice itself is actually pure, but in the eyes of many people today, sacrifice is a very cruel behavior, the original in many primitive tribes and ancient times, the sacrifice supplies they use are very special, often use living people for sacrifice, especially in some large and important sacrifice occasions, they will mainly sacrifice children and women in the tribe, the ancients will have such an idea is not surprising, because in ancient times people are already very difficult to feed and feed, in order to meet the survival needs of the tribe This is even a selective act of abandonment, women and children in ancient times the hunting ability is very weak, the tribe needs adult men to hunt to meet food and clothing, women and children will occupy resources and can not obtain enough resources, so in some special limit conditions of the tribe, they may use the name of sacrifice to ensure the survival of the tribe, people in that era did not have Confucius, nor did they learn ethical knowledge, plus the sacrifice itself is very sacred in their view, whether it will produce a sense of guilt is difficult to say.
The meaning of the act of sacrifice
As we mentioned before, sacrifice is a phenomenon found in the excavation of tribes or ancient ruins and civilizations all over the world, and it is a universal phenomenon, so in fact, there are many directions that can be studied, why people sacrifice, there are actually many reasons, but the core is still people's fear of the unknown and the psychology of self-protection.
Human beings are an intelligent creature, in the course of a lifetime, are trying their best to convert all the unknowns into known, because the unknown represents fear and danger, primitive people know that the night represents danger, because they do not know what is in the night, this unknown is the greatest fear, primitive people do not know what fire is, do not know why the sky rains and thunder, do not know why there are tigers in the forest, these a large number of unknowns, let the primitive people's psychology is very awe-inspiring, and then in the tribal collective action, For hundreds of years, let the tribes begin to fantasize about these things on their own, trying to turn the unknown into the known, to satisfy the self-protection psychology, such as creating the sun god, I will no longer be afraid and confused when I see the sun appear, because I think it is the sun god at work.
In the thousands of years of mythological correction and adaptation, people have gradually circulated a set of almost impeccable and perfect versions, that is, the complete system of Eastern and Western gods, it is not enough to believe in gods, gods as a product of the high, how can they protect human beings? People think and extend through self-behavior, that is, through the exchange of protection with the gods, that is, the use of sacrifices in exchange for the divine power of the gods, for example, in a small island that lacks water on the mainland this year, there are still sacrifices and rain prayers originating from primitive tribes, because science cannot solve all the unknowns.
Interestingly, the transformation of the unknown into a known self-preservation of mankind has resulted in a system of gods that has been used for thousands of years and has convinced people today that this is the largest collective performance art of the human race, no matter from any point of view.