With the deepening of archaeology at the Sanxingdui site, more and more unique styles of bronzes have reappeared in the sky, telling that the Sichuan Basin more than 3100 years ago had a brilliant and powerful ancient Shu state, whose civilization level is no less than that of the Xia Dynasty and Shang Dynasty in the Central Plains, once again confirming the basic characteristics of the pluralistic and integrated origin of Chinese civilization.
Archaeological conclusions show that the Sanxingdui site began in 4800 years ago and ended in about 3100 years, lasting for more than 2000 years, through the Five Emperors and the Xia and Shang Dynasties in ancient history. As an ancient country with a long history and developed civilization, the Sanxingdui ruins were suddenly abandoned more than 3100 years ago, after which the ancestors of Sanxingdui went?
In 1995, in Jinsha Village, Xisupo Township, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, 40 kilometers from the Sanxingdui site, archaeologists discovered a site of the late Shang Dynasty and named it "Jinsha Site". In the following years, archaeologists excavated the Jinsha site on a large scale, and the excavated cultural relics were shocking, especially many of them were in line with the Sanxingdui civilization, and the author gave two examples:
First, the Golden Scepter and the Golden Crown Belt
Among the cultural relics of the Jinsha site, the status of gold objects is very important, the most special of which is a 44-gram gold crown belt (see picture below), which is a symbol of the power of the ancient Shu kings. The surface of the golden crown belt is engraved with 4 groups of the same pattern, each group of patterns consisting of a human head, an arrow, a bird, and a fish.
Among the cultural relics of the Sanxingdui site, the status of gold objects is also very important, one of which is a 1.42-meter-long golden staff, the ornamentation on it is basically the same as the golden crown belt, all of which take birds, fish and arrows as the main composition elements, the difference is that there are slight differences in the arrangement, combination and detailed depiction, which further confirms the cultural continuity and inheritance of the two sites.
Second, the big portrait and the small portrait
In the ruins of Sanxingdui, there is a shocking statue of Da li, with a height of 260.8 cm, whether it is from the aspects of clothing, image or volume, this da Li figure should be the supreme leader of the Sanxingdui civilization.
In the Jinsha ruins, there is also a small standing portrait,
The styling style is almost identical to that of the Sanxingdui bronze statue, representing the supreme leader of the Sands civilization, once again illustrating the inheritance between the two. However, compared with the Da Li portrait, there are two differences: one is that the Da Li portrait is a braided hair, the other is that the Da Li portrait wears a high crown, and the Xiao Li portrait wears a sun halo on its head.
Many bronze figures have been excavated from the Sanxingdui site, one of which is braided hair, so some scholars have comprehensively analyzed that there are at least two ethnic groups in the Sanxingdui civilization, and the braided hair (Figure 1 of this article) represents secular royal power.
The hairdresser represents theocracy, and a serious conflict broke out between the two, the braided one
After the clan migrated south to Jinsha, they grasped both divine power and royal power, so the small statue with braided hair appeared in the Jinsha site.
Chen Xiandan, deputy director of the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, commented in the "Discussion on Issues Related to Cultural Relics Unearthed at the Jinsha Site in Chengdu": "The cultural relics unearthed at the Jinsha site are inextricably linked to the cultural relics excavated at the Sanxingdui site, and it can be said that the cultural relics unearthed at the Jinsha site play a role in the ancient Shu culture."
Carbon-14 dating technology shows that when the Sanxingdui site entered a period of relative decline, the Chengdu Jinsha site, which is 40 kilometers away from Sanxingdui, arose. Obviously, this should not be a coincidence, but when Sanxingdui declined, the political center of the ancient Shu state shifted to the Jinsha site. As for why this shift occurs, it is highly likely that the internal braids are associated with it
The hair braider clashed, and in the end the braider won.
The oracle bones show that at the beginning of the contact between the ancient Shu state represented by the Sanxingdui civilization and the Shang Dynasty, a small-scale local war broke out, which may be high and the road is far, and the ancient Shu state is relatively powerful, so the Shang Dynasty changed its strategy, exchanged emissaries with the ancient Shu state, and finally entered the stage of friendly exchanges. There is "
Kou Yin Bu, Shell Zhen: Deng Ren (summoning soldiers) to conquer Shu
”、“
癸巳布,贞: 旬在蜀
Zhen: Shu Shu Nian (can you harvest well)
From summoning soldiers to conquer Shu, to envoys visiting the Shu kingdom, to the Shang king's concern about whether the Shu kingdom was a good harvest during the sacrifice, it reflected the evolution of the relationship between the Shang Dynasty and the ancient Shu state.
However, with the relocation of the ancient Shu state to Jinsha, the political stance of the ancient Shu state underwent a major change, about fifty years after entering the Jinsha era, the ancient Shu state and the Yin shang cut off, participated in the Wu King's cutting, and was one of the most important eight princely states under the Zhou Wu king, the "Pastoral Oath Eight Kingdoms" faction was the first is the Yong state, and the second is the ancient Shu state.
Because Sichuan is surrounded by dense mountains and mountains, easy to defend and difficult to attack, coupled with the Factu people's great contributions to the neutrality of the Wu King, the ancient Shu state was once very powerful during the Spring and Autumn Period of the Western Zhou Dynasty, with the territory of The Northern Hanzhong in the north, the South Central in the south, and the Qingjiang River in the east; in the early period of the Warring States period, after several generations of expansion, the territory of the Ancient Shu Kingdom "bordered Ba in the east, Yue in the south, Qin in the north, and Xiang Ega in the west", becoming a regional power in southwest China.
It is just that the eyes of historians have always been accustomed to focusing on the Central Plains, and there are few records of areas outside the Central Plains, so the strength of the ancient Shu State was once forgotten, in fact, this is a big country that is not much weaker than Qin chu.
However, during the Zhou Dynasty, the Sichuan Basin was not the only one in the Shu Dynasty, but there was also a Ba state. It is said that the king of the kingdom of Pakistan is a descendant of the royal family of the Zhou Dynasty, and the "History of the Road" records that "Ba, the name of the State of the Zhou Dynasty, the surname of Ji". During the Warring States period, the territory of pakistan "extended from Yufu in the east, to The Daodao in the west, to Hanzhong in the north, and to Qianfu in the south", encompassing the eastern part of the Sichuan Basin and Enshi in Hubei Province.
During the Warring States period, there were frequent wars between the State of Ba and the State of Shu, and in the ninth year of King Huiwen of Qin (316 BC), the State of Ba and the State of Shu attacked each other and came to the State of Qin for help. Zhang Yi believed that regardless of Bashu, attack Korea first, and Sima mistakenly dismissed Zhang Yi's proposal, believing that participating in the Bashu dispute was more beneficial to the Qin state, and in line with the principle of long-distance and close attack, it should first attack the Shu state. In the autumn of that year, Sima Que led an army to destroy the Shu state, and the ancient Shu state represented by the Sanxingdui civilization was destroyed.
Archaeology of the Jinsha site shows that until the Warring States period, when the Qin dynasty destroyed Shu in 316 BC, the Jinsha site was completely abandoned. The Sanxingdui civilization, which flourished for a time, was eventually integrated into the historical chapter of Chinese civilization.