When I was in college, because the school was neighboring with the Sanxingdui Museum, I had the opportunity to volunteer there for 2 years to share with you the reasons that I thought could not be cracked.
(This was filmed in Sanxingdui in 2012, uploaded to space, and compressed is not like)
Generally speaking, after we excavate a site in archaeology, what method will be used to crack it, what method is the most intuitive and representative of the facts, one of which is the cultural relics themselves, through the scientific detection, appearance and design of cultural relics, as well as the scientific detection of the soil layer of the site, such as carbon fourteen detection, this way can verify the age of cultural relics and sites, the time period of existence, and the use of some cultural relics.
This second is the written record, such as the history books of that era, local history, and other documentary records, through written records, you can directly know the customs and habits of that time, the socio-economic situation, people's lifestyle, and the large and small events that occurred, written records + scientific testing of cultural relics and sites, can effectively interpret many problems of a site or ancient tomb.
Why has no one cracked Sanxingdui? Because Sanxingdui has never dug up any writing, even the local records of ancient Shudi are also after the disappearance of Sanxingdui, including the history books and documents of the Central Plains, and the records of Sanxingdui's era are very rare, and most of these texts have mythological overtones, such as the legend that the King of Shu lived for hundreds of years.
The entire Sanxingdui has only unearthed 6 symbols, these 6 symbols are not the same as the oracle bone, can not be called words, can only be said to be symbols, who can know what this symbol means, and there are only 6, not to mention the use of written records to interpret the Sanxingdui, people have not found the existence of words at all.
From the perspective of cultural relics, the detection of cultural relics and sites excavated from Sanxingdui, you can at most know which era it existed in, how many years ago, a small number of intuitive uses can be intuitively seen, and other proofs are nothing.
For example, through the carbon fourteen measurement, we know that Sanxingdui is 3000-5000 years old, and at the same time as Xia Shang, through the bronze process and jade cutting process, we know that their technology was very good in that era, but if we want to solve the mystery of Sanxingdui, these simply cannot prove anything.
What exactly does Sanxingdui need to crack? Are asking why sanxingdui no one cracked, we first have to know what needs to be cracked, I think there are many, here are a few very core key, mainly from the three aspects of Sanxingdui's foreign exchanges, the mystery of Sanxingdui's disappearance, the use and cultural significance of Sanxingdui cultural relics.
Why Sanxingdui's foreign exchanges talk about foreign exchanges is still a mystery, because the cultural relics unearthed by Sanxingdui are very similar to the Central Plains and Zhejiang Liangzhu culture, and some cultural relics are related to Southeast Asia, South Asia, Yunnan, and Xinjiang, which are mainly judged from the excavated jade and ivory.
Jade
Sanxingdui unearthed a large number of jade tools, finished jade, some of which are typical jade bi, jade huang, jade zhang, and others, according to the "Zhou Li" record: with jade as six instruments, to li tiandi four squares, to Cangbi li tian, Huang Chun li di, Qing Gui li oriental, Chi Zhang li south, Bai Hu li oriental, Xuan Huang li north. This means that jade was used to sacrifice heaven and earth at that time.
(Sanxingdui Yubi)
(Liangzhu Culture Yubi)
(Sanxingdui Yuzhang)
(Sanxingdui Yu chun)
(Liangzhu Culture Yu chun)
Sanxingdui's jade is extremely similar to the central plains and excavated from the Liangzhu culture in Zhejiang, the shape is extremely similar, it is exactly the same, then whether their cultural connotation is the same, they are all used to sacrifice to the heavens, if so, are they not cultural exchanges, Shu Dao is difficult, it is difficult to go out, it is difficult to come in, how did they achieve communication in the primitive period?
We all know that sanxingdui and the Xia Shang period belonged to the same era, when it had just entered the era of slavery from the Neolithic Age, and it can be said that it was still in the primitive stage.
Sanxingdui is located in the northeast corner of the Chengdu Plain, is the current Guanghan, later migrated to the Jinsha site, also in Chengdu, in ancient times, Shudi Mountain highland danger, even after more than a thousand years after the Spring and Autumn Warring States Era, there was a Tongshu boardwalk, I don't know if you have seen that boardwalk, are erected in the cliff, out of Shu into Shu are extremely difficult things.
(Sichuan Ancient Trail)
Even in the prosperous era of the Tang Dynasty, Li Bai also said in the poem, Shu Road is difficult, it is difficult to go to Qingtian, I don't know if any of you have taken the high-speed train from Chengdu to Wuhan, or to the border area north of Sichuan, the mountain is really high, the cliff is really dangerous, that is, the current engineering technology, it takes a lot of trouble to build a traffic line out.
So the question is, Sanxingdui that era, so primitive society, why did they go out? Why did the people outside come in?
ivory
Secondly, according to research, some of the jade materials used in Sanxingdui are not native to Sichuan, but come from Southeast Asia, Xinjiang, Yunnan, these places, and then bizarre things come again, Sanxingdui dug out ivory, Sichuan thousands of years ago, there is no elephant this species, and the climate is not suitable for elephant survival, according to research, these ivory come from Southeast Asia, South Asia.
So the question is, Sichuan is so far from Southeast Asia, South Asia, take the high-speed rail for more than ten hours, the original them, how did they go, all the way to the mountains and rivers, the river is dangerous, why did people outside come in?
Through these cultural relics, it can be said that sanxingdui and civilizations outside the Shu land may have communication, like the discovery of ivory, no communication is impossible, but it is a problem, why go out? Or why did you come in?
The mystery of the disappearance of Sanxingdui After a thousand years of existence in history, Sanxingdui suddenly disappeared mysteriously, and there is no record of this in the Central Plains, the only recorded thing is that Qin destroyed Bashu, but when Qin destroyed Bashu, Sanxingdui had disappeared for a long time.
From the perspective of the Sanxingdui ruins, the area reached 12 square kilometers, which was the scale of the national capital in that era, and the entire site was an ancient city form, the urban functions of the ancient city were relatively complete, and the functional division was very clear.
Moreover, the manufacturing process of the excavated bronzes, the cutting process of jade, and the carving process are not inferior to the Central Plains civilization, so the question is, this civilization has developed to this height, and it is reasonable to say that there should be a very strong military economic ability, how did it suddenly disappear? Is it war? Or is it a natural disaster? Or a disease?
The mystery of Sanxingdui cultural relics In fact, there are many conjectures in this piece of cultural relics, and there are written records in the Central Plains as a basis, Sanxingdui cultural relics have a feature, that is, its bronze artifacts, in addition to the bronze sacred tree in other places, like the bronze mask, is unique, and there is basically no similarity in other places.
Take the bronze longitudinal mask, 1.32 meters wide, 80 centimeters high, weighing more than 100 pounds, its mask and other local masks the biggest difference is that some masks have eyes protruding, why do you want to do this? What is the moral? Because it is completely different from the Central Plains, and there is no written record, it cannot be answered.
In addition, there are bronze birds, animal heads, etc., which are rarely seen in other places, and are not recorded, and people are only speculating about its use.
In addition, there is a bronze statue of Da Li, this Da Li figure is 180 high, plus a total of 260 cm high, with his hands wrapped around him, his body is hollow, and his hands seem to be holding something, but because of his age, what he may be holding is gone, according to his gestures, it is speculated that it may be ivory.
Space is limited, just write so much, in fact, there is only one reason that cannot be deciphered, there is no written record, a highly developed civilization has only found 6 symbols that cannot be understood, which is also incredible, plus there is no cultural relics that can prove and explain these mysteries, so it is impossible to decipher them.