Editor's note: The Sanxingdui site in Guanghan City, Sichuan Province, is by far the most widely distributed, longest-lasting and most culturally rich ancient cultural site found in the southwest region of the mainland. In 2021, a new round of archaeological excavations at the Sanxingdui site once again unearthed a large number of cultural relics: gold masks, top statues, bronze square statues and so on. Among the many cultural relics unearthed in Sanxingdui, bronze ware has attracted attention, such as bronze statues, bronze sacred trees, bronze masks... It not only shows the unique bronze culture of the ancient Shu civilization, but also once again shows that the ancient Shu civilization represented by Sanxingdui is an important part of Chinese civilization and has been influenced by the civilization from the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River civilization. At the invitation of Red Star News, Professor Chen Jianjian of the School of Archaeology and Archaeology of Peking University wrote a special article introducing the research results of bronze artifacts excavated from the Sanxingdui site explored through modern science and technology.
Modern technology explores sanxingdui bronzes
Functions, production techniques and sources
Text/Jianjian Chen (School of Archaeology, Peking University)
Since the discovery of the Sanxingdui sacrificial pit bronze ware in the 1980s, because of its mysterious, exaggerated, vivid shape and diversified cultural factors, it has led to many unsolved mysteries, which have always received widespread attention from the academic community, continue to stimulate the curiosity and enthusiasm of the public, and become an important social and cultural phenomenon for in-depth interpretation of ancient Chinese civilization. This article briefly introduces the research results of bronze artifacts excavated from the Sanxingdui site, in order to correctly understand the cultural connotation and important value of Sanxingdui, and carry forward the scientific spirit of exploring the unknown and revealing the origin.
Sanxingdui archaeological site
Sanxingdui bronze function
"The great affairs of the country, in the worship and rong", casting the statue, using bronze as the carrier of social and political power, ceremonial system and social hierarchy norms, is an important symbol of Chinese civilization that distinguishes it from other civilizations in the world. This point is fully reflected in the Bronze Ware of the Xia-Shang-Zhou Period found in the Central Plains, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and the Hanzhong Region, or in the bronze smelting and casting sites investigated and excavated, and the bronze artifacts excavated from the Sanxingdui Sacrifice Pit are no exception. Archaeologists have formed a consensus that Sanxingdui bronzes can be divided into two categories, one is zun, 罍 and disk and other utensils, from the shape to the pattern, are similar to similar shang-style artifacts in the Central Plains and the middle reaches of the Yangtze River; the other is the unique shape of the standing portrait, mask, human head, sacred tree, and based on the bronze statue re-creation of the artifact, etc., very local style and characteristics. The former is an important physical evidence of the exchange and exchange between the Sanxingdui civilization and the civilizations of the Central Plains and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, while the latter reflects the great creative and integration ability of the ancestors in the Chengdu Plain. The two types of Bronze ware of Sanxingdui are highly consistent in their use and function, which truly reflects the uniqueness of Sanxingdui civilization, the integration between regional civilizations and the diversified and integrated characteristics of Chinese civilization.
Bronze Sacred Tree
Sanxingdui bronze making process
Mr. Zeng Zhongmao (cultural relics protection and scientific and technological archaeology expert) was the first to investigate the production process of Sanxingdui bronze, he according to the casting seams and other traces left in the production of bronzes, combined with metallographic organization observation and composition analysis, the production process is divided into six categories, namely hun casting method, sub-casting method, set casting method, claw casting method, bang casting method, forging method, of which the set casting method, claw casting method and bang casting method used for the connection of more than two castings can be attributed to the casting method.
Bronze human head wearing a gold mask
Noel Barnard, a well-known expert on ancient Chinese bronzes, once said that some of the artifacts of Sanxingdui were cast by the lost wax method, which needed to be paid attention to. Recently, Guo Jianbo (librarian of the Cultural Protection Center of the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology) and others used industrial CT analysis, combined with surface trace observation, pointed out that casting and various connection processes are the technical guarantee for the successful casting of complex artifacts such as bronze sacred trees; the use of bamboo wood core bones found in copper branch fragments is the most clear evidence that this technical measure can be used in the bronze casting of the Shang Dynasty; the animal head decoration of some containers is cast by the composite fan technology of built-in blind cores. It shows the different chronological attributes and technical traditions of containers such as Sanxingdui Zunyi.
Bronze longitudinal mask
Sun Hua (Professor of Peking University School of Archaeology and Literature) and Su Honor (Director of the Research Center for Traditional Crafts and Cultural Relics Science and Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences) believe that the origin of the Sanxingdui bronze ware production process is the Shang Zhou bronze casting technology, that is, the clay fan casting method. With the excavation of the Sanxingdui site and the sacrifice pit, the application of new technological means, we believe that more bronze craft information will be revealed by science.
Sanxingdui bronze alloy ratio
Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, University of Science and Technology of China and Peking University and other research teams respectively conducted composition analysis of dozens of bronzes excavated from Sanxingdui No. 1 and No. 2 sacrifice pits, and the results showed that the alloy types were pure copper, tin bronze, lead bronze and tin lead bronze, etc., but there was no lead bronze in copper containers, and the lead content of local copper ware was generally higher than that of copper containers with Central Plains characteristics, while the tin content was relatively lower than the latter, reflecting that there may be different alloy ratio techniques for the two types of artifacts.
Bronze statue of a large standing figure
Compared with other Shang Dynasty bronzes such as Hanzhong and Yinxu, Sanxingdui bronze alloy has its own characteristics, which indirectly shows that the craftsmen who produce Sanxingdui bronzes have mastered the relevant knowledge of copper, tin and lead and its alloy ratio. Metallographic analysis shows that the Sanxingdui bronzes are cast and molded, most of which show heat-specific characteristics of the organization, which may have been burned before burial, as evidenced by the large number of burned ashes found in the sacrificial pit.
Sanxingdui bronze source
The production of bronzes reflects the interactive relationship between the resources, technology and civilization development of different regions, and its source can be divided into two issues for discussion, one is the origin of copper, tin, lead and other metal raw materials for casting bronzes, and the other is the production place of bronzes.
Floor plan of the Sanxingdui ruins
In the early 1980s, Mr. Jin Zhengyao, the first person in the archaeology of lead isotope ratio in China and the University of Science and Technology of China, found the use of high radiating lead resources in Shang Dynasty bronzes in Henan, Jiangxi, Shaanxi and other places, and after comparison, these lead isotope ratio data were similar to the data of copper mines in the junction area of Yunnan-Guichuan, according to which it was proposed that the Shang Dynasty bronze ore material came from the "southwest region", and the bronzes of the Sanxingdui sacrifice pit had not yet been excavated.
After the Sanxingdui bronzes were tested, the proportion of lead of high radiation genesis was relatively high, showing that there was the same source as the lead resources of other Shang Dynasty bronzes. Later, some scholars have successively proposed that bronze raw materials may come from the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, Zhongtiao Mountain, Qinling Mountains and even Africa, and there is constant controversy.
Bronze turned his head and sat on his knees
Now it seems that the East Qinling region is the most likely, while the African theory is the most unsympathetic. So far, although clues such as copper slag have been found within the sanxingdui site, no bronze production workshop has been confirmed. Cui Jianfeng (Associate Professor, School of Archaeology, Peking University) and others synthesized lead isotope data, alloy composition analysis and casting process investigation, and believed that all bronze objects, including bronze statues, were imported from outside Sanxingdui or that foreign craftsmen brought mineral materials to Sanxingdui casting.
However, according to the above research, it is not possible to fundamentally solve the problem of raw material source and circulation involved in the production of Sanxingdui bronzes, and the fundamental way to solve the problem lies in the investigation, excavation and systematic research of bronze smelting and casting sites related to the Sanxingdui site. It is reported that research in this area has begun.
epilogue
The research on the functions, production techniques and sources of Sanxingdui bronzes fully reflects the important role of modern science and technology in obtaining scientific data, and also fully demonstrates the close connection between Sanxingdui bronzes and the Central Plains and the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.
There is no doubt that modern technology is powerful, it is convenient to obtain data, and the use of a variety of detection methods to analyze archaeological data can produce multi-dimensional and massive detection data. How to solve archaeological problems, archaeological interpretation of these data, to avoid the phenomenon that bronze raw materials come from "Africa" is extremely important.
The "transparent glass house" is the archaeological cabin
Therefore, it is necessary to attach importance to and explore new ways of interdisciplinary research in scientific analysis, archaeological interpretation and theoretical construction, and cultivate archaeologists with solid field archaeology work skills, sensitive awareness of archaeological issues and mastery of modern science and technology, so as to promote the development of disciplines.
In fact, the field archaeology and comprehensive research on the Sanxingdui site, a number of units and cooperation, and the application of a variety of scientific and technological archaeology and cultural relics protection means are gradually achieving a large number of excellent research results, representing the development direction of Chinese archaeology, and we look forward to the promotion of this model.
【About the Author】Chen Jianjian, Professor and Party Secretary of the School of Archaeology and Archaeology of Peking University, specializes in metallurgical archaeology and quantitative archaeology. He is the chief expert of major projects of the National Social Science Foundation, presides over or participates in a number of national, provincial and ministerial projects, publishes more than 200 academic works, and organizes and plans a number of exhibition activities. He is also a member of the Executive Committee and secretary of the Advisory Committee of the International Metallurgical History Congress, a member of the Academic Committee of the Chinese Numismatic Society, the deputy director of the Industrial Heritage Protection Professional Committee of the China Cultural Relics Protection Technology Association, the vice president of the Cultural Heritage Protection Branch of the China Cultural Industry Association, the director of the Chinese Society for the History of Science and Technology and the deputy director of the Metal History Professional Committee, and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Conservation Science in South Korea.
Reprinted from Red Star News
Red Star News reporter | Qiao Xueyang
Edited | Duan Xueying