Starting from the treasures of ancient Shu, let the cultural relics replace the ancients to "speak", and unveil the exchange and development path of the ancient Shu civilization thousands of years ago... The final episode of the three-episode large-scale archaeological documentary "Treasures of Ancient Shu", "Exchange and Mutual Learning", produced by Sichuan Radio and Television Station, will be broadcast on CCTV-9 at 20:00 today (1) and on Sichuan Satellite TV at 21:15.
Jinsha Ruins, located in Jinsha Village, Xisupo Township, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, has a distribution area of about 5 square kilometers. Since 1995, archaeologists have conducted more than ten years of exploration and excavation of the Jinsha site, and unearthed tens of thousands of precious cultural relics such as gold, bronze, jade and stone tools. Among them, the jade is the most eye-catching, with more than 3,000 pieces.
In this case, a small ten-knot jade has attracted the attention of archaeologists. Why focus only on this artifact? Because of the 30 pieces of jade unearthed at the Jinsha site, only it is unique.
First, from the appearance point of view, the corners of each section of this jade are engraved with small circles of left and right symmetry. This is a pair of eyes, the two convex surfaces above and below the eyes are the facial features, this ornament is called the human face pattern. This human face is a divine emblem that belongs exclusively to Liangzhu and represents the faith of an ethnic group.
Second, from the material point of view, it does not belong to the local jade material of Jinsha. Through the scientific testing of infrared spectroscopy, the second Raman spectroscopy, and the energy spectrometer, experts found that it is similar to the jade material of Liangzhu culture.
From the above two points, archaeologists deduce that the ten-section jade chun excavated from the Jinsha site has an inevitable connection with the Liangzhu culture. But the Liangzhu culture predates the jinsha culture by at least 1,000 years. The distance between the two places is 1900 kilometers, how did this jade artifact travel through time and space from Liangzhu to the ancient Shu Kingdom?
The same "coincidence" happened on the Big Mouth. The Daguchi Venerables, which originated in the Central Plains, were an important tool for local political and religious activities. However, in the past 50 years of archaeological excavations, Sanxingdui in Sichuan, Funan County in Anhui, Yueyang in Hunan, Huarong County in Hunan, and Jingzhou in Hubei have all unearthed large mouth zuns with very similar shapes. These cultural relics, which have similarities in different regions, step by step verify the cultural exchanges and cultural dissemination paths of the ancient ancestors.
Behind the cultural relics is the spread of cultural identity and the embodiment of the integration of different ethnic groups. About 4,000 years ago, the ancient kingdom of Liangzhu disappeared from the map of China. With their attachment and memory of their hometown, the people of Liangzhu carried ten sections of jade and crossed most of China along the Yangtze River to the ancient Shu Kingdom. The ancestors brought Dakouzun from the Central Plains to the ancient Shu kingdom through trade exchanges or population migration. In the process of frequent exchanges and dissemination, it is integrated with local culture and gradually grows.
What is clear is that the exchange and dissemination of cultures cannot be one-way. While the ancient Shu kingdom continued to absorb foreign cultures, the ancient Shu people also never stopped exploring outward. From 1974 to 1981, 27 tombs were discovered in Baoji City, including Paper Fangtou, Zhuyuangou and Rujiazhuang, and more than 5,000 cultural relics were unearthed. According to the inscription on the excavated artifacts, this is a group of royal tombs called the "(Bowfish) Kingdom". In this tomb group, two bronze standing figures were unearthed. A man and a woman, with similar forms, and a pair of large hands in the shape of a ring. In Baoji, in addition to the (bowfish) national tomb group, no similar bronze standing figures have ever been found.
So, where exactly do they come from? Archaeologists have turned the direction of their exploration to Sanxingdui. Bronze Da Li Ren - the treasure of the Sanxingdui Museum. As a symbol of the supreme leader of the ancient Shu kingdom, The Dali people also had a pair of large hands that were extremely incongruous with the proportions of the body. Such unique similarities have led archaeologists to speculate that the (bowfish) kingdom may have been founded by the ancient Shu people. In addition, more artifacts support this conclusion. Bronze willow leaf swords, triangular aid ge, small flat bottom jars, pointed bottom tanks, these (bowfish) national tombs unearthed from the ancient Shu state artifacts tell the history of the ancient Shu people out of their homeland and the establishment of a new homeland. In different cultural exchanges, we have seen the cultural identity of Chinese culture "you have me, I have you", and also witnessed the historical process of chinese civilization's pluralism and integration.
Since the 1980s, the northern region of Vietnam has successively unearthed Yazhang with the cultural color of Sanxingdui. For archaeologists, the discovery is of great value. From 2005 to 2018, the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology sent archaeological teams to Vietnam three times to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the main sites and excavated cultural relics in the north. In addition to Yazhang, a variety of artifacts with Sanxingdui cultural factors such as Jade Bi, Tao Gao Shan Bean, Tao Circle Foot Bean, and Triangle Aid Ge were also found. Archaeologists have speculated that the ancient Shu culture had spread to Vietnam since the shang zhou at the latest.
So, how did the ancient Shu civilization go to Vietnam and even further southeast Asia? Wan Jiao, deputy research librarian of the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, decided to look for the remains of the ancient road and confirm the route of civilization transmission.
Step by step, Wan Jiao and the team explored the five-foot road recorded in ancient books, hoping to determine more specific details of this southward passage. With the help of modern equipment, Wan Jiao finally confirmed the direction of the five-foot road in Yibin. After entering Yibin, the Five Foot Road was divided into three routes, and finally converged in Junlian County to Yunnan.
But that's just the beginning. According to experts, the road from the Chengdu Plain to Vietnam was a complex transportation network, now collectively known as the Southern Silk Road. Thousands of years ago, the ancients had spontaneously formed such an international cultural exchange channel. The scope of the ancient Shu civilization also went farther with these communication channels.
Standing at the height of the origin of Chinese civilization and the development of world civilization, it is difficult for us to imagine how many surprises the ancient Shu civilization has not been discovered for such a long period of time. And all this will be left to future generations to slowly explore.
Red Star News reporter Qiu Junfeng
Edited by Li Jie
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