In 2021, a new round of archaeological excavations in the sacrificial area of the Sanxingdui site will shock the world again, with fragments of golden masks, bronze sacred trees, and jade Qun... These uniquely shaped and well-made cultural relics give people a great visual impact. In addition, some of the black "ashes" attached to the surface of the bronze are even more exciting to find, although they have been integrated with dirt and dust, but after detection and analysis, which contain a large amount of silk protein, can be determined as early silk fabrics.
On the evening of this (30th), the second episode of the large-scale archaeological documentary "See Sanxingdui" created by Kawadai focused the camera on the process of finding silk residues in this archaeological excavation. In the eyes of experts, silk is small but significant. This discovery fills the gap in the archaeology of silk in the ancient Shu period, thus empirically confirming the glory of the ancient Shu civilization and providing new evidence for the study of the sacrificial form of Sanxingdui.
In this round of archaeological excavations at Sanxingdui, finding silk fabric relics is a goal that is both far and near. As far away as the silk fabric relics have not been found in the previous archaeological work in the Sichuan area, the recent is that before the official excavation of this round, the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology jointly carried out the search for silk relics with the China Silk Museum. Previously, they had detected silk protein signals in cultural relics excavated from sacrificial pits 1 and 2 in 1986. Guo Jianbo, a librarian at the Institute of Cultural Relics Conservation of the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, was tasked with finding silk objects in the new sacrificial pit during this excavation.
Guo Jianbo at work
After receiving this task, Guo Jianbo left most of his time to the microscope. After a tiny sample is magnified hundreds or thousands of times by the microscope, it often takes hours to complete the inspection, and he looks for it day and night, without letting go of a trace, which requires patience and perseverance beyond ordinary people.
At the same time, all the excavation modules were set up at the excavation site, and the archaeological teams of Shanghai University, Sichuan University and Peking University were also welcomed. Soon, good news came from the excavation site. The first gold heavy vessel excavated in the No. 5 sacrificial pit is about to be unearthed. When everyone's attention was attracted by the golden mask, Guo Jianbo also ushered in an important moment.
Silk residue
Sunday, January 31, 2021, about two o'clock after a little. Guo Jianbo finally saw a clear longitude and latitude organization under the microscope. This discovery fills the gap in the archaeology of silk in the ancient Shu period, thus empirically confirming the glory of the ancient Shu civilization and providing new evidence for the study of the sacrificial form of Sanxingdui. Most importantly, it offers a possibility for the discovery of ancient Shu scripts and symbols. The golden mask in the sacrificial pit and a ray of longitude and latitude under the microscope finally came through the millennium, and the first sight of the true face...
Today, at 20:00 and 21:20, the CCTV Record Channel and Sichuan Satellite TV will successively broadcast the second episode of "See Sanxingdui Again" "First Sight".
Red Star News reporter Qiu Junfeng Editor Jiang Qing