Cover News reporter Zeng Jie Intern He Yuting
Shu, an ancient script, has appeared in oracle bone scripts, golden scripts. According to legend, the ancient Shu Kingdom experienced 5 dynasties, but it is almost not recorded in the official history, and only slightly recorded in some local records and other documents. To understand the history of ancient Shu, we have to rely on archaeological excavations and research results.
As the first peak in the development of the ancient Shu civilization, Sanxingdui revealed a creative bronze kingdom considered one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. From 2019 to 2020, in order to further explore the settlement structure of the Sanxingdui site and the sacrificial system of the ancient Shu civilization, the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology combined geophysical exploration, remote sensing and other means to conduct archaeological exploration and excavation of the area where Sanxingdui No. 1 and No. 2 sacrificial pits are located, and 6 new sacrificial pits were discovered.
Gold mask fragments
On October 31, Lei Yu, head of Sanxingdui Site Workstation and director of Sanxingdui Museum of Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, visited the Jinsha Site Museum in Chengdu "Ancient Shu Civilization Lecture Series", with the title of "Looking at the Status of Ancient Shu Civilization in Chinese Civilization from Sanxingdui", shared Sanxingdui's archaeological excavation experience and research results through live broadcast, and led the audience to explore the confusing early ancient Shu civilization. The 150-minute lecture attracted 260,000 viewers to explore the imaginative world of ancient Shu.
What did Sanxingdui discover?
Numerous artifacts are worth looking forward to
In September 2020, the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, together with a number of scientific research units and colleges in the United Nations, officially launched the archaeological excavation of the new 6 pits. With the cohesion of multiple disciplines and institutions, the full use of modern scientific and technological means, gold masks, turtle-back grids, bronze altars, standing figures in skirts... A series of unimaginable new discoveries are emerging.
As of September 2022, a total of 15,109 numbered cultural relics and 4,060 near-complete artifacts have been unearthed in the six new pits of Sanxingdui, including many "star cultural relics" that have attracted much attention since they were unearthed, and there are also some artifacts that are still being restored and worth looking forward to.
In the lecture, Thunderstorm introduced several "explosive models".
A turtle-shaped grid that resembles a "barbecue grill"
The bronze-topped altar figure excavated from pit 3 is still under restoration. Lei Yu revealed, "When the restoration is completed, the appearance of the bronze statue may be quite different from our daily cognition, and it will be an unimaginable 'against the sky' artifact, which is worth looking forward to." ”
The wooden box in pit 6 was pinned on high hopes at the beginning of the excavation, "I have not found a life-size wooden box in Sanxingdui, I thought that I could find a lot of things when I opened it, but I couldn't see anything with the naked eye, and only at the last stage did I find a jade knife at the bottom." Thunderstorm introduced, and later research speculated that the jade knife is a textile utensils, and this box is likely to have stored textiles, "invisible things should be more careful, and the cleaning process is very long." ”
The turtle-backed grid of Pit 7 resembles a barbecue grill and is an "unseen" artifact. The jade was held by a hinged bronze vessel, and he wanted to open it without hurting the bronze, Lei Yu bluntly said that "it is a very brain-burning thing", and he was looking forward to finding a way to open the bronze to see if there were any ornaments or even words on the jade.
In addition to the discovery of a bronze altar in pit 8, there is also a bronze pig-nosed dragon shaper that has attracted the attention of scholars. Zhao Hao, an associate professor at Peking University's School of Archaeology and Museum, who is in charge of the excavation site for Pit 8, believes that this type of pig-nosed dragon shaped device is related to architecture, possibly the decoration of the roof. But Lei Yu speculated in the lecture that such artifacts may be related to drainage, like the drainage facilities in front of the Taihe Hall of the Forbidden City, "According to the law of the three-star pile of artifacts, many are in groups of three, but the bronze pig-nosed dragon shaped vessel has only found one in the entire pit, which is likely to imply that there are similar sacrificial pits that have not been found, which also brings us a lot of expectations for archaeological work." ”
Where did the Sanxingdui people go?
The ancient Shu Kingdom may have "twin capitals"
In the past, scholars generally believed that the Sanxingdui ruins and Jinsha ruins, the two capitals of the ancient Shu Kingdom, had a seamless relationship before and after the ages. However, according to the results of carbon-14 dating, the lower limit of the age of No. 4 pit has entered the Western Zhou, and many artifacts similar to the style of the Jinsha site have been excavated, which further confirms that the Sanxingdui Phase V culture and Jinsha basically exist at the same time.
Bird and fish patterns are found on the Jinsha Golden Crown Belt and Sanxingdui Golden Staff, and the copper tigers unearthed in the two places also have very similar opening and curly tail characteristics, and the stone tiger unearthed at Sanxingdui with a split tail is also a very typical Jinsha style. In addition, the jade artifacts previously unearthed at Sanxingdui are all cold-colored, which is very different from the warm-tone jade unearthed in Jinsha, and the newly discovered warm-colored jade in Pit 6, such as the jade concave blade chisel, further confirms the connection between the Sanxingdui civilization and the Jinsha civilization.
Bird-shaped gold piece
Lei Yu boldly speculated in the lecture that while Sanxingdui developed as a "capital", the Jinsha civilization also developed, and the possibility of two "capitals" being juxtaposed cannot be ruled out. Sanxingdui has traces of repairing the city wall in the later period, and there are more than one places, why are people still making up when they are gone? The connection between the newly discovered artifacts and Jinsha may indicate that for a period of time, Sanxingdui and Jinsha coexisted as two large settlements in the ancient Shu Kingdom.
In recent years, with the development of archaeological work, the complex social settlement form composed of Sanxingdui site and dozens of small and medium-sized sites of the same period in the upstream adjacent areas has also emerged. These discoveries provide clues for exploring the historical experience of the ancient Shu Kingdom.
What is the "pit" of Sanxingdui?
Experts and scholars have different opinions
At present, the nature of the six newly discovered pits at Sanxingdui is still inconclusive.
Some experts advocate the idea of "sacrificial pits". Sanxingdui archaeology has unearthed a large number of theological artifacts, so far it is impossible to accurately name them and infer their specific functions, generally believed to be related to gods, sacrifices and other activities, so most people in the archaeological community advocate naming these artifact pits as "sacrificial pits".
In June 2022, the Sanxingdui archaeological research team announced that the newly discovered bronze statue of the top snake body in Pit 8 and the bronze bird's foot figure remnant excavated in Pit 2 in 1986 were successfully matched, and the new name was the statue of the top statue of the bird's foot curly body. The success of this spelling pair is not only a major achievement of Sanxingdui archaeology, but also shows that several "sacrificial pits" are likely to be formed at the same time, and it can be speculated that something happened that year made the Sanxingdui people bury the temple things and form an "emergency burial pit".
Thunderstorm is more in favor of the idea that artifacts are buried. However, burying artifacts from the same period in different pits may also be some kind of ritual of the Sanxingdui people, not a "sacrificial" act in the narrow sense.
At the end of the lecture, Lei Yu said that the excavation of Sanxingdui has fundamentally changed the world's traditional understanding of the development level of ancient Shu civilization. The ancient Shu civilization as a whole did not reach the height of the Xia, Shang and Zhou civilization of the Central Plains, but it is undeniable that the Sanxingdui culture has surpassed the Central Plains at that time in terms of artistic imagination and creativity, large-scale bronze casting, and the forging and utilization of gold.
The unique and magnificent ancient Shu civilization shows the diversity in the development of Chinese civilization and confirms the development process of Chinese civilization from pluralism to integration. With the progress of archaeological excavations, Sanxingdui, which carries the glory of ancient Shu civilization, will surely provide more space for thinking about the study of Chinese civilization and world civilization, and shine with more dazzling brilliance.
thunderstorm
[If you have news leads, please report to us, once adopted, there will be a fee.] WeChat attention: ihxdsb, QQ: 3386405712]