Since the discovery of the No. 1 and No. 2 "sacrificial pits" at the Sanxingdui site in Guanghan in 1986, a large number of bronzes unearthed in the two pits have shown an unprecedented and unique bronze cultural appearance, making the ancient Shu civilization that has been dormant for thousands of years "wake up and shock the world".
In addition to the various lion-nosed and wide-mouthed, large-eared, and strange-looking character statues, there are also bronze trees similar to the "Tongtian Divine Tree" recorded in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", as well as various mysterious gold masks and golden scepters.
Among them, the "appearance rate" of fish and bird ornaments and bird figures is not lower than that of human portraits: birds and fish patterns on Sanxingdui golden staffs, bronze standing birds on large sacred trees, bird bodies and human faces with slender tail feathers and other cultural relics cause us infinite reverie: Who is the creator of Sanxingdui culture? Why did he make extensive use of sacrificial ritual vessels with birds as totems? Sanxingdui has been buried under the surface for thousands of years, where has its owner gone?
Half history, half mythologyMore than a thousand years ago, the great poet of the Tang Dynasty, Li Bai, exclaimed that "silkworm bushes and fish (fú), how dazed the founding of the country, 48,000 years old, not connected with Qin Sai". Although the books before and after the Han and Jin Dynasties mention the founding ancestors of ancient Shu, such as Yangxiong's "Benji of the King of Shu" in the Han Dynasty, Chang Xuan's "Huayang Guozhi" of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, etc., they are all just a few words, and it is difficult to see the whole picture. In particular, several generations of Shu kings who appeared in the form of myths, such as the silkworm god Silkworm Bush, Du Yu (Wangdi) who soulized the cuckoo, and the turtle spirit (enlightened/congdi) who came back from the dead, etc., made the history of ancient Shu even more confusing. However, the ancient history and legend of silkworm bush, cypress shrub, Yu Huang, Du Yu, and enlightened generations of Shu kings still have relics related to them in Sichuan, which seems to tell us that this is the real history.
According to the records of the "Book of the King of Shu", the founding ancestor of the ancient Shu Kingdom was a descendant of the Yellow Emperor - the silkworm congratulation clan. The original base camp of the silkworm tribe was in the upper reaches of the Min River, and there are still stone carvings of "Silkworm Tomb Town" in the Silkworm Pass in Mao County, Sichuan. Later, silkworms gradually migrated to the Chengdu Plain and gradually integrated with the local indigenous population, forming the earliest part of the Shu people. The greatest achievement of silkworms is to teach the people to domesticate wild silkworms as silkworms, and is respected by posterity as one of the originators of the sericulture textile industry. According to the "Huayang Guozhi", silkworm bush was called king in Shu, and after his death, the coffin was made of stone, and later generations of people followed this practice, and the sarcophagus burial in the Minjiang area of Sichuan today is considered to be a reflection of the burial customs of the silkworm bush era.
The silkworm bush is the only one of the ancient Shu kings to be recorded in appearance, although there are only three words - "its eyes", but it opens a window for us to explore the lost civilization of the ancient Shu country. The bronze masks and figures in the Sanxingdui site all have large and long diamond-shaped eyes, and even more like crab handle eyes sticking forward in a cylindrical shape, these cultural relics confirm the records of the appearance of silkworms in ancient books.
Could it be that Silkworm Cong is the owner of the Sanxingdui site, and he used himself as a prototype to create a giant bronze "figure"?
Shang bronze standing figure, height 260.8, portrait height 180, base width 48.5, length 46.7, height 35 (cm). Source: Sanxingdui Museum
Although the silkworm clan "first called king", it obviously did not have the nature of a monarch in the same period as Xia and Shang, and may only be a tribal chief linked by blood. According to historical records, after the silkworm bush, there were two early Shu kings in the Shu state, Bai Shu and Yu Huang. "Each of these three generations is hundreds of years old, and they are all deified and immortal, and their people are quite dependent on the king." It is less likely that a Shu king will live for hundreds of years and be deified and immortal, so we can infer that three generations of silkworms, cypress bushes, and fish rinses are the names of one generation, not one person. The deification of the king of Shu is also a cryptic statement, it is very likely that each generation of Shu kings retreated to Minshan after losing their country, and their people naturally died and fled, "with the king".
The family, appearance, origin and other information of the second generation of Shu King Bai Guan are not verified in historical materials, but the third generation of Shu King Yu Huang has rich remains in both legends and later cultural relics, and we can spell out the situation at that time relatively completely:
The Yuji generation spans from 4,000 to 3,200 years ago, which is equivalent to the Xia Shang era in the Central Plains. They expanded downstream along the Min River, basically occupying the heart of the Chengdu Plain and realizing the unification of the Shu state. They centered on Qushang (in present-day Shuangliu County, Chengdu) and farmed while fishing, which was the beginning of the reclamation of the Chengdu Plain by the Shu people.
What is "Fish Turtle"? The "Shuowen" defines Tai as a good fishing water bird, which is commonly known as Osprey; Qu Shangzhi "Qu", which means "the sight of the eagle falcon", is exactly the pictogram of the fish kai. Later, the Yuji clan expanded into the richer wilderness of Guangdu - Guanghan. Guanghan ancient known as "Luocheng", the chicken is a bird of prey such as the stork, characterized by binocular bulge and sharp eyes. It can be seen that the development of the Yukai clan has never left the image of "bird".
Around the Moon Bay in Guanghan, the Yuji clan built a city palace with an area of nearly four square kilometers (about the same size as the Shang Dynasty capital Zhengzhou at the same time), with a reasonable layout and rigorous structure, divided into residential living areas, workshop areas, sacrificial areas, burial areas, etc., and there are three artificially rammed mounds in the city, which are likely to be sacrificial platforms built by the Shu people - this is the thousand-year-old Sanxingdui culture created by the Shu state. The never-before-seen and unheard of rare treasures we unearth in the sacrificial pit today are the product of the large-scale religious activities of the Yukai clan.
The Chengdu Plain is rich in waterways and rich products, and has made outstanding achievements in agriculture, handicrafts, commerce, especially jade processing, bronze smelting and casting. From silkworm bushes to fish, the land of ancient Shu has experienced the transition from the Neolithic period of silkworm farming to the Bronze Age of fishing and hunting. With the rise of the Yukai King's absolute dominance over the region, his culture was fully reflected in various artifacts. On the one hand, King Yuji created statues of gods and effectively established the worship of the gods of the ancestor Silkworm Congshi by the ancient Shu remnants; On the other hand, fishing birds are used as the clan totem, giving the clan a symbolic meaning of material culture and spiritual culture. Fish can dive into the abyss, birds can ascend to the sky, they are the gods of the king of Shu, naturally, they appear in various religious ceremonies to sacrifice to the heavens and the sky.
The fish totem illuminates the ancient Shu civilizationAt present, the archaeological community has basically agreed that the earliest archaeological culture that can be traced back to the Chengdu Plain, the Baodun culture, was created by the ancestor of the Shu king, the silkworm congs; The master of the Sanxingdui culture is the Shu King of the Yuji clan; The later Du Yu and enlightened Shu kings were the masters of the Twelve Bridges culture and the late Bashu culture. From the unification of Qin to the time of Emperor Wudi of Han, the ancient Shu culture was gradually integrated into the Han culture.
In the mysterious and dreamy and imposing bronze group of Sanxingdui, the extraordinary wisdom and imagination of the ancient Shu ancestors are condensed, and the bronzes that have been endowed with a strong mythological color especially shocked the world. Eight bronze sacred trees of different sizes and similar shapes have been unearthed in the No. 2 sacrificial pit, and the tallest sacred tree is 3.95 meters high, which is the most historical, artistic and ornamental value of Sanxingdui. The tree is divided into three layers, each with three branches, the branches have fruit leaves and fruits, and each upward fruit stands a leaping bird, and there are nine birds of the same shape in the whole tree. Due to the current fragmentation of the treetop, it is not yet certain whether there is still a bird on the treetop.
Shang bronze divine tree, maximum diameter 140, height 396, branch residual height 359, base diameter 93.5 (cm). Source: Sanxingdui Museum
There is a myth and legend of the "golden crow negative sun" in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", because the ancients did not understand the natural law of the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, they gave a rather imaginative explanation: it was the divine bird that flew in the sky with the sun on its back, sending the rotation of day and night and the alternation of winter and summer. The birds on the Sanxingdui bronze divine tree can be seen as sacred birds that the sun "takes turns on duty". All things grow by the sun, and the sun is carried to the sky by birds, which shows that birds were worshipped as gods in the minds of the ancient Shu people.
Among the cultural relics unearthed in Sanxingdui, the most striking animal shapes displayed in the form of clusters are the birds with a strong lineup. The bird cultural relics unearthed in Sanxingdui are beautifully shaped, varied, and very ornamental and artistic. Some of them have streamlined bodies, feathered crowns like a row of flags in the wind, and long, pointy straight beaks are the most eye-catching; Some have a few feathers on their backs, shaped like beating flames; Some are like peacocks, light and agile; Some fly out of the head and neck of the bird, making it difficult to distinguish whether it is the body, wings or tail. Basically each bird has small holes in its base, and it can be speculated that they are mostly accessories or ornaments on some utensils.
The biggest piece here is the bronze big bird head, more than 40 centimeters high, with a curved hooked beak and round eyes, which looks majestic and sacred, quite like the "king of birds". This large bird head was also coated with cinnabar on its eyes and hooked beak when it was unearthed, and it should be a beautiful colored bird. Its curved beak closely resembles that of an osprey, and judging by the drilled hole in the neck, it can be fixed to temple buildings or other large objects as a symbol and symbol of the Shu King Fish Crane.
Bronze large bird head. Source: Sanxingdui Museum
Among the various artifacts, the image of the bird was also combined with the king of Shu, and became a tool and magic weapon to communicate with the gods of heaven and earth. For example, the 142-centimeter-long gold staff unearthed in the No. 1 "sacrificial pit" is wrapped in thicker pure gold skin, and the surface is engraved with a combination of people, fish and birds. At the bottom, two human heads are engraved with symmetrical front and back, wearing a five-toothed high crown and triangular earrings with earlobes, similar to the bronze Dalijin representing the image of the King of Shu; The two groups above have the same pattern, showing birds and fish with opposite backs, and the neck of the bird and the head of the fish are pierced by a spike-shaped petiole like a long arrow. This golden staff shows the unity of the three privileges of kingship, divine power and wealth power, and also symbolizes the supreme dominance of the king of Shu.
Fish and bird patterns on a golden staff. Source/"Selected Cultural Relics Unearthed from Sanxingdui Sacrificial Pit"
In fact, not only Sanxingdui has many bird shapes, but also many bird shapes have been unearthed in the Jinsha site slightly later than Sanxingdui, the most famous of which is the "Sun God Bird" gold leaf ornament. Four birds spread their wings in the same direction around the sun, as if "guarding" the sun's movement. The perfect shape and superb craftsmanship of the gold leaf amaze us today, and this pattern has become a symbol of Chengdu's city image and Chinese cultural heritage.
It is not difficult to see that the Yuji totem has a special position in ancient Chinese civilization, especially the ancient Shu civilization represented by Sanxingdui.
The collapse of the ancient theocratic kingdomWhere the Sanxingdui civilization came from and where it went is still inconclusive. In the sacrificial pit where countless rare cultural relics have been excavated, whether it is bronze gods or sacred trees and other non-desecrated religious artifacts, they are buried in a state of smashing or burning, and the burial order is quite exquisite: first small and medium-sized bronzes are "bottomed", then covered with fragments of large bronzes, and finally covered with ivory jade and other "capping", layer by layer, for a grand view. Therefore, some people say that Sanxingdui is not a sacrificial pit, but a "national destruction pit". Either due to natural disasters such as floods, or due to man-made disasters such as civil unrest in wars, someone (probably Sanxingdui people themselves) personally destroyed the temple built by Sanxingdui people, and broke all ritual objects and beliefs and buried them. But this is certainly a guess, but it is certain that the Sanxingdui site buried the grandest splendor of the Yuji Shu Kingdom.
The once-flourishing Bronze Kingdom ended in a landfill, so where did its owner go?
Both the "Benji of the King of Shu" and the "Huayang Guozhi" say that when the Yuhuang King was hunting in the Tangshan Mountains, he suddenly "immortalized", and even many Shu people followed suit. The disappearance of "Xianhua" is actually the defeat of the Yuhuang King, the end of the Yuhuang dynasty, the ancient Shu kingdom changed hands, and the new Shu king is Du Yu.
However, the Yuji Clan Shu Kingdom has a developed economy, and the strength of the army is not weak, how can it be easily defeated by the newly promoted leader? Among the cultural relics unearthed at the Sanxingdui site, there are sea shells from India, Myanmar and other countries through the Southern Silk Road, as well as various bronze statues, bronze masks, and bronze jewelry that need to consume a lot of ore raw materials, which are sacrificial vessels created to highlight the concept of theocracy in ancient countries, which can be imagined to far exceed the country's ability to consume wealth. The ancient theocratic kingdom that did not develop the economy and expand its strength, and relied entirely on fanatical belief, was increasingly unable to withstand social turmoil. About 3,200 years ago, the Twelve Bridges culture represented by Du Yu on the other side of the Chengdu Plain rose up through measures such as "teaching the people to farm", replacing the Sanxingdui culture of the Yuji clan.
Perhaps, it was the people of Sanxingdui who realized that their treasure had "failed", so they decided to hold a grand and bizarre sacrifice for the last time, moving the artifacts and sacrificial artifacts usually placed in the temple to the square in the city, breaking and burning them and burying them in an orderly manner in the sacrificial pit, indicating that they would return to the heavenly god realm and the place of their ancestors, and then moved away from this home where they had lived for hundreds of years.
The most speculated later about the address of the Yuji clan's "new home" is the Jinsha site, which is also in Chengdu. Geographically, Sanxingdui is located in the north of the Chengdu Plain and Jinsha is in the center of the Chengdu Plain, less than 40 kilometers apart. The golden crown band unearthed in Jinsha also uses the composition units of people, birds, fish, and arrows; Jinsha unearthed a small bronze standing person, the shape and demeanor are the same as the big bronze standing man in Sanxingdui; The Jinsha culture takes the sun god bird as the core, which is consistent with the bird totem culture of Sanxingdui... More interestingly, by comparing the bronze portraits of the two, it will be found that the portraits in Sanxingdui are clearly divided into two groups, braided hair and hair, while the portraits in the Jinsha site are only braided. Therefore, it is reasonable to speculate that Sanxingdui has undergone a change of power internally, and the braided hair family is better than the Xianfa family, and a new rule has opened in Jinsha.
Golden crown with ornamental line tracing at the site of Jinsha. Source/"Jinsha Taozhen——— Cultural Relics Unearthed at the Site of Jinsha Village in Chengdu"
There is also evidence that after the fall of the Yuji Dynasty, the Yuhuang people scattered and fled, and some of the Yuhuang people traveled north to reach Baoji, Shaanxi. In the Baoji area, a number of tombs of the country of "bow fish" (the character is recorded on local bronzes) in the Western Zhou Dynasty have been unearthed, with "bow fish" as the national name, combining bows and arrows with fish, which is reminiscent of the pattern on the golden staff of Sanxingdui; The small bronze statues unearthed in the country of "Bowfish" also have huge hands that are exaggerated and held in a ring shape, just like the Sanxingdui bronze statues.
Sanxingdui gold staff pattern line drawing. Source/Sanxingdui Sacrificial Pit
After the collapse of the Yuji clan, where the Sanxingdui culture took root still needs further empirical research on the source exploration project of Chinese civilization in the mainland. The exploration of the origin and development trajectory of civilization is the eternal mission of mankind. The ancient Shu civilization has gone through the silkworm bush, cypress shrub, fish rinse, Du Yu, and enlightened generations, creating a brilliant light of civilization and leaving countless mysteries for future generations. The divine tree that reaches the sky with three stars piled up, birds flying with wings, mysterious masks, majestic and solemn figures, gods who combine people and birds... They are all vivid portrayals of the spiritual world of the ancient Shu ancestors. The exquisite cultural relics created by these majestic royal capitals hide people's devotion to the gods of heaven and earth and all natural things, and show the romantic imagination and extraordinary creativity of the ancient Shu ancestors.
Resources:
[1] Qu Xiaoqiang, Li Dianyuan, Duan Yu: Sanxingdui Culture, Chengdu: Sichuan People's Publishing House, 1993.
[2] Duan Yu, Political Structure and Cultural Model: A Study of the Ancient Civilization of Bashu, Shanghai: Xuelin Press, 1999.
[3] Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology: Sanxingdui Sacrificial Pit, Beijing: Cultural Relics Press, 1999.
[4] Chengdu Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, School of Archaeology and Museum, Peking University: "Jinsha Taozhen: Cultural Relics Unearthed at the Site of Jinsha Village in Chengdu", Beijing: Cultural Relics Press, 2002.
[5] Tang Li, Luo Xiaohong, Zou Peng, Song Junyu, Qiu Xueqing, et al., Explaining Sanxingdui, Chengdu: Bashu Books, 2014.
[6] Zhao Dianzeng, "Sanxingdui Theocratic Ancient Kingdom Research", Sichuan Cultural Relics, 2019.
[7] Huang Jianhua, "Myths, Legends and Historical Facts in the Ancient Shu Era," Mythological Research Collection, 2019.
▌Source: National Humanities and History WeChat