In the last century, after Sanxingdui was born, it has become the focus of social attention for a long time, one of the important reasons is that Sanxingdui is very different from the aesthetic style of traditional Chinese culture, as well as the bronze portraits of "high nose and deep eyes", etc., which have caused many reveries and speculations.
For example, many people on the Internet claim that Sanxingdui originated from ancient Egypt, ancient Babylon, etc., and that Sanxingdui people are from the West. Even, there are even more brain-openers who think that the ancestors of Sanxingdui are aliens.
The problem is: to say that Sanxingdui originated from ancient Egypt, the Lianghe River Basin, etc., obviously ignores the distance factor, and the long migration period must have left traces, but in fact there is no evidence to prove this view, but if not, how to explain Sanxingdui's "exotic" style?
In recent years, domestic scholars have unveiled the veil through various researches, and Sanxingdui really did not originate from foreign countries. More importantly, research found that the Sanxingdui civilization was still inextricably linked with the Xia Dynasty.
Significant discoveries have been made through research
In the past 100 years, many ancient ruins have been unearthed in the Yangtze River and Yellow River basins, and when you compare them with Sanxingdui, you will find many striking similarities, such as the Shijiahe ruins.
The Shijiahe site is located in Tianmen, Hubei, with a total area of 3.5 million square meters, from 5900 to 3800 years ago, the largest area, the highest grade, the most affiliated settlements in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, one of the five major prehistoric capital settlements in China. The site is believed to be roughly consistent with the era and geographical location of the "Yu Zheng Sanmiao" event recorded in historical documents, and should be the capital of Sanmiao.
Many of the cultural relics unearthed at the site are similar to the style of Sanxingdui, such as the head of the jade man in Shijiahe (above), the mask (below), and the jade turtle.
In the Yangtze River Daily's "Sanxingdui Bronze Statue Created by Itself, or Falling from the Sky?Chengdu Cultural and Museum Experts Come to Han to Answer", Wang Fang, deputy director of Chengdu Jinsha Site Museum, pointed out that the artifacts of the ancient Shu bronze culture are not only influenced by the Houshijiahe jade culture in terms of plastic arts, production skills, worship objects and religious concepts.
In the picture below, the left is the Shijiahe jade mask, the middle is the bronze mask of the Shang Dynasty in Panlong City, Wuhan, Hubei, and the right is the Sanxingdui bronze mask
In addition to being mainly influenced by the Shijiahe culture, Sanxingdui is also inextricably linked with other cultures in the Yangtze River and Yellow River basins, such as the spitting head (below) at the Yangguanzhai site in Shaanxi, which is very similar to the Sanxingdui portrait with a convex eye. It can be said that most of Sanxingdui's culture can now find its source in China.
Therefore, Sanxingdui must have absorbed various cultures in the Yangtze River, the Yellow River Basin and other places, and then created a new culture. But because this culture, which is very different from the Central Plains, has not been passed down and disappeared into the smoke and clouds of history, it will surprise us now after it reappears!
Sanxingdui culture and the Xia Dynasty
Sanxingdui in addition to close exchanges with Shijiahe, but also with the Shang Dynasty close exchanges, Sanxingdui's bronze tripod decorative patterns and the Yellow River basin unearthed are highly similar, and at the same time, the oracle bone inscription also has a record of exchanges with Shu. In fact, Sanxingdui was a regional power, and it was normal for the Shang Dynasty to interact with it. But what few people know is that Sanxingdui is still inextricably linked with the Xia Dynasty.
Zheng Qian, deputy director of the China National Museum, pointed out in "Why China: The Historical Memory of the Chinese National Community in One Hundred Cultural Relics" that after the rise of Erlitou culture in the Xia Dynasty, Yazhang was upgraded to a national ritual vessel, and at this time, Yazhang quickly disappeared in the surrounding areas. Therefore, Yazhang is a symbol of Erlitou's royal power.
However, in the Sanxingdui sacrificial pit equivalent to the late Shang Dynasty (about 3300-3100 years ago), many pieces of Yazhang were unearthed by archaeology. Zhao Haitao, the leader of the Erlitou archaeological team, pointed out that there were some major changes in the Yazhang in the Erlitou era, one is the volume has become larger, and the other is the dragon shape, that is, the overall appearance is the dragon shape, and many pieces of Yazhang unearthed at the Sanxingdui site are also the image of the dragon.
Therefore, Sanxingdui and Xia culture must be connected. In the picture above, the left is Erlitou Yazhang, the middle is Sanxingdui Yazhang, and the right is Jinsha Yazhang.
Erlitou is more than 300 years earlier than the upper limit of Sanxingdui Yazhang, and the reason for the cultural exchange between the two is that after the fall of the Xia Dynasty, the nobles moved south, that is, the Book of Yi Zhou records that "500 people from Ji and his subordinates went to live in the South Nest"! After Erlitou, the Yazhang of the Erlitou style appeared in the south (even as far as Lingnan) and the southwest, obviously because the nobles of the Xia Dynasty fled south to bring the Yazhang culture to various places.
As can be seen from the above figure, in addition to the vicinity of Erlitou, most of the Yazhang have been unearthed in the south and southwest! In fact, the distribution of Yazhang can also confirm the record of Xia Wei's southern escape in the historical books to a certain extent.
Among them, the "Sanguan Temple Ruins" located in Feixi County, Hefei, Anhui Province, near Chaohu Lake, indicate that Xia Wei may have fled to Sanguan Temple, and was later pursued and killed by the Shang Dynasty.
In addition to Yazhang, Zhao Haitao, the leader of the Erlitou archaeological team, also found: Sanxingdui pottery (see the right in the picture above, the left is unearthed in Erlitou), inlaid turquoise bronze medals, jade Ge, snail jade, etc. are also almost the same as those in Erlitou.
Therefore, whether it is indirect transmission or direct transmission by the descendants of Xia people, it shows that Sanxingdui has a close relationship with Xia culture. The above-mentioned scholar Wang Fang believes that the westward migration of the Erlitou culture and the Xia relics brought copper smelting technology, jade traditions and beliefs to the indigenous people of the Chengdu Plain (mainly in Sanxingdui).
Aftermath
In addition to the cultural origin of Sanxingdui, genetic testing has also been carried out in recent years, showing that the ancestors of Sanxingdui did not originate from abroad.
In 2015, scholars extracted the DNA of ancient humans from the Baodun culture, one of the sources of Sanxingdui, and Xiamen University's "Ancient Genome Reveals the Coexistence and Development of Neolithic Millet and Rice Mixed Agricultural Popularity and Cultural Spread in Southwest China" pointed out that 89.1~95.1% of the ancestors were agricultural people who migrated south from the Yellow River Basin, and a small part were indigenous people who mainly hunted in southwest China.
Therefore, whether it is race or culture, Sanxingdui basically has nothing to do with foreign countries, and is an authentic branch of Chinese civilization. Disrespecting the facts to interpret Sanxingdui as a Western culture is just another trick to deconstruct Chinese civilization.
Resources:
"Sanxingdui Bronze Statue Self-Created, or Falling from the Sky?
"Paleogenome Reveals the Coexistence and Development of Melithic Rice Mixed Agriculture Epidemic and Cultural Spread in Southwest China in the Neolithic Period"
Why China: The Historical Memory of the Chinese Nation Community in 100 Cultural Relics