New artifacts have been discovered at the Sanshingdui excavation site in southwest China’s Sichuan province, described as one of the world’s most famous archaeological discoveries, including a 3000-year-old bronze figure holding a 1.15-meter-high ancient wine pot on its head.
Sanxingdui is an early Bronze Age archaeological culture found in the Chengdu area. It is named after the site of Sanxingdui in Guanhan County, Sichuan Province. Sanxingdui is located 7 kilometers west of the county center on the southern bank of the Mamuhe River.
As of late May, a total of 534 important cultural relics, including ivory, bronze, gold, jade and nearly 2,000 broken cultural relics, including another gold mask found in chamber eight and a bronze figure found in chamber three, had been discovered in the six sacrificial pits of the Sanxingdui ruins.
The bronze figure holding a zong vessel on its head can be considered an “unprecedented” cultural relic not only in China, but also in the world. The figure consists of two parts, the upper part is a 55 centimeter high bronze tzong with a large neck decorated with exquisite dragon-shaped drawings, and the lower part is a 60 centimeter high bronze figure with a kneeling pose, seemingly holding something in her hands.
The archaeological team has almost finished the work of extracting all the ivory relics in the third and fourth sections of the site and is conducting further research, including DNA analysis of the ivory relics, said the dean of the Sichuan Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute.
“Since the bronze relics are buried under the ivory relics, the next step for us will be to excavate the bronze ware. But it’s not yet known how long that will take because it all depends on the integrity of the relics,” Tang said, adding that they can extract four to five relics a day if the relics are intact, while one fragile or incomplete bronze relic could take two to three days.
First discovered in 1929, the Sanxingdui ruins, dating back to the Bronze Age more than 3,000 years ago, offer one pleasant surprise after another after decades of excavation and archaeological research. It is the largest ancient site ever found in the Sichuan region and is believed to be from the Xia (c. 2,070 B.C.- 1,600 B.C.E.) and Shang (c. 1,600 B.C.- 1,046 B.C.E.) dynasties.
In March, Chinese archaeologists discovered more than 500 relics in six ancient sacrificial pits, startling archaeologists and history buffs in China and around the world. Among the cultural relics were a mysterious bronze mask, a bronze statue more than 2 meters tall and a mask made of gold, giving modern people a glimpse into the world of ancient cultures that existed in the upper Yangtze River.
“The academic value of the Sanxingdui site for Chinese cultural history may be comparable to that of the sites of Troy and Nineveh, which are of great importance to the origins of early European civilization,” Huo said.
Historians pay attention to the fact that the composition of bronze used in products from Sanshindui differs significantly from bronze known from artifacts of Shang-Yin culture. There is a difference in the proportions of the main components: copper, tin and lead, as well as in the composition of additives. The Sanshindu bronzes are characterized by higher content of iron (up to 3.42 %), nickel (up to 1.32 %), phosphorus (up to 2.12 %), silicon (up to 0.9 %) and aluminum (up to 0.34 %). But they do not contain bismuth, arsenic and antimony, which are characteristic of Yin bronzes. The bronze weapons from Sanxingdu use an alloy with high copper content (87 to 98.4 percent), whereas Yin bronzes, which can have more than 26 percent lead and tin impurities, are used. As a result, Sanshindu weapons were more durable. The high skill of Sanshindu residents is evidenced by their ability to smelt thin-walled products and hollow pipes.
Researchers believe that Sansingduys managed to have a significant impact on the Chinese metallurgy of the kingdom of Shan – Yin. They attribute the progress of Yin bronze production, which occurred in the XIII century BC, to this influence. The ornamental tao-te motif on Yin bronzes, similar to the anthropomorphic images from Sanshindui, is considered evidence of this influence.
But why did the Sanshindu civilization disappear? It was quite successful and well-developed and existed for nearly two thousand years: the latest finds date from about 1200 – 1100 years BC. Archaeologists have determined that the time of the decline of Sanxingdui coincides with the emergence of the Jinsha culture, discovered by scientists in 2001. It is close to Sanshindui both geographically (the archaeological sites are about 50 kilometers apart) and in material culture. Apparently, the capital of the Shu kingdom (if we accept the hypothesis that Sanxingdui was that capital) was moved around 1200 BC.
