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How was the Sanxingdui site discovered?
Yue Nan Koala look
Writing about archaeological subjects has always been a knot in my heart. Since 1990, I have been writing books on archaeological themes, and I have made a wish to write the greatest archaeological discoveries and excavations in China in the 20th century in my lifetime, in the form of documentaries, and leave them to those who come after. The first archaeological works I completed were the story of the discovery and excavation of the Dingling Tomb buried in the Thirteen Tombs of Changping in Beijing, namely "Wind and Snow Dingling - The Mystery of the Opening of the Underground Xuangong Cave"; followed by 10 documentary literary works such as "The Resurrected Legion - The Discovery of the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of the Qin Shi Huang Emperor's Mausoleum", "The Lonely Soul of the Western Han Dynasty - The Excavation of the Mawangdui Ruins", "Lingnan Shock - The Discovery and Excavation of the Tomb of the King of Nanyue", which was named "Archaeological China" series.
When I finished the 10 works in this series of archaeology, it was already 2003, and I began to prepare for the creation of sanxingdui archaeological documentary literary work "The Kingdom of Heavenly Gifts - The Amazing Story of Sanxingdui and Jinsha Ruins". Before I saw the physical object unearthed at Sanxingdui, I had already seen the pictures and I was shocked. These cultural relics are different from the Central Plains cultural relics, very special, interesting and distinctive, especially the bronze Da Liren, the bronze sacred tree, the bronze longitudinal mask and the golden mask, the golden staff, etc., which have not been seen in the Central Plains and foreign museums, which have a great impact on my imagination, I feel very incredible, and I have the urge to urgently ask about the source of these cultural relics and how such a civilization came about. However, it was limited to the travel conditions at that time, and it was delayed in achieving the wishes. It wasn't until the spring of 2003 that I had the opportunity to come to Chengdu and Guanghan to meet the coveted Sanxingdui cultural relics and the experts and scholars who discovered, excavated and protected them that year.
Bronze da li portrait scene excavated from the No. 2 sacrifice pit of Sanxingdui site (Courtesy of Sanxingdui Research Institute of Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology)
In the spring of 2003, on the eve of the full-scale outbreak of SARS in Beijing, I flew out of Beijing for Chengdu, Sichuan, and then transferred to Guanghan to interview people and things excavated by Sanxingdui.
I first found Mr. Tianzhao of the Cultural Management Office, who is an expert and key figure in the discovery, excavation, and especially protection of Sanxingdui, and has devoted a lifetime to the protection of the Sanxingdui site. Mr. Boil took me to visit the Sanxingdui site and museum, and I took the opportunity to get to know Director Xiao and other key managers, and of course, I also got to know the family members of the Yan family courtyard and several villagers who participated in the excavation. About a week of visits and interviews gave me a general understanding of the site, the cultural relics and the discovery, excavation and protection process. Subsequently, I returned to Chengdu, and then went to the Sichuan Institute of Archaeology, the Sichuan Provincial Museum, Sichuan University and other places, interviewed a number of experts and scholars who participated in excavation, restoration and protection in those years, and followed up and verified some detailed issues, laying a solid foundation for the writing of this work.
I remember that on a sunny afternoon, I drank tea with Mr. Chen De'an, the director of the Sanxingdui Archaeological Station, at the small tea farm outside the Sichuan Provincial Museum (and there is a special ear-digging service, which feels very fresh) and learned about some unsolved mysteries of Sanxingdui.
Baby in the canal
In the second month of the lunar calendar of the 18th year of the Republic of China (1929), Chuanxi Bazi, located in the hinterland of the Shu Kingdom, finally ushered in a bright spring after experiencing a severe winter of drought and cold winds.
On the eighth day of the first month of February, the old man of Yan Daocheng got up early in the morning, waited for the washing, and straightened the robe on his body and the top hat on his head in front of the mirror, and when he saw no flaws, he took the gifts he had prepared and stepped out of the door. Yan Daocheng got up early in the morning because the young son of an old friend was going to hold a wedding, specially invited him to attend the wedding banquet, and also asked him to say a few words at the wedding banquet. The other party in Guanghan County is a gentleman with a bit of status, Yan Daocheng is idle at home and is also willing to make a scene, so he buys gifts to go to Hexi, in addition to drinking a bitter drink, he can also pose his head when possible, shaking the prestige of the old man.
The Yan family, the front row of the second right is Yan Daocheng, the right one is Yan Qingbao, and the latter is the grandson of the Yan family (Source: Yue Nan's "Heavenly Gift Kingdom - The Amazing Story of Sanxingdui and Jinsha Ruins")
After Yan Daocheng left, his son, 40-year-old Yan Qingbao, ate breakfast, called on his 14-year-old son to lead a cow and carry a hoe, and walked to a weir ditch about 20 meters outside the courtyard wall, preparing for the car to irrigate the fields.
Yan Daocheng (left) and his son Yan Qingbao (Source: Yue Nan's "Kingdom of Heavenly Gifts - The Amazing Story of Sanxingdui and Jinsha Ruins")
On the north bank of the Mamu River, there is a curved terrace protruding high, which is the famous Moon Bay. On the south bank of the Mamu River, there are 3 loess piles that rise above the ground. Because these three mounds rise abruptly on the land of the Ichima Hirakawa River, and the size is large, it is very eye-catching in this area, and it looks like the three Venus stars in the sky from a distance. Since the Yan family moved to this beautiful and rich terrace to settle down, in order to facilitate irrigation, a keel water wheel has been installed next to the ditch, and there is a small water canal of about 2 meters long between the car and the ditch, and under the car is a puddle called "Dragon's Nest" by the local people. This pit is blocked by silt every winter when it is idle, and when it is irrigated in the spring, the silt needs to be removed, so that the keel water wheel can operate normally, and the water from the car can flow to the field . When Yan Qingbao's father and son came to the side of the canal, they first tied the old cattle to the car, and then began to dredge and shovel the mud with a shovel according to the custom. It took about half an hour to dig up the "Dragon's Nest". The old cattle pulled the keel water wheel slowly and steamed, and the water of Qingling Lingling flowed along the paved channel to the fertile rice field.
The Yan family yard is inverted ditch, and the "Dragon's Nest" is hidden under the ditch (Source: Yue Nan's "Kingdom of Heavenly Gifts - The Amazing Story of Sanxingdui and Jinsha Ruins")
Yan Qingbao bent down and swung his hoe to continuously dig out more than a dozen handfuls of thin mud, and the "dragon's nest" was obviously deepened and enlarged. When he lifted the hoe and tried to dig deeper, he did not expect that as soon as the hoe landed on the ground, there was a muffled sound of "bang", and the mouth of the tiger in both hands was shocked to the point of swelling and pain. Yan Qingbao wondered if he had encountered a small stubborn stone, so he raised his hoe again at a different angle and went down. And this time it was a "bang", in addition to the hands being shaken again, the sludge that rolled up also splashed himself. He lifted his hoe up to examine it, only to see that the blade had been knocked off. "What's going on, is it because you've encountered a ghost?" Yan Qingbao whispered a little annoyedly, no longer digging hard, but changing tactics to slowly clean up the surrounding area. About half an hour later, a stone slab about 5 feet long and 3 feet wide, much larger than an ordinary tabletop, was revealed.
The jade originally stored in the museum of West China Union University was excavated by the Yan family (Source: Yue Nan's "Heavenly Kingdom - The Amazing Story of Sanxingdui and Jinsha Ruins")
"Why does this good 'dragon's nest' have a stone slab?" Yan Qingbao whispered incomprehensibly, turned to his son and shouted, "Boy, here is a stone slab, the face is very bright, take it home and use it, hurry over and help me pry it." Yan Daocheng was blowing at his grandson's eyebrows and dancing, blowing how grand the wedding banquet at noon was, which directly provoked this little grandson who had never been out of the house to have his eyes straight and drooling. At this time, hearing Yan Qingbao's shout, he hurriedly stopped the lecture and came to the "Dragon's Nest" with his grandson to watch. At this time, Yan Qingbao had pried open a gap in the stone slab with the hoe handle, and his son rushed over to hold the hoe handle down, and Yan Qingbao freed his hands to hold the edge of the big stone slab, shouting "Give me up" in his mouth, and with a force of both arms, the big stone slab was lifted up with muddy water, and stood straight up on the edge of the "Dragon's Den". Just when the three generations of the Yan family moved their eyes to the bottom of the stone slab, they couldn't help but be shocked. One by one, they widened their eyes, opened their mouths, and looked at everything in front of them in a daze, and for half a day they did not slow down--only to see that under the stone slab was a rectangular pit, and the pit was full of jade tools of different sizes, shapes, and colors.
The Jade Chun excavated by the Yan family is now in the Sichuan University Museum (Sanxingdui Museum, courtesy photo)
"Baby, here's the baby!" Yan Daocheng shouted in shock for half a day, and then he couldn't help but bend down and reach out and grab a piece of jade and a piece of jade. Only to see two artifacts radiating a blue and dull light under the afterglow of the sunset, making people feel that the eyes are colorful, foggy and dizzy.
The Jade Treasure excavated by the Yan family is now in the Sichuan University Museum (Sanxingdui Museum, courtesy photo)
The efforts of foreign scholars
Later, some of the jade was sold by Yan Daocheng to the antique market. After the antique dealer got this batch of jade, he quickly sold it at a sky-high price, and many industry experts suddenly saw this batch of jade, marveled, and even called for rare treasures, and sought to explore its source. The actions of the antique dealer also attracted the attention of the British Christian missionary Dong Yidu.
Dong Yidu, in the name of spreading Christian doctrine, rode a donkey to the Moon Bay Yan family in Zhongxingchang. When Yan Daocheng saw a foreigner wearing a horse coat and a melon skin hat come to visit, he knew that it was related to his own jade, and thought that it was a weasel that gave the chicken a prayer. He waited cautiously, shaking his head as he usually did with antique dealers. Dong Yi du saw that he could not pry open Yan's mouth, nor was it good to tear his face and force him to ask, so he had to hold his breath in his stomach and go back to the house first and then think of another plan. After a night of tossing and turning, he decided to go to Wenchang Palace in Guanghan County to find Brigadier Tao, perhaps only he could pry open Yan Daocheng's iron mouth and let him spit out all the fat and bones he had eaten.
The commander of the Tao brigade is surnamed Tao Mingkai, the character Zongbo, 34 years old, a native of Beichuan. In his early years, he graduated from West China Union University and worked as a primary school teacher in his hometown. After the Xinhai Revolution, under the influence of the times, he was determined to master the barrel of a gun to govern the country and the world, so he entered the Chengdu Lecture Hall to study military affairs, and after graduation, he became a platoon leader in the Deng Xihou Department of the Sichuan Army, where Liu Xiang was the commander-in-chief.
Tao Kai heard the courtesy report of Dong Yidu's visit, and hurriedly left his busy official duties to personally greet him in the lobby. The master and apprentice sat down, drank fragrant tea, dong Yidu began to put out the purpose and disk of this visit, hoping that Tao Kai would live up to expectations, and must find a way to make a few pieces of high-grade jade from the Yan family to pass the eye addiction, with the wish of lifelong hobby. A week later, Tao Kai personally led a group of officers and soldiers to the Moon Bay Yan family in Zhongxingchang in the name of inspecting the military affairs of the defense area. Brigadier Tao bluntly mentioned jade and wanted to "borrow" a few pieces to play with in order to live the addiction of the ancients. Yan Daocheng looked at this situation, and fought a cold war in his heart, knowing that it would be difficult to escape the fifteenth from the first day of the first year, and since this living Yama king had come, he would not easily let go of the little ghost, or according to the ancient precepts of the current affairs person for Junjie, simply sell his personal feelings.
After a while, Yan Daocheng walked out with a red cloth bag in both hands and a smile on his face, came to the hall hall to put the bag on a jujube tea table, and pretended to look around with the afterglow of the corner of his eye in a panic. Brigadier Tao understood, raised his hand to retreat from the guards on the left and right, and slowly opened the bag, and the originally somewhat gray room was instantly glowing and transparent. Brigadier Tao let out an "ah" and couldn't help but get up and stretch his neck and stare widely at it. I only met the 5 utensils placed before the meeting, such as jade zhang, jade qun, and jade knife, each piece was exquisite and exquisite.
Jade knives excavated from the Sanxingdui site (Source: Yue Nan's "Kingdom of Heavenly Gifts - The Amazing Story of Sanxingdui and Jinsha Ruins")
Tao Kai seemed to suddenly remember something, turned around and took Yan Daocheng's hand, half-bowed his head, two cold eyes forced to look at each other's faces, lowered his voice and said softly with a knife: "Governor Yan, we are all people on the official road, Ming people don't do secret things, you tell me the truth, where did these things come from?"
Yan Daocheng listened, suddenly felt stunned, and hummed in his mouth, "This... Well..." Soon after biting his heart and teeth, Tie Qing said coldly with his face: "Brigadier Tao, it seems that you are really a person who does not die in the heart of the Yellow River, and does not shed tears when he does not see the coffin!" The Ming people do not do secret things, and I will not hide it from you now, just below the rice field, when the family planted the land. He said and looked up at his chin and nodded lightly into the distance.
"Huh, huh!" Tao Kai nodded his head, indicating that he understood, turned around and jumped on the tall horse that the adjutant had already prepared, shook the reins, and led his officers and men to go along the river bank in a high spirit.
A week later, Brigadier Tao successively dispatched an engineer battalion and a team of about 450 reinforcement companies into Moon Bay, announcing to the outside world that he would set up a card in the Yanjiang area to intercept the bandit Zhu Xiaopig and other evil elements and eliminate harm for the people. Surrounded by machine guns and bayonets erected by reinforced companies, the officers and men of the engineering battalion secretly dug up like rats punching holes in a radius of several kilometers, centered on the Yan family compound. When the rumors of Brigadier Tao leading his troops to dig up treasures in Moon Bay were raging in Guanghan and Chengdu, Dai Qianhe, an American professor at West China Union University and a famous geologist, also received the news. This foreign professor was extremely shocked to hear this, and thought to himself that this place where important cultural relics were buried should be excavated by scientific means, how could a bunch of warlords be allowed to dig and plan! In order to find out the truth and falsity, he decided to personally go to Guanghan Moon Bay to see what was going on, and if things were as rumored, he would do some persuasion work, or collect as much intelligence as possible if the persuasion was ineffective, so as to reflect it to the relevant parties and stop it.
Excavation site of Sanxingdui ruins (Source: Yue Nan's "Kingdom of Heavenly Gifts - The Amazing Story of Sanxingdui and Jinsha Ruins")
With the efforts of Dai Qianhe and others, Brigadier Tao funded the liquidation of a total of 8 pieces of jade, including the last 5 pieces; Dong Yidu paid for the purchase of a large, jade-fine jade in the name of the Anglican Church that preached in Guanghan; Yan Daocheng donated a 78 cm diameter, nearly 7 cm thick, and weighed 100 pounds of extra-large stone bi and a large qui in his family's collection to west China Union University for conservation research. Dai Qianhe personally handed over these precious artifacts to his good friend, director of the Museum of West China Union University and Professor of American Nationality Ge Weihan (D. C. Graham) in the hands.
Gurdjieff is a professor of human culture, graduated from the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University in his early years and stayed on to teach for many years, studying antiquities and ancient human relics is his main profession, and he is very accomplished. Around the end of the 1920s, he came to China to preach in the southern Sichuan region and do some field science expeditions. When west China Union University was established, he was invited by his good friend Dr. Joseph Biqi, then president of the American side of West China Union University, to teach at the university, and later served as the director of the museum of West China Union University, and since then he has paid more attention to the investigation of frontier geography and the collection of ancient artifacts. After Receiving the jade artifacts handed over by Dai Qianhe in the name of the West China Union University Museum, Ge Weihan regarded them as treasures, loved them, and devoted himself to research with great enthusiasm and energy.
Ge Weihan (first from right) and excavators from West China Union University and government officials from Guanghan County at the excavation site (Source: Yue Nan, "The Kingdom of Heavenly Gifts- The Amazing Story of Sanxingdui and Jinsha Ruins")
After conducting more detailed research on the stone tools collected at that time, the missionaries Ye Changqing (J.H. Edgar), Dai Qianhe, Ge Weihan and other scholars living in the Chuankang area published more than 10 articles on stone tools in the Chuankang area in journals such as the Journal of the West China Frontier Research Society and the Bulletin of the Asian Literary Association. As a result, The prehistoric culture of Sichuan attracted the attention of Chinese and foreign scholars, and the investigators came one after another, and there was a boom in the study of southwest stone tool culture.
In the spring of the 23rd year of the Republic of China (1934), Ge Weihan decided to organize the excavation of Moon Bay again, and after a period of intensive preparation, it was finally put into action. From March 4 to 5 of that year, Ge Weihan, Lin Mingjun and other four professors from the West China Union University Museum carried surveyors, drawing tablets, levelers, tape measures, shovels, shovels, hoes, crude brushes, bamboo grates and other excavation artifacts, and led more than a dozen well-trained excavation workers to Guanghan by car.
Faced with this mysterious artifact pit that has been destroyed, Both Ge Weihan and Lin Ming lingered here for a long time, and initially decided that this pit was a tomb or a sacrificial pit. That being the case, a high-specification tomb or sacrificial pit like this is not isolated, it must have other facilities and artifacts related to it. Guided by this idea, Ge Weihan decided to lay a net around the pit to excavate, as far as possible to search for the relics associated with it. As a result, the first scientific excavation, named the Sanxingdui site, was officially launched in 1934 on this sunny spring.
At the Sanxingdui site not far from Moon Bay, only half of the bricks are left due to digging up soil (Yue Nan photo)
In this excavation, a total of 108 square meters of exploration square meters were opened at the bottom of the ditch and on the creek bank, and more than 600 artifacts were excavated and collected. Among them, there are 20 pieces of stone bi, more than 10 pieces of stone beads, 3 pieces of stone rings, 10 pieces of jade circles and small jade blocks, and 3 pieces of stone axes, 1 piece of stone cone, 2 pieces of stone knives, 2 pieces of stone pestles, 5 pieces of grinding stones and stone beads. There are gray pottery bowls and a large number of residual pottery pieces excavated from the cultural layer, of which gray pottery is the majority, the ornamentation is simple, and most of them are plain surfaces. The utensils were divided into 6 boxes and all escorted to the Guanghan County Government. After the governor of Luo County looked at it, he "used the antiquities related to culture, which were not convenient to study and sort out after dispersing, but all of them were transferred to the West China Union University Museum for preservation."
In 1936, Ge Weihan published the first archaeological excavation report in history on the ancient Shu cultural sites of the Guanghan Dynasty in the sixth volume of the Proceedings of the West China Frontier Studies Society, the A Preliminary Report of the Hanchow Excavation. The report compares the artifacts and ornaments excavated from the Moon Bay excavation with the artifacts excavated from The Yin Ruins in Anyang, Henan, Yangshao Village in Shichi, Henan, and Fengtian Shaguotun, boldly and scientifically puts forward the theory of "Guanghan culture", and concludes that the upper limit of this culture is the late Neolithic period, and the lower limit is the early Zhou Dynasty, that is, around 1100 BC. After the publication of Ge Weihan's report, it attracted widespread and eager attention in the Chinese and foreign academic circles.
Wake up and shock the world
Just when Ge Weihan and Lin Mingjun of West China Union University rode the research boom and prepared to leave the study hall and go to Guanghan Moon Bay to excavate and do further research, the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, which shook the world, broke out in an all-round way. In the midst of the roaring cannons and the flesh and blood, the excavations were interrupted. Later, with the continuous change of the situation, the foreign professors of West China Union University withdrew from the stage of history one by one, and successively returned to their own countries willingly or reluctantly, and the opportunity to explore Moon Bay was also gone for them.
After the founding of New China, the archaeological excavations of Guanghan culture and Moon Bay once again showed a new turning point. In the early 1950s, with the rise of construction in various places, the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway in southwest China first began, and then the Construction of the Tiancheng (later Baocheng) Railway, which attracted much attention at home and abroad, also began to be built.
In view of the fact that a large number of cultural relics were collected along the line during the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway, at the beginning of the Baocheng Railway Project, the relevant leaders of the Ministry of Culture and Education of the Southwest Region at that time paid full attention to and took into account this important factor. In order to cooperate with the construction of the project and more effectively publicize the cultural relics policy and clean up and protect the excavated cultural relics, the Southwest District Ministry of Culture and Education instructed the Preparatory Department of the Southwest Museum to organize and send working groups to the railway line to begin to clean up and collect the found cultural relics.
At the beginning of 1953, due to the increasing number of discoveries of various important cultural relics, the Ministry of Culture and Education of the Southwest District made another decision, so that the Preparatory Department of the Southwest Museum, the Political Department of the Baocheng Railway Construction Bureau, the Cultural Affairs Administration bureau of Sichuan Province, the Department of Civil Affairs, the Public Security Department, the Mianyang Commissioner's Office, and other units jointly formed the Baocheng Railway Cultural Relics Protection Committee. After Feng Hanji took office, he paid special attention to the ancient site of Guanghan Moon Bay, which has attracted much attention in the academic community, and in order to prevent the destruction of underground cultural relics, he personally led the archaeological team to investigate and excavate.
In the spring and autumn of 1956, the field team of the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics Management Committee successively did the preliminary investigation of underground cultural relics in the Fujiang River Basin and the Wenjiang Special Area, of which the investigation of the Wenjiang Special Area was presided over by Wang Jiayou, a researcher at the Sichuan Provincial Museum, and Jiang Dianchao, an archaeologist. In the spring of 1958, Wang Jiayou and Jiang Dianchao went to Guanghan for the fourth time to conduct fieldwork. In more than a month, the two of them have been in the Sanxingdui area from Moon Bay to Zhongxing Township for a long time, and after careful investigation and trial excavation, they found that the connotation of the Sanxingdui cultural layer is consistent with That of Moon Bay, which is a rare ancient Shu civilization site - this move is the first time since the Yan father and son discovered the jade pit nearly 30 years ago that the two small areas of Moon Bay and Sanxingdui have been linked as a large cultural system to investigate, and with a keen and unique academic vision, they have recognized the consistency of the cultural connotations of the two sites.
The in-depth and fruitful investigation by Wang Jiayou and Jiang Dianchao, as well as the overall grasp and understanding of culture, is a concrete practice with a very rich academic vision in the investigation, excavation and research of several generations of people in the Sanxingdui site in the past hundred years, and has played a fundamental role in the protection, excavation and research of the Sanxingdui site in the future. After the investigation, the two made a special trip to the Guanghan County Government to report and request the protection of the entire Sanxingdui site, including Moon Bay, and for the first time issued an appeal to the academic community to further investigate, understand and study the protection of the "Guanghan culture" with the Sanxingdui area as the main body. This action and the results of the investigation are of epoch-making milestone significance to the comprehensive development of the archaeological work of Sanxingdui in the future.
In September 1963, under the presidency of the famous archaeologist Feng Hanji, a joint excavation team formed by teachers and students of the Archaeology Department of the History Department of Sichuan Museum and Sichuan University once again came to the Yanjia courtyard of Guanghan Moon Bay to excavate. This is the first time in the 34 years since the Yan father and son discovered the jade pit that Chinese presided over the formal scientific excavation of the Moon Bay site, an important part of the Sanxingdui site.
Guanghan Moon Bay Yanjia Courtyard (Photo by Yue Nan)
In such an excavation that combines teaching and practice, the joint excavation team of Moon Bay excavated a total of 12 exploration parties and 1 trench in 3 sites, found 3 groups of houses, 6 tombs, more than 30,000 pottery pieces, and unearthed hundreds of cultural relics with great research value such as jade, bone and bronze fragments. At the same time, some scattered bronze fragments, malachite, copper slag and other relics were found in the second layer of the three probes, and a piece of stoneware with copper slag attached to the edge was found. According to the preliminary inference of archaeologists, when it was a fragment of the crucible, unfortunately no remains of the furnace were found. In the face of the sites that have been revealed and the large artifacts excavated, Feng Hanji and each member of the joint excavation team are quite happy. The entire excavation work, in a peaceful atmosphere and the joy of harvest, ended on December 3 of the same year as originally planned, lasting more than 40 days.
The stone bi engraved with "Master Yan" is now in the Sichuan University Museum (Source: Yue Nan's "Kingdom of Heavenly Gifts - The Amazing Story of Sanxingdui and Jinsha Ruins")
Later, the "Cultural Revolution" broke out, and both museums and Sichuan University began to whirl and wade in the whirlpool of political frenzy. The museum stopped normal exhibition and business research, and Sichuan University stopped normal teaching and new student recruitment. This period lasted until the 1970s.
It was not until 1980 that archaeologists began to excavate again on the east side of the central mound in Sanxingdui, that is, in the secondary terrace area of the ancient channel of the Mamu River, which lasted for a full year until May 1981. 44 probes of 5 meters × 5 meters have been excavated successively, plus the 5 probes previously tested, with a total excavation area of 1225 square meters. This excavation not only obtained a large number of stone tools and pottery, but also cleared out the rare house foundation sites in the ancient ruins of Sichuan. From the arrangement of the ruins of crisscrossing house sites, ditches and pillar caves, as well as the distribution of red-boiled earth, pottery and stone tools, it was found that there were round, square and rectangular "wooden bone mud walls" with strong Western Shu characteristics and 18 sites with sandwich halls, and at the same time, 3 ash pits, 4 earth pit tombs, more than 110 pieces of various types of jade and stone tools, more than 70 pieces of pottery, and tens of thousands of pieces of residual pottery were also excavated. The charcoal specimens collected from the strata were carbon-14 determined by the laboratory of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and corrected by the tree wheel, and their ages are 4500 ± 150 years ago. The cultural accumulation in the site continued from the late Neolithic period to the Xia Shang period equivalent to the Central Plains, such a long age and rich cultural accumulation, not only in Sichuan Province, but also rare in the Central Plains and even in the whole country. This discovery immediately attracted great attention from the cultural relics and archaeology community.
This is the first time in 47 years since the Yan father and son discovered the jade pit in Moon Bay, and Ge Weihan presided over the earliest scientific excavations, archaeologists have named the cultural nature of this site. Since then, the "Sanxingdui culture" has gradually been affirmed by the academic community and widely used. Later, with the emergence of two large sacrificial pits and countless brilliant treasures in this area, the Sanxingdui culture became famous overnight and became known to the world.
Discovery of sacrificial pit No. 1 and No. 2
The initial archaeological battle of the Sanxingdui site was successful, and the leaders of the provincial, county cultural relics and cultural departments were very satisfied. In view of the rich cultural heritage and broad archaeological prospects displayed by Sanxingdui, the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics Management Committee and the Provincial Museum jointly decided to send the archaeologists who participated in the excavation to Beijing to reflect the situation to the relevant parties, and strive for strong support from financial resources, policies and other aspects for the next step of excavating and effectively protecting the Sanxingdui site on a larger scale.
Schematic map of the location of the No. 1 and No. 2 sacrifice pits of sanxingdui ruins (Source: Yue Nan's "Kingdom of Heavenly Gifts - The Amazing Story of Sanxingdui and Jinsha Ruins")
From 1982 to 1984, archaeologists carried out four excavations at the Sanxingdui site. With the approval of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage of Sichuan Province, Shen Zhongchang and Zhao Dianzeng concurrently served as the main and deputy leaders of the four excavations, Chen De'an and Chen Xiandan presided over the daily field excavation work, and Ao Tianzhao and others were the main excavation team members.
In the spring of 1985, Chen De'an led an archaeological team to conduct a comprehensive survey of the surrounding areas according to the excavations in several small areas, such as Xiquankan and the side of half a mound. Judging from the large number of stone tools and pottery excavated over the years and the excavated cultural relics picked up by the local people, the distribution range of the entire site is very wide. After repeated investigations, it has been confirmed that in this large area, in addition to the famous Moon Bay and Sanxingdui, in the surrounding adjacent fields of Huilong Village, Rensheng Village, and Dabu Village, the same pieces of pottery and cultural layers can be found everywhere with the above two sites, thus further determining that this is a large ancient site group connected by dozens of small sites, and the entire range can reach more than 12 square kilometers. According to the topography, landform and cultural connotation of the site, archaeologists have for the first time proposed the idea that there was once a "Sanxingdui Ancient City" here. According to this idea, the eastern, southern and western sides of the site are guarded by walls, and the north side is the mighty Yazi River (Yanjiang River), either the northern wall has been washed away by the river, or the river was originally used as a wall. The turbulent river originating from the Minshan River Valley acts as a natural barrier for the ancient city, and together with the other three earthen walls, it forms an arching posture against the interior of the ancient city. From the comprehensive synthesis of stratigraphic relations and cultural stages of excavated artifacts, the construction date of this ancient city should be the early Shang Dynasty. In view of the importance of this archaeological achievement, and in order to better protect the Sanxingdui site, under the mediation and appeal of the cultural relics and archaeology departments at the central and Sichuan provincial levels, the Guanghan County Party Committee and the county government proposed a compromise plan at the end of 1986, hoping to officially determine the scope and value of the Sanxingdui site through a large-scale excavation, so that the local government can make a final choice according to the situation.
Yanjiang River, also known as the Duck River (Photo by Yue Nan)
At this time, the cultural relics authorities from the central government to Sichuan Province and Guanghan County also felt the need for a large-scale excavation of this site. Therefore, with the strong support and cooperation of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and other aspects, in the less conspicuous Chuanxi Damzi, a large-scale archaeological excavation that shocked China and foreign countries began.
In the spring of 1986, the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics Management Committee (Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology), the Department of Archaeology of the Department of History of Sichuan University and the Guanghan County Government jointly established the Sanxingdui Site Excavation Leading Group. Chen Zhishan, deputy county magistrate in charge of culture and education in Guanghan County, served as the group leader, Chen De'an and Chen Xiandan of the Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Lin Xiang, professor of archaeology and famous archaeologist of the Department of History of Sichuan University, served as the leader of the team, and Huo Wei and Li Yongxian of the Archaeology Teaching and Research Office of Sichuan University were the guidance teachers. In addition to the professionals of the Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, more than 20 teachers and students of the archaeology department of Sichuan University will be dispatched, more than 10 cultural relics cadres will be sent to the counties under Deyang City, and the total number of migrant workers hired in the local area is close to 200. For a common goal, the excavation team, which came together from different regions and different positions, began the largest archaeological excavation in the history of Sanxingdui excavations.
On the morning of March 1, 1986, Professor Lin Xiang led more than 20 teachers, students and weights to the Sanxingdui excavation site at 11:15 a.m. in two cars. After meeting up with other people from all over the world who came to excavate, they rented 18 houses in the second brick and tile factory in Nanxing Town and settled down separately. At this time, it was already the season of spring and bright wildflowers, and in the past, even the snow in Chuanxi, which was rarely seen on nine cold days, suddenly changed on this day, and there was heavy snow on the ground. In the face of this peculiar celestial phenomenon, the excavators of Sichuan Masters and Students and Zhao Dianzeng, Chen De'an, Chen Xiandan and other excavators of the Provincial Archaeological Institute were particularly excited, believing that this was an auspicious omen of heavenly induction and a mysterious hint that the excavation would produce brilliant results.
Location map of Nanxing Town in Guanghan (Source: Yue Nan's "Kingdom of Heavenly Gifts - The Amazing Story of Sanxingdui and Jinsha Ruins")
Under the affirmation and encouragement of leaders and experts such as Shen Zhu and Huang Jingluo of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, all members of the Sanxingdui joint excavation team have been unprecedentedly energetic, and in just 3 months, 53 exploration parties with a total area of 1325 square meters have been excavated. Among them, the cultural layers in the western district are accumulated more than 2.5 meters thick, and according to the strata between morning and evening, the thickest and most can be divided into 16 layers. Such a rich accumulation of culture is unprecedented and unheard of in the archaeological history of Sichuan. During the excavation, more than 20 house remains were cleaned up, including a hall of about 60 square meters where the upper nobles lived, a wooden bone mud wall hut inhabited by more than 10 square meters of civilians, and a smaller house of only a few square meters; these small house sites, according to Professor Lin Xiang, are likely to be the enclosures for raising livestock at that time. In addition, 104 ash pits for various purposes have been unearthed, as well as a large number of pottery, jade, pottery animal sculptures, stone statues, and lacquered wood. The artifacts were all collected together and piled up in a whole 8 rooms rented separately from the brick and tile factory, which is a great achievement and a delight.
Brick and tile factory built in the Sanxingdui ruins (Source: Yue Nan's "Heavenly Kingdom - The Amazing Story of Sanxingdui and jinsha ruins")
This excavation further proves that within a radius of 6,000 square meters around Sanxingdui and Moon Bay, the excavated cultural relics and house ruins have the same characteristics, and they should be two organic components of the ancient Shu cultural site. The 16 layers of cultural accumulation formed underground, measured by carbon 14 and corrected by the tree wheel curve, were first dated to about 4800 years ago. According to this data, combined with the cultural characteristics of other discoveries and excavations, archaeologists such as Lin Xiang, Chen De'an, and Chen Xiandan, who presided over the excavation, believe that the rich stratigraphic accumulation of the Sanxingdui site can establish a chronological system for the archaeological research of the five-thousand-year civilization history from the late Neolithic period to the Xia, Shang and Wednesday dynasties in Sichuan, and become a watershed and touchstone for the staggered periodization of the ancient Shu culture.
But the excavation of Sanxingdui is far from over. By July 19, the most spectacular archaeological excavation in the history of excavations in southwest China and even in the entire middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River began. Archaeologists unearthed more bronzes and jades, most notably the "golden belt", the famous golden staff. Measured, the total length of the golden rod is 1.43 meters, the diameter is 2.3 centimeters, and the net weight is about 463 grams. Because the gold skin has been squashed and deformed at the time of discovery, its length and width are comparable to the belts of modern people, so Chen De'an, Chen Xiandan and other archaeologists believe that they are the "golden belts" of the King of Shu. After the artifacts were removed, through the detailed observation of Zhao Dianzeng, Chen De'an, Chen Xiandan and other archaeologists, it was found that the original inferred "golden belt" was inaccurate. Judging from the remaining traces, this object was hammered into gold skin with a gold bar hammer, and then wrapped in a wooden staff to become a whole; when it was excavated, the inner core of the wood had decayed, but there was still carbonized wood slag, and it was known that there was a wooden staff inside. Therefore, this artifact is actually a golden rod.
Bronze statue of the longitudinal man in the No. 2 sacrifice pit of Sanxingdui Site broke through the ground (Courtesy of Sanxingdui Research Institute of Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology)
Following the excavation of the famous golden staff, the excavation of the Sanxingdui sacrifice pit is still proceeding in an orderly manner, and precious artifacts have been excavated in the hands of archaeologists. On August 1, as excavations reached the lowest level, a 14-day continuous work would come to an end, archaeologists discovered that it was an irregular rammed earth pit building. Measured, the length of the entire pit is 450-460 cm, the width is 330-348 cm, and the depth is 140 cm. A total of several hundred pieces of cleaning utensils were excavated in the pit, which can be roughly divided into six categories:
First, bronze. There are 13 bronze heads, bronze faces, kneeling figures, bronze ge, bronze statues, bronze statues, bronze statues, copper urns, copper plates, bronze covers and other bronzes.
2. Jade. There are 129 pieces of jade zhang, jade ring, jade ring, qi-shaped pendant, jade ge, jade sword, jade axe, jade hammer, jade chisel, jade block, amber pendant and so on.
3. Stone tools. There are 70 pieces of stone ge, stone spear, stone shovel, stone axe, stone chisel and so on.
4. Pottery. There are 39 pieces of clay pots, pottery plates, pointed chassis, and utensil bases.
5. Sea shellfish. There are 124 sea shells contained in the Bronze Man's Head and the Dragon and Tiger Zun.
Sixth, gold ware. In addition to the famous golden staff, there are also 4 pieces of gold masks, tiger-shaped foil ornaments, and gold nuggets.
According to the characteristics of most of the excavated artifacts that were burned by fire or destroyed before burial, and that there were tunnels in the middle and on both sides of the sacrificial pit, Chen De'an, Chen Xiandan and other archaeologists initially concluded that this was a sacrifice pit left by the ancient Shu people for the worship of the gods, and in the excavation briefing written later, the pit was officially named No. 1 sacrifice pit.
Subsequently, the archaeological team discovered the No. 2 sacrifice pit. According to records at the time, 735 pieces of bronze, 61 pieces of gold, more than 100 pieces of jade, and 67 pieces of ivory were unearthed from the entire No. 2 sacrifice pit. Together with other artifacts such as stone bi, jade beads, ivory beads and other artifacts, a total of more than 1400 cultural relics and about 4600 sea shells were unearthed. Such a large number of artifacts of great value have been unearthed, which is not only unprecedented in the history of Sanxingdui excavation, but also created an unheard of miracle in the history of excavation in the entire southwest region. The brilliant achievements and brilliant prospects displayed by the entire No. 2 sacrifice pit, with the frequent radio waves emitted by xinhua news agencies in the five continents and four seas, immediately formed an unprecedented landscape of attention at home and abroad.