Sanxingdui

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Sanxingdui Masks
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Sanxingdui Masks

Sanxingdui (Chinese: 三星堆; pinyin: Sānxīngduī; literally "Three star mound") (also seen locally spelled as Xanxingdui in Sichuan) is a ancient Chinese city where archaeologists discovered remarkable artifacts that radiocarbon dated circa 12th-11th centuries BCE, and Sanxingdui is the name given to this previously unknown Bronze Age culture. The museum is located near the city Guanghan, China.

Coordinates: Latitude 30°57'20.53"N Longitude:104°19'16.38"E Guanghan

The Sanxingdui archaeological site is located about 40 kilometers from Chengdu in Sichuan Province outside the city of Guanghan. In 1929, a farmer unearthed a large stash of jade relics while digging a well. Generations of Chinese archaeologists searched the area without success until 1986, when workers accidentally found sacrificial pits containing thousands of gold, bronze, jade, and pottery artifacts that had been ritually disfigured, burned, and carefully buried. Researchers were astonished to find an artistic style that was completely unknown in the history of Chinese art. This ancient culture had remarkably advanced bronze casting technology; for instance, the world's oldest life-size standing human statue (260 cm. high, 180 kilograms), and a bronze tree with birds, flowers, and ornaments (396 cm.). The most striking finds were bronze masks and heads (some with gold foil masks) represented with angular human features and exaggerated eyes. Based upon the design of these heads, archeologists believe they were mounted on wooden supports or totems, perhaps dressed in clothing. Other relics included bronze birds with eagle-like bills, zoomorphic masks, bells, and a jade wheel.

Sanxingdui culture existed contemporaneously with the Early and Late Shang. The site at Chenggu shows influence from both Shang and Sanxingdui.
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Sanxingdui culture existed contemporaneously with the Early and Late Shang. The site at Chenggu shows influence from both Shang and Sanxingdui.

All the Sanxingdui discoveries aroused scholarly interest, but the bronzes were what excited the world. Task Rosen of the British Museum considered them to be more outstanding than the Terracotta Army in Xi'an. The first exhibits of Sanxingdui bronzes were held in Beijing (1987, 1990) and the Olympic Museum in Lausanne (1993). Sanxingdui exhibits traveled worldwide, and tickets were sold out everywhere; from the Hybary Arts Museum in Munich (1995), the Swiss National Museum in Zurich (1996), the British Museum in London (1996), the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen (1997), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York (1998), several museums in Japan (1998), to the National Palace Museum in Taipei (1999). In 1997, the Sanxindui Museum opened near the original site.

The Sanxingdui Culture was a mysterious civilization in southern China, which was in the kingdom of Shu during the Shang Dynasty. Although they developed a different method of bronze-making from the Shang; their culture was never recorded by Chinese historians. Sanxingdui culture is thought to be divided into several phases. The first one may have been independent, while the later phases merged with Ba, Chu, and other cultures.

Besides Sanxingdui, other archeological discoveries in Sichuan, including the Baodun and Jinsha cultures, all indicate that civilizations in southern China go back at least 5,000 years. Such evidence of independent cultures in different regions of China defies the traditional theory that the Yellow River was the sole "cradle of Chinese civilization."

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[edit] External links

[edit] References

  • Bagley, Robert, ed. 2001. Ancient Sichuan: Treasures from a Lost Civilization. Princeton, NJ: Seattle Art Museum and Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-08851-9
  • Liu Yang and Edmund Capon, eds. 2000. Masks of Mystery: Ancient Chinese Bronzes from Sanxingdui. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales. ISBN 0-7347-6316-6
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