A golden face with bronze turquoise eyes stared out of the darkness. Around it illuminated, stand three other bronze heads, some flat-topped, some round, all guarded by a huge bronze statue nearly three meters high. They both have the same sharp, angular eyes.
This group of sculptures is called "the face of Sanxingdui" and looks both familiar and unfamiliar. They are first associated with the Maya, but these beautiful sculptures have not been unearthed anywhere near the ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica. They were found in an archaeological site called Sanxingdui on the Chengdu Plain in China. These objects were more advanced, imaginative, and artistic than anywhere else in China at the time.
Sanxingdui is considered to be the largest and oldest site in Shu, a civilization in southwestern China that was previously only mentioned in myths and legends until it was discovered in 1920, when a farmer stumbled upon the items while digging a ditch. Later, after continuous excavations by archaeologists, the outline of the site slowly emerged, which is roughly composed of three parts: a dwelling, a sacrificial pit and a tomb, surrounded by high earthen walls. Archaeologists at the Sanxingdui Museum claim that the city was built around 4,800 to 2,800 years ago until it was abandoned for unknown reasons around 800 BC.
The emergence of the Shu Kingdom in the Sichuan Basin during the Bronze Age is believed to have developed independently of the Yellow River Basin, which has long been considered the cradle of Chinese civilization. The ancestors who lived here created beautifully crafted bronze, jade, **, and pottery depicting magical beasts, kings, gods, etc., with bulging eyes and enlarged ears.
In addition to 3 on the outskirts of ChengduExcept for what is found in the 5 square kilometers of ruins, people know very little about the Shu Kingdom. Except for a few myths and legends, there is very little information about the culture of the ancient Shu Kingdom in historical documents, and in the Western Han Dynasty Yangxiong's "Shu King Benji", there was a mention of a Shu king named Silkworm Cong, whose eyes are said to be bulging, and Sanxingdui's face is extremely similar. This may explain why many of the 13,000 artifacts found at the site have features that protrude from the eyes.
After Shu was conquered by the Qin Dynasty in 316 BC, Shu culture was replaced by the Central Plains culture and gradually disappeared into the vast historical clouds.
Since 1986, a huge number of deity masks have been found in 8 pits excavated in Sanxingdui, with bulbous eyes, insect-like eyes and protruding ears, exaggerated mouths and wide ear roots. and a nearly 4-meter-tall bronze sculpture of the "Tree of Life", which is richly ornamented. When the Tree of Life was discovered, the ornaments on it were smashed, burned, and buried, and experts deduced that the pits were used for sacrifice.
The discovery of Sanxingdui has enriched the 5,000-year history of our country with the ancient Shu culture, and further embodies the "continuity, creativity, unity and diversity" of Chinese civilization.
With the discovery of the Sanxingdui site, many scholars began to understand the importance of the culture of the Yangtze River Basin, and even many scholars began to think that the culture of the Yangtze River Basin and the Yellow River Basin culture are the mother of Chinese civilization.
Although the culture of the Yangtze River basin and the culture of the Yellow River basin have something in common, they are not exactly the same, which also reflects the breadth and profundity of the ancient Chinese civilization.