During the spring vacation, I chose to go to Chengdu and visited the Sanxingdui Museum by the way.
Overall, the Sanxingdui civilization is far from our modern society, and there seems to be no direct connection between them, so my interest in Sanxingdui did not increase despite the end of the visit. On the contrary, the bronze human heads, which are very different from traditional Chinese culture, brought me a certain degree of shock.
The reason why Sanxingdui can shock the world is mainly because of its unique style of cultural relics such as masks, scepters, bronze heads, bronze Daliren, etc., which are particularly rare in this land of China.
So, what exactly does this style of Sanxingdui originate from?
Is Sanxingdui a native civilization, or is it influenced by an alien civilization?
The current archaeological results do not give a definitive answer. Out of curiosity, I have made some speculations based on the existing archaeological discoveries and accurate historical sources, and I have written this article to share with you.
Of course, this is just some of my personal inferences, just for reference, and the real answer needs to be revealed by archaeological experts and scholars.
Before discussing Sanxingdui, we need to first ** two related topics - the spread of wheat and the ancient tea horse road.
The place of origin of wheat is generally considered to be the Fertile Crescent, i.e. the Euphrates, Tigris, Mediterranean, and Persian Gulf regions.
Wheat was traditionally introduced to China through the Fertile Crescent through Central Asia, Xinjiang, and the Hexi Corridor, reaching Gansu and Shaanxi around 4500 BC, and gradually spreading to the Yellow River Valley.
However, archaeologists have found wheat remains of the same age at the Haidai cultural site in Tai'an, Shandong, which coincides with the discovery time in the Shaanxi-Gansu region.
This raises the question of how to explain the temporal consistency of wheat relics in Shaanxi, Gansu and Shandong, which took a long time to spread from west to east.
Thus, Zhao Zhijun of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences proposed in his research that wheat was actually introduced to China through three different routes:
1.From the Fertile Crescent, wheat travels through the Eurasian steppes to the southern Mongolian plateau, and then plummets down to the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River.
2.Wheat enters Shaanxi and Gansu through the Central Asian, Xinjiang and Hexi corridors.
3.Wheat entered the Indus Valley from Central Asia, then to India, Southeast Asia, and finally to the Haidai Cultural Region in Shandong, China.
It is precisely because of the simultaneous existence of these three routes that wheat cultivation can begin in Shandong and Shaanxi and Gansu regions at the same time.
The Ancient Tea Horse Road is an ancient route connecting Sichuan, Yunnan and **, although it was only known in the Tang and Song dynasties, but according to archaeological findings, the history of the Ancient Tea Horse Road is much earlier than this.
After a brief introduction to the spread of wheat and the Ancient Tea Horse Road, the path of cultural exchange between the East and the West became clear
Since ancient times, there have been frequent cultural and material exchanges between the eastern and western ends of Eurasia. The westernmost cultures and objects were to spread to the easternmost point, usually through the Eurasian steppe, the Hexi Corridor, and the Ancient Tea Horse Road. Mongolia, Shaanxi, and Sichuan are located at the intersection of these three routes.
As far as Sichuan is concerned, through the Ancient Tea Horse Road, Sichuan was able to communicate with Yunnan and India, and indirectly establish ties with Central and Western Asia. Along the Yangtze River, you can reach the Jianghan Plain and the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
This series of traffic lines forms a vast network around Central Asia, South Asia, and southwest China.
From Sima Qian's "Historical Records: The Biography of Southwest Yilie", we know that during the reign of King Chu Wei, General Zhuang Ji led his army to the west, passing through the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and conquering the vast lands of Sichuan and Yunnan.
When Zhang Qian went to Bactria as an envoy, he was surprised to find that items from Sichuan appeared in Bactria , which shows that the cultural exchanges between Sichuan and West Asia and Central Asia have already begun.
Knowing this, let's come to Sanxingdui again.
The following picture was taken by me at the Sanxingdui Museum, showing that Sanxingdui is located in Sichuan, in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and Panlong City is located in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, which is an important city site in the late summer and early Shang Dynasty.
Since the Shang Dynasty was the peak period of bronze smelting, it was technically feasible for Panlong City to spread bronze smelting technology to Sanxingdui.
We can reasonably infer that Sanxingdui's bronze smelting technology is likely to be in Panlong City.
However, the bronzes of the Shang Dynasty are mainly Dading, and there are no objects such as bronze heads and scepters similar to Sanxingdui.
Therefore, where might Sanxingdui's smelting style come from?
As you can see from the following two pictures, the ancient masks mainly came from regions such as ancient Greece, ancient Egypt, Arabia, India and Nepal, while the masks of China were mainly concentrated in Sichuan and Sichuan.
Archaeological discoveries of scepters show that scepters frequently appear in Europe, West Asia, Central Asia and other places, while they are only found in a few regions such as Xinjiang, Sichuan and Henan in China.
We can speculate that the cultural practice of using masks and scepters may have been introduced to India from Europe and West Asia, and then to Sanxingdui in Sichuan via the Ancient Tea Horse Road.
Although there is currently no direct archaeological and historical evidence, this speculation has some plausibility from the point of view of the **route.
So, who spread the culture from the westernmost part of Eurasia to the easternmost point?
According to official sources, the Sanxingdui civilization began around 1600 BC and ended in 1050 BC, roughly the same as the rise and fall of the Shang Dynasty.
Considering this time period, the time point at which the culture of the western tip of Eurasia spread to Sichuan, whether it was too early or too late, is inconsistent with the rise and fall of the Sanxingdui civilization.
Historically, there was indeed a group that crossed Eurasia at that point in time – the Aryans.
The "42000 Events" around 2200 BC led to a worldwide cooling and famine, which led to the decline of ancient Egypt and the Akkadian Empire.
To escape the cold, the Aryans began to migrate, and eventually part of them crossed Eurasia, conquered ancient India, and established a caste system.
In this context, it is likely that the Aryans brought the cultural practice of masks and scepters to India, and then spread to Sanxingdui in Sichuan through Yunnan.
This is my personal speculation on the origin of the Sanxingdui civilization based on the available archaeological results and accurate historical data.
If this speculation is accurate, it means that Sanxingdui is not only China's native civilization, but also a product of the integration of Eastern and Western civilizations.
Even if this speculation is not accurate, it doesn't matter, after all, this is just a personal reflection, not an academic **, and is intended to provoke thinking.
But in any case, the history and logic cited in this article stand up to scrutiny.
Since recorded times, Eurasia has been in a constant process of convergence and exchange, and almost all of the grandeur of world history has been the result of this process. Isolation and isolation will only lead to the tragedy of the Native Americans.
Standing on the threshold of today's world, we should be more open-minded, actively integrate into the world process, learn from our strengths, and make progress together in the collision, so as not to become an isolated person in the new era.