Sanxingdui: The Lost Civilization

Today, we’ll introduce a popular museum in southwest China’s Sichuan Province that is set to open a new exhibition hall in July to display newly excavated artifacts that offer insights into a civilization that’s more than 3,000-year-old and still shrouded in mystery.

During the recent Labor Day holiday, nearly 100,000 visitors flocked to the Sanxingdui Museum in Guanghan city on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River 60 kilometers from Sichuan’s capital of Chengdu. With such a high level of interest, you can’t help but wonder what this museum has on display to attract so many visitors.

Sanxingdui, literally three-star piles, was once a site with three mounds. Folklore has it that the three mounds were the three handfuls of clay scattered by the Jade Emperor, the supreme deity of Taoism, that grew to become three very large mounds. Sanxingdui was so named because the three mounds are arranged in a straight line, resembling three stars in the sky.

The site was discovered by a farmer in 1929 when he was digging a ditch and found several jade objects. Since then, Sanxingdui has been the source of one pleasant surprise after another, with more than 10,000 cultural relics discovered after decades of archaeological excavation and research.

The first excavation of Sanxingdui was carried out in 1934 by American archaeologist David Crockett Graham who at the time was the museum curator of West China Union University. The university was established in 1910 in Chengdu by the union of four Christian missions from the US, UK and Canada. Unfortunately, the initial excavation only lasted for around 10 days because of the wars going on in those days; nevertheless, the group was able to collect around 600 artifacts before being forced to abandon the site.

The significance of Sanxingdui was not recognized until 1986 with the excavation of two stunning sacrificial pits. Their discovery attracted international attention and rewrote the history of Chinese civilization. Construction of the Sanxingdui Museum was started in 1992 and finally completed in 1997. Since 1993, many of these treasures have been put on exhibitions around the world in Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, the US, the UK, and Switzerland.

The findings in the sacrificial pits confirm the existence of the ancient Shu State, a highly skilled civilization developed during the Xia and Shang dynasties dating back to 3,000 years ago. As a representative of the bronze civilization on the Yangtze River, Shu culture was entirely different from that found in the cradle of Chinese civilization about 1,200 kilometers to its northeast on the Yellow River. However, the Shu State disappeared a short time after being conquered by its neighboring Qin in 316 BCE, leaving no human remains and almost no written records. Thus, reconstruction of the history and culture of ancient Shu relies heavily on the archaeological evidence and references offered at the Sangxingdui site.

Nearly 1,000 bronze artifacts were unearthed from the two sacrificial pits, together with a great variety of artworks made of jade, gold, ivory and stone. They are exquisite in shape and complicated in craftsmanship, demonstrating a surprisingly high level of casting technology for that time. Many of the items were smashed and burned before being buried. Particularly intriguing among them are some massive bronze masks, a giant bronze standing figure, and a divine bronze tree that is said to be reaching for the sky.

The bronze masks, the largest of which is 138 centimeters wide and 66 centimeters high, feature solemn faces with exceptionally protruding eyes, and exaggerated ears and nose. Combine these features with their wide enigmatic smiles, and they don’t appear to be human, much less Chinese.

Some archaeologists believe the masks are a depiction of Cancong, the legendary founding ruler of the ancient Shu State, who got his name from his skills in raising silkworms and producing silk. Cancong is said to have had strange protruding eyes as an expression of his extraordinary powers. 

These quasi-human facial features are also found on other artifacts of Sanxingdui, such as the giant bronze standing figure which is 262 centimeters in height. The bronze figure stands barefoot on top of a pedestal that’s carved with shapes like an elephant’s head. He is dressed in a long robe with exquisitely embossed patterns. His facial features are similar to those of the massive bronze masks, but archaeologists disagree on his identity. While some believe he is Cancong, others contend he is a shaman as he appears to be holding something in his hands like a shaman would do when performing a religious ceremony.

Among all the findings at Sanxingdui, the most colossal is no doubt the divine bronze tree. Standing at just under four meters tall and weighing 180 kilograms, the bronze tree is the oldest, tallest and largest of its kind ever found in the world. It has also been included in the first batch of 64 national treasures prohibited from overseas exhibition.

At the time it was discovered, the tree had been burned and smashed into 2,479 pieces, so repair and restoration of the tree took a team of experts almost 10 years. According to archaeologists, the tree should be even taller, as its top is still missing. The trunk of the tree is divided into three levels, each level with three branches and each branch with three fruits. Nine birds stand on each of the nine fruits and a dragon hangs on the lower part of the trunk. The nine birds are said to relate to an ancient Shu legend that states there were 10 suns. When one sun was in the sky, the other nine suns reincarnated into nine birds and rested on the divine tree. 

Surprisingly, the shape of this bronze tree almost perfectly matches the legend of the Fusang tree in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, a Chinese classic text recording myths and legends of pre-Qin China. According to the legend, Fusang is a divine tree where ten suns dwell, one on top and the other nine on the nine branches below, each carried by a bird. In this way, the bronze tree is likely to be related to the more familiar legend of Hou Yi the sun-shooter, but since the top of the divine tree is missing, experts cannot be certain whether the incomplete part was where the mythological sun bird resided.

The significance of the discovery of Sanxingdui lies in that it raises a crucial question regarding the origin of the Chinese civilization. Previously, the dominant narrative has been that that the Chinese civilization originated from a single source, that is, the Yellow River Valley in the Central Plains around Henan Province and Shaanxi Province. But the findings at Sanxingdui have transformed historians’ understanding of such a trajectory of Chinese cultural development.

Sanxingdui, as an outstanding representative of the bronze civilization of the Yangtze River Valley, is more than 1,000 kilometers away from the center of its contemporary Shang Dynasty in the present-day Anyang of Henan Province on the Yellow River. The distance between the two civilizations, coupled with the fact that they were even further separated by the Qinling Mountains, made it very unlikely that they would ever be in contact with each other. The existence of Sanxingdui has, therefore, made it clear that the Chinese civilization did not simply emerge from the Central Plains and grow outward assimilating the cultures of surrounding regions. Instead, it was a process whereby multiple regionally distinct cultures existed in parallel and then intermixed to produce what came to be understood as the Chinese civilization.

From 2019 to 2021, archaeologists discovered another six sacrificial pits next to the two pits discovered in 1986. As of September 2022, more than 15,000 artifacts have been unearthed from these pits, including silk, gold masks, bronze vessels, ivory and jade, as well as an abundant collection of seashells. Part of these newly unveiled treasures will be displayed in the new exhibition hall, which will be 5 times larger than the existing exhibition hall and to be opened later on July 28.

Among them, an incomplete gold mask is worth noting. It is about 23 centimeters wide, 28 centimeters long, and weighs about 280 grams. Archaeologists estimate that the complete version of the gold mask could have weighed around 500 grams, making it the heaviest gold mask discovered in China from its time.

The announcement of the latest batch of discoveries in 2021 spawned an unexpected sensation on the internet. Users of social media platforms started making pictures superimposing the mask on the faces of pop culture figures. The hashtag “Sanxingdui gold mask photo editing competition” went viral with nearly 4 million views.

The Sanxingdui Museum took the opportunity to release a promotional music video called “Why am I so pretty?” The techno music video sees the cultural relics personified into animated figures, singing and dancing to a rap song in a Warhol-inspired presentation.

After decades of excavation and research, the Sanxingdui civilization remains enigmatic. One mystery behind it, for example, is what made the civilization disappear between 3,000 and 2,800 years ago, leaving behind neither human remains nor written records. 

Some scholars point to floods or wars as causes of the disappearance or displacement of the civilization. Others argue that it could have been devastated by a massive earthquake, which resulted in a landslide that diverted the primary water source for Sanxingdui. The Sanxingdui people then followed the water source to relocate in Jinsha, a site about 50 kilometers to its southwest. Discovered in 2001, the Jinsha site has been found to contain bronze artifacts sharing similar artistic features as those in Sanxingdui. 

Much work remains to be done to reveal all the secrets of the mysterious Shu State and Sanxingdui civilization. Perhaps with further excavations, more evidence will shed light on the historical process of the pluralism and integration of the Chinese civilization. 

Well, that’s the end of our podcast. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Song Yimin, translator Yang Guang, and copy editor Pu Ren. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.