One of the more impressive displays at the Sanxingdui Museum, in
Guanghan of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, is a bronze statue of a
barefoot man with anklets and clenched hands.
The 2.62-meter-high, 180-kilogram statue is thought to represent a
king of the Shu Kingdom. Shu was the name for Sichuan in ancient
times.
Dating back 3,100 years, the king's statue is crowned with a sun
motif and coated with three layers of tight, short sleeved bronze
"clothing", which is decorated with a dragon pattern and overlaid
with a checked ribbon.
Huang Nengfu, a professor of arts and design at Tsinghua
University and an eminent researcher in Chinese clothing from
different dynasties, considers the garment to be the country's
oldest existing dragon robe. He also thinks that the pattern is the
work of the famous Shu Embroidery.
The robe has changed the traditional view that Shu Embroidery
began in the mid-Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Instead, it shows Shu
Embroidery appeared in the Shang Dynasty (c.16th century-c.11th
century BC), according to Wang Yuqing, a Taiwan-based Chinese
clothing historian.
The bronze statue of the Shu king is one of the four most
important cultural relics to be found in the Sanxingdui Ruins in
Guanghan, a city 40 kilometers from Chengdu.
Sanxingdui, which means "three star mounds" in English, is so
named because the ruins are located in a village where there are
three mounds.
Since 1929, more than 10,000 relics, dating between 5,000 and
3,000 years ago have been unearthed in the city's Sanxingdui Ruins.
The excavations have yielded some of the most significant Chinese
archaeological discoveries of the 20th century.
Archaeologists around the world were excited by the unearthing
of large palatial remains in 1980, the remnants of eastern, western
and southern walls in 1984 and the discovery of two large
sacrificial pits in 1986.
These discoveries proved that Sanxingdui contains the ruins of
an ancient city that was the political, economic and cultural
center of the ancient Shu Kingdom.
A metropolis of its time, Sanxingdui boasted highly developed
agricultural and mining systems, and produced ceramics and
sacrificial tools.
Before the excavation of Sanxingdui, it was believed that
Sichuan had a history dating back 3,000 years. Thanks to the
excavation, it is now believed that civilized culture first
appeared in Sichuan 5,000 years ago.
Archaeologists say that the Sanxingdui Ruins also dispel theories
that the Yellow River was the sole starting point of Chinese
civilization.
Of more than 10,000 relics unearthed in Sanxingdui, the nearly
1,000 found in 1986 in the two sacrificial pits are considered the
most valuable. In these two pits, bronze, gold, jade and marble
artifacts, pottery, bone implements, elephant tusks and objects
made of ivory were found. Archaeologists also discovered cowries
and roughly 800 large bronze relics.
In addition to the many bronze and gold masks, the most valuable
finds from the two pits included the bronze statue of the Shu king,
a gold scepter and a bronze "spirit tree".
With a length of 1.42 meters, a diameter of 2.3 centimeters and
a weight of 0.5 kilograms, the design on the gold scepter features
fish, birds and human figures. The scepter is believed to be a
symbol for a monarchic or theocratic order, or a combination of the
two.
Consisting of a pedestal, a trunk and part of a dragon, the
3.95-meter-tall bronze tree is the oldest, tallest and largest of
its kind in the world. Some think that it represents a legendary
spirit tree, while many researchers believe that the tree was an
all-embracing symbol.
Many theories also surround the fall of the Sanxingdui
civilization, which seemingly disappeared without a trace, leaving
behind objects unlike anything found in any other period of Chinese
history.
Archaeologists have been left wondering what the purpose of the
objects was and how such an ancient culture, at the very beginning
of Chinese civilization, could be so advanced.
Some speculate that aliens might be behind the mysterious relics
after locals in the area alleged that they spotted UFOs in the area
20 years ago.
The Sanxingdui Ruins cover 12 square kilometers, of which only
four have been excavated. Chen Xiandan, deputy curator of the
Sichuan Provincial Museum says: "It is likely that more exciting
archaeological discoveries will be made."
(China Daily November 1, 2007)
