Sanxingdui
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Sanxingdui (Chinese: 三星堆; pinyin: Sānxīngduī; literally "three stars mound") is the name of an archaeological site in China, now believed to be the site of an ancient Chinese city. The previously unknown Bronze Age culture was re-discovered in 1987 when archaeologists excavated remarkable artifacts, that radiocarbon dating dated as being from the 12th-11th centuries BCE. Leaving behind nothing in the historical record, not even in myth, the unknown culture that produced these artifacts is now known as the Sanxingdui Culture. A museum housing the artifacts is located near the city of Guanghan.
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Location
Coordinates: Latitude 30°59'36.4"N Longitude:104°12'1.2"E Guanghan
The Sanxingdui archaeological site is located about 40 kilometers northeast of Chengdu in Sichuan Province, 10 kilometers east of the city of Guanghan, but 50km from the city of treasures
Discovery
In 1929, a farmer unearthed a large stash of jade relics while digging a well, many of which found their way through the years into the hands of private collectors. 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 broken (perhaps ritually disfigured), burned, and carefully buried. Researchers were astonished to find an artistic style that was completely unknown in the history of Chinese art, whose baseline had been the history and artefacts of the Yellow River civilization(s).
Ancient bronze casting
This ancient culture had remarkably advanced bronze casting technology which was acquired by adding lead to the usual combination of copper and tin creating a stronger substance that could create substantially larger and heavier objects; 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.), which some have identified as renderings of the fusang tree of Chinese mythology.
The most striking finds were dozens of large bronze masks and heads (at least six with gold foil masks originally attached) represented with angular human features, exaggerated almond-shaped eyes, some with protruding pupils, and large upper ears. Many Sanxingdui bronze faces had traces of paint smears: black on the disproportionately large eyes and eyebrows, and vermillion on the lips, nostrils, and ear holes. Xu (2001:66) interprets this vermillion "not be coloring but something ritually offered for the head to taste, smell, and hear (or something that gave it the power to breathe, hear, and speak)." Based upon the design of these heads, archeologists believe they were mounted on wooden supports or totems, perhaps dressed in clothing. Liu (2000:37) concludes "masked ritual played a vital role in community life of the ancient Sanxingdui inhabitants", and characterizes these bronze ritual masks as something that may have worn by a shi 尸 (lit. "corpse") "personator, impersonator; ceremonial representative of a dead relative" (compare Paper 1995:82).
The shi was generally a close, young relative who wore a costume (possibly including a mask) reproducing the features of the dead person. The shi was an impersonator, that is, a person serving as a reminder of the ancestor to whom sacrifice was being offered. During such a ceremony, the impersonator was much more than an actor in a drama. Although the exact meaning may have been different, the group of Sanxingdui masked figures in bronze all have the character of an impersonator. It is likely the masks were used to impersonate and identify with certain supernatural beings in order to effect some communal good. (2000:37)
Another scholar (Carr 2007:401) compares these "bulging-eyed, big-eared bronze heads and masks" with "eye-idols" (effigies with large eyes and open mouths designed to induce hallucinations) in Julian Jaynes's bicameral hypothesis; and (2007:403) proposes, "It is possible that southern Chinese personators wore these hypnotic bronze masks, recursively representing the spirit of a dead ancestor with a mask that represents a face disguised by a mask."
Other bronze artifacts include birds with eagle-like bills, tigers, a large snake, zoomorphic masks, bells, and what appears to be a bronze spoked wheel but is more likely to be decoration from an ancient shield. Apart from bronze, Sanxingdui finds included jade artifacts consistent with earlier Chinese neolithic cultures, such as cong and zhang.
Cosmology
As far back as Neolithic times, the Chinese identified the four quadrants of the sky with animals: Azure Dragon of the East, Vermillion Bird of the South, White Tiger of the West, and Black Tortoise of the North. Each of these Four Symbols (Chinese constellation) was associated with a constellation that was visible in the relevant season: the dragon in the spring, the bird in the summer, etc. Since these four animals — birds, dragons, snakes and tigers — predominate the finds at Sanxingdui, the bronzes could represent the universe. It is unclear whether they formed part of ritual events designed to communicate with the spirits of the universe (or ancestral spirits). As no written records remain it is difficult to determine the intended uses of objects found. Some believe that the continued prevalence of depictions of these animals, especially in the later Han period, was an attempt by humans to "fit into" their understanding of their world. (The jades that were found at Sanxingdui also seem to correlate with the six known types of ritual jades of ancient China, again each associated with a compass point (N, S, E, W) plus the heavens and earth.)
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), the National Palace Museum in Taipei (1999), to the Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore (2007). In 1997, the Sanxingdui Museum opened near the original site.
Possible Influence
The Sanxingdui Culture was a mysterious civilization in southern China, which was in the kingdom of Shu during the period of 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."
See also
- Indus Valley Civilization
- Erligang culture
- Erlitou culture
- History of China
- History of metallurgy in China
- Wucheng culture
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
- Carr, Michael. 2007. "The Shi 'Corpse/Personator' Ceremony in Early China," in Marcel Kujistan, ed., Reflections on the Dawn of Consciousness: Julian Jaynes's Bicameral Mind Theory Revisited, Julian Jaynes Society, 343-416.
- 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
- Paper, Jordan D. 1995. The Spirits Are Drunk: Comparative Approaches to Chinese Religion. State University of New York Press.
- Xu, Jay. 2001. "Bronze at Sanxingdui," in Robert Bagley, ed., Ancient Sichuan: Treasures from a Lost Civilization, Seattle Art Museum and Princeton University Press, 59–152.
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sanxingdui |
- More About the Finds at Sanxingdui, National Gallery of Art
- Treasures from a Lost Civilization: Ancient Chinese Art from Sichuan, Seattle Art Museum
- Riddle from the Ancient Past: The Mysteries of Sanxingdui, Taiwan Panorama
- Sanxingdui mask relics record traces of Bronze Age, Shanghai Star
- Historical Wonders of Sanxingdui, China.org.cn
Coordinates: 30°59′36.4″N 104°12′1.2″E / 30.993444°N 104.200333°E
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