Archaeology Magazine - November/December 2024 - 41

A bronze mask (bottom) measuring 2.3 feet tall and 4.2 feet wide is the largest example ever found at Sanxingdui. It was lifted
(below left) from one of the site's pits and was conserved (below right) at an on-site laboratory.
cal scroll spanning
thousands of years
is slowly unfolding, "
says archaeologist Honglin
Ran of the Sichuan
Provincial Institute of Cultural
Relics and Archaeology.
Recent excavations at the site
have revealed even more about
the once-legendary kings of Shu
and the people they ruled.
a name for things like
that, " says He. " Some
names ended up consisting
of a long string of
descriptive phrases. This is
n
in
d
completely different from
c
the bronze artifacts from the
Central Plains. Normally, we
just need one or two words to
describe those. "
Three one-foot-tall bronze figud
I
n
2019, during a routine
survey of Sanxingdui, archaeologists
noticed a depression in the ground next to Pit
2 that resembled the corner of a square. After they dug around
the depression, the rim of a bronze wine vessel appeared. As
they excavated further, the team revealed a pit filled with
bronzes, elephant tusks, and jades that closely resembled the
contents of Pit 2. Eventually, they discovered six new pits in
all between Pits 1 and 2, varying in size from 40 to 200 square
feet. The eight pits, which covered about two acres, were all
rectangular and arranged on the same axis. In the two years
that followed, archaeologists led by Yu Lei of the Sichuan Provincial
Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology unearthed
more than 17,000 artifacts from the new pits, about 4,800 of
which were largely intact.
Like those discovered earlier, these objects reflect the unique
vision of Sanxingdui's artists. " Almost every day, we were
amazed by the incredible imagination behind the artifacts, "
says Xiaoge He, a Peking University archaeologist. " We joked
with each other that if we had not dug this stuff with our own
hands, we would never have believed it was real. " A curious
hybrid figure the team discovered depicts a creature that has a
pig's nose and a dragon's body. " We struggled to come up with
archaeology.org
rines from Pit 4 offer a rare glimpse
into the lives of ordinary people
at Sanxingdui, according to
in
a
Lei.
Dressed in simple clothes and kneeling
with their heads turned to one side, the figures have outsize
hands. These figurines' small size and plain clothing provide a
stark contrast with the large standing figure from Pit 2. " Most
likely, they represent laborers and were used in the temple to
hold objects in place, such as a screen, " Lei says. This type of
screen, perhaps consisting of a wooden frame and a silk panel,
would have fit between the figures' palms.
A key discovery the team made was that many of the broken
artifacts from Pits 1 and 2 could be fit together with pieces from
the newly discovered pits. Researchers reassembled one bronze
artwork by comparing break points and similar decorative
patterns in bronze fragments from multiple pits. At the base
of the object, a round vessel supports a bizarre-looking figure,
likely a god. His body is contorted, and his feet take the form of
bird claws. The deity carries an elongated vessel on his head. A
priest-like human figure holding a dragon-shaped cane stands
atop this vessel. The complete artwork was reassembled using
five pieces found in Pits 2, 3, and 8.
The team was also able to digitally reconstruct a complete
330-pound bronze artifact that depicts a mythological beast
41

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Archaeology Magazine - November/December 2024

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