Chengdu Sanxingdui Museum – #5/5 Restoration

The third building that was opened in Dec 2021 housed the Restoration and Research Building 修复馆. It is a functioning lab and workshop that is tasked to restore the excavated artefacts.

Officially this building is called Sanxingdui Cultural Relics Protection and Restoration Hall 三星堆文物保护与修复馆 and showcased the process by which the researchers and archaeologists worked to reverse the effects of the deteriorating relics.

New Discoveries

The excavation of Sanxingdui sites is the effort of many domestic scientific research institutions and universities to form a joint team of archeology, protection and research.

The excavation constitutes an effective mode of integration of traditional archeology, modern methods of laboratory work, and use of scientific and technological tools, to achieve the objectives of archeological excavation, systematic scientific research and on-site cultural relics protection.

In the excavation, archeologists make full use of modern scientific and technological means, equipped with 3D scanners, polyspectrometers, RTKs, ion chromatography, nitrogen-filled moisturising boxes, ultra-depth-field microscopes, hand-held X-fluorescent instruments, RP protection bags and other facilities and equipment, with the help of archeological excavation cabins, to carry out work.

There are various emergency cultural relics protection laboratories and warehouses next to the weather-proof archeological excavation cabin, such as emergency detection and analysis room, cultural relics emergency protection room separately for organic relics like ivory and inorganic relics like bronze, archeological studio, etc. The scale and advancement of archaeological tools were unprecedented.

沉睡数千年　　一醒惊天下

Thousands of years of slumber, awoken to a shocked world

Restoration

After the excavation is completed, the relics are sent to the centre for restoration and preservation. The open laboratories and workshops allow a glimpse into the world of modern archaeology. The day I visited was a weekend and the archaeologists were off duty. But here’s a video where you can see folks working in the labs.

There’s always controversy in restoration works because we are all doing calculated guesses to the shape and form of these fragments, especially pottery. How do you piece together a jigsaw puzzle with hundreds of missing pieces?

The new discovery of the “sacrifice pit” of the Sanxingdui site further reveals the richness of the Sanxingdui culture 三星堆文化, highlights the uniqueness and creativity of the Ancient Shu 古蜀 civilisation, and provides new evidence for the study of the historical process of the pluralistic integration of Chinese civilisation.

Highlights of the New Restored Relics

When six new pits were discovered in 2019 and 2020, extensive excavation was made in Pit 3 and people around the world were amazed by the shear depth and area of the dig. And subsequently in 2021, the first restored relics were presented to world.

金面罩 Gold Mask

商代晚期 2021年三星堆三号祭祀坑出士 Late Shang Dynasty, Excavated in. No. 3 Sacrificial Pit of Sanxingdui Site in 2021

The most eye-catching relic for the public is the complete gold mask newly unearthed in the No. 3 “Sacrificial Pit”. This cultural relic is slightly larger than the normal human face, and experts believe that it is attached to the bronze statue.

陶猪 Pottery Swine

商代晩期 2020年四川省广汉市南丰镇联合村出士 Late Shang Dynasty, Excavated in Lianhe Village, Nanfeng County, Guanghan City, Sichui Province in 2020

Strange and lovable cultural relics bring endless reverie to people. This was not found in the Sanxingdui pits, but in a nearby archaeological dig in nearby county. The pottery pig had one side broken to reveal a hollow inside. And the design was really modern and doppelgänger to the ultra-hit smartphone game character. However this pig was not angry though.

玉琮 Jade Cong

商代晚期 2021年三星堆三号祭祀坑出土 Late Shang Dynasty, Excavated in No.3 Sacrificial Pit of Sanxingdui Site in 2021

Cong are among the most impressive yet most enigmatic of all ancient Chinese jade artefacts. Their function and meaning are completely unknown. Cong were extremely difficult and time-consuming to produce. As jade cannot be split like other stones, it must be worked with a hard abrasive sand.

《周礼·春官·大宗伯》：“以玉作六器，以礼天地四方，以苍璧礼天，以黄琮礼地，以青圭礼东方，以赤璋礼南方，以白琥礼西方，以玄璜礼北方。”

It showed the influence of the culture of Central China 中原 where the Shang dynasty (1600-1046 B.C) was the dominant powerhouse then. And when Zhou dynasty (1046 –256 BC) took over, the system of rituals and worships was very mature and well documented. However there was no written documents or characters that came out of Sanxingdui, or none discovered as yet.

玉璋 Jade Zhang

商代晚期 1986年三星堆一号祭祀坑出土 (左) 2021年三星堆八号祭祀坑出土 (右) Late Shang Dynasty, Excavated in No. 1 Sacrificial Pit of Sanxingdui Site in 1986 (L) / Excavated in No.8 Sacrificial Pil of Sanxingdui Site in 2021 (R)

A Zhang 璋 or a forked blade was used by lower ranking officials in the rituals for heaven worship. The one on the left was discovered in 1986 and showed very detailed engraving on the jade. The other more intact Zhang was discovered in a recent excavated pit No. 8, where similar patterns can be found.

铜罍 Bronze Lei (Wine Vessel)

商代睌期 1986年三星堆二号祭祀坑出土 Late Shang Dynasty, Excavated in No.2 Sacrificial Pit of Sanxingdui Site in 1986

Here’s an evidence of the close relationship with Central China. There wasn’t any evidence of an evolutionary bronze age in Ancient Chu, so it could only be deduced at this stage that bronze smelting was brought in from Central China. And this 铜罍 Bronze Lei had all the characteristics of a wine vessel from Shang dynasty.

The Taotie (animal face) pattern 饕餮(tāotiè)纹 was commonly found in bronze vessels of that period in similar but different forms around the cultures that sprung up around China. The most prominent examples were the bronze ding 鼎 that had these embedded on the sides.

青铜U形面具 U-Shaped Bronze Mask

商代晚期 2021年三星堆三号祭祀坑出士 Late Shang Dynasty, Excavated in No.3 Sacrificial Pit of Sanxingdui Site in 2021

This is a small specimen of the bronze mask that is similar to the ones excavated from Pit No. 1 and 2. These strange looking mask often led people to romanticise the Ancient Shu to be connected to aliens.

But these were just pure fiction as recorded history did mention the characteristics of the King of Ancient Shu to have puffy eyes 纵目, most likely due to hypothyroidism as a result of lack of iodine in their diet.

铜小立人像 Bronze Standing Figure

商代晚期 2021年三星堆三号祭祀坑出土 Late Shang Dynasty, Excavated in No.3 Sacrificial Pit of Sanxingdui Site in 2021

The bronze figure wears an Ultraman-like pointed crown (head dart) and has the same protruding big eyes as his bigger brothers. The figure stands upright, wearing a pointed hat, clasped hands in front of him like holding something, looks like wearing a belt around his waist, wears a long coat with an inlay short skirt, and standing on his feet. The face is square, with thick eyebrows and big eyes, a high nose and a wide mouth, big ears, and holes in the ears.

立发铜人像 Bronze Figure with Towering Hair

商代脕期 2021年三星堆三号祭祀坑出土 Late Shang Dynasty, Excavated in No 3 Sacrificial Pit of Sanxingdui Site in 2021

The bronze figure was unearthed in the middle of the No. 3 pit, and was found when extracting the giant bronze mask in the pit. His hair curled back and combed into tiles, just like Zhuge Liang wearing a crown hat in the TV series. There is also a bronze component behind the head of the figure, which should be part of an attachment to something.

青铜平顶人头像 Bronze Figure with Flat Top

商代睌期 1986年三星堆二号祭祀坑出土 Late Shang Dynasty, Excavated in No.2 Sacrificial Pit of Sanxingdui Site in 1986

The top of the head is flat, and the top cover and cranial cavity are cast separately. The face seems to be wearing a mask, and the lower end of the neck is cast into an inverted angular shape. The hair is braided back and drooping behind the head, and the ends of the hair are tied. This head is the larger one among the unearthed heads, which is quite thick.

青铜圆顶人头像 Bronze Figure with Dome Top

商代睌期 1986年三星堆二号祭祀坑出土 Late Shang Dynasty, Excavated in No.2 Sacrificial Pit of Sanxingdui Site in 1986

The dome bronze head is wearing a hat hoop, with a roll on the back of the head, like a coiled bun. Some flat-topped avatars have braided hair on the back of the head, and most of them wear plain-faced hats. One of the head portraits is decorated with a pattern on the hat. Wearing a head hat belongs to the typical characteristics of Sichuan and Shu.

三号铜神树 No.3 Bronze Divine Tree

商代晚期 1986年三星堆三号祭祀坑出土 Late Shang Dynasty, Excavated in No.2 Sacrificial Pit of Sanxingdui Site in 1986

The recent excavation has unearthed another bronze sacred tree from the Ancient Shu period. It was found in parts in Pit 3, and was so complex that its surviving branches, flowers, some of the trunk and solar wheel ornament took four months to fully excavate because they were buried under heavy layers of ivory and other artefacts. 

“汤谷上有扶桑，十日所浴，居水中。九日居下枝，一日居上枝。”

《山海经·海外东经》

What was interesting about this tree was the fragments of gold barks that were used to decorate the tree. They are still waiting for other pieces of the tree to appear to complete the puzzle.

Afterthoughts

The relics continue to be discovered as work continues to Pit 7 and 8. These are all clues of a time when a civilisation was facing a crossroad in history and how they picked the next path towards their glory or destruction. Often referred as the Mayas of China, the people of Sanxingdui was not given a race or tribe affiliation, but they were definitely not the original Han Chinese. Did they survive and had their culture influenced the Shang-Zhou dynasties or did the Shang-Zhou culture assimilated them? These are questions still left unanswered.

Visited Dec 2021

#sanxingduimusem #sanxingdui #三星堆 #三星堆博物馆 #guanghan #广汉