New Discoveries at Chinese Legendary Sanxingdui Ruins

Chinese archaeologists announced Saturday that some new major discoveries have been made at the legendary Sanxingdui Ruins site in southwest China, helping shed light on the cultural origins of the Chinese nation.

In the process of excavation, archaeologists made full use of modern technologies to ensure the safety of the relics and sound management of relevant data and materials, said Song Xinchao, deputy head of the National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA).

They have found six new sacrificial pits and unearthed over 500 important cultural items dating back about 3,000 years from four of the pits at the Sanxingdui site, including pieces of exquisite gold masks, gold foil, bronze masks, bronze trees, ivories, pieces of miniature ivory sculptures and jade.

Of particular note, a fragment of a gold mask, about 23cm wide and 28cm long, found in one of the pits, surprised the archaeologists with its relatively large size compared to previous archaeological findings. The rest of the newly discovered pits are still under excavation.

The discoveries have shown the distinctiveness of the Shu civilization and the diversity of the Chinese civilization, said Ran Honglin, another researcher with the institute.

Song Xinchao, deputy director of the NCHA called on archaeologists to study and analyze the latest findings at the Sanxingdui site and compare them with other archaeological discoveries in the Sichuan basin and its surrounding areas, so as to better understand the origin of Sanxingdui culture and the significant role of the regional culture of the Yangtze River basin.

Sichuan not only has a rich cultural heritage, but it is also an important place to find dinosaur fossils. We will introduce the discovery of dinosaur fossils in Zigong, Sichuan Province in a future article.