Sanxingdui

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Sanxingdui bronze heads with a mask made of gold foil
Sanxingdui bronze mask with characteristic large ears and protruding pupils

Sanxingdui ( Chinese  三星堆 , Pinyin Sānxīngduī ) - also known locally in Sichuan as Xanxingdui - is an ancient Chinese city ​​where archaeologists have discovered remarkable artifacts that, according to radiocarbon dating, date back to the 12th-11th centuries. Century BC Be classified. Relics from the Neolithic to the early Shu culture of the Shang and Zhou times, which date from 2800-800 BC, were found in the site. To be dated.

This previously unknown Bronze Age culture was also given the name Sanxingdui . The archaeological site of Sanxingdui is located approximately 40 kilometers northeast of Chengdu in Sichuan Province . The site was named after the large community of Sanxing (三星 镇), on whose administrative territory it was located. On April 17, 2006, Sanxing was dissolved and the area of ​​the large community Nanxing (南 兴镇) was added. Nanxing is one of the 17 large municipalities in the independent city of Guanghan , which in turn belongs to the administrative area of the independent city ​​of Deyang . Guanghan also has the Sanxingdui Museum .

discovery

In 1929 a farmer discovered a large amount of jade relics while digging a well , many of which found their way into the hands of private collectors over the years. Generations of Chinese archaeologists searched the area unsuccessfully until 1986 when workers accidentally found sacrificial pits ( Chinese  祭祀 坑 , Pinyin jìsìkēng , English sacrificial pits ) containing thousands of gold, bronze, jaden and pottery artifacts that were broken (possibly ritually defaced) , burned and carefully buried. The researchers were surprised to find such an ornate style that was completely unknown in the history of Chinese art , which began with the history and artifacts of the central Chinese region around the central reaches of the Yellow River .

Old bronze casting

Bronze Standing Figure.jpg
Sanxingdui bronze bird of prey head

All the discoveries of the Sanxingdui culture piqued the interest of researchers, but it was the bronzes that made the world excited. Some researchers consider the finds to be even more important than the Terracotta Army in Xi'an . This astonishingly advanced bronze casting technique, in which the alloy was given greater strength by adding lead to the usual combination of copper and tin , was able to create larger and heavier objects; For example, the world's oldest larger-than-life standing human figure (260 cm high, 180 kilograms) and a bronze tree with birds, flowers and ornaments (396 cm), which some have identified as a reproduction of the fusang tree in Chinese mythology . The most notable finds were large bronze masks and bronze heads (some covered with gold foil) with angular human features and exaggerated crooked eyes, some with prominent pupils and large upper auricles. From the shape of these heads, archaeologists conclude that they were mounted on wooden supports or totems , or perhaps they were clothed. Other bronze artifacts include birds with eagle-like beaks, tigers , a large snake , zoomorphic masks, bells, and an item that appears to be a bronze spoked wheel, but is more likely a representation of the sun wheel ( taiyang lun ). Aside from the bronzes, jade sculptures were also found in Sanxingdui that correspond to those from earlier Chinese Neolithic cultures, such as cong and zhang .

Possible influences

The Sanxingdui Culture was a civilization in southwest China on the territory of the ancient Shu State during the time of the Shang Dynasty . It is still little explored. Although it used a different method of bronze-making from that of the Shang, the culture was never reported by Chinese historians. The development of the Sanxingdui culture is imagined as divided into several phases. The first may have been independent, while the later stages merged with that of Ba , Chu and other cultures.

Aside from Sanxingdui, all of the other archaeological discoveries in Sichuan, including the Baodun culture and the Jinsha culture, show that civilizations in southwest China can look back on at least 5000 years of history. This evidence for independent cultures in different regions of China refutes the traditional theory that the Yellow River , the sole "cradle of Chinese civilization" ( cradle of Chinese civilization was).

Sanxingdui Museum ( Sanxingdui bowuguan )

Exhibitions

The first exhibitions of Sanxingdui bronzes were in Beijing (1987, 1990) and in the Olympic Museum of Lausanne (1993). Sanxingdui exhibitions traveled around the world and were very popular: from the Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung München (1995), Kulturstiftung Ruhr Essen, Villa Hügel (1995), the Kunsthaus Zürich (1996), the British Museum in London (1996) , the Danish National Museum 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 Civilizations Museum in Singapore (2007).

In 1997 the Sanxingdui Museum opened near the original site.

The site has been on the list of monuments of the People's Republic of China (3–200) since 1988 .

Some objects and their Chinese names

Big bronze tree
  • Standing bronze figure (qīngtóng lìrénxiàng 青铜 立 人像)
  • Human heads (réntóuxiàng 人 头像)
  • Dragon-shaped artifact (lóngxíngqì 龙 形 器)
  • Tiger-shaped artifact (hǔxíngqì 虎 形 器)
  • Kneeling human figure (guìzuò rénxiàng 跪坐 人像)
  • Gold rod (more precisely: a shaft) (jīnzhàng 金 杖)
  • Golden tiger-shaped ornaments (jīnhǔxíngshì 金虎 形 饰)
  • Large bronze tree (qīngtóng shénshù 青铜 神 树)
  • Large bronze sun wheel (qīngtóng tàiyáng lún 青铜 太阳 轮)
  • Bronze snake (qīngtóng shé 青铜 蛇)

Literature in western languages

  • Zhao Dianzeng: "Mediator between Heaven and Earth: The Finds of Sanxingdui", in: Ancient China: People and Gods in the Middle Kingdom 5000 BC BC to AD 220 Munich: Hirmer 1995, ISBN 3-7774-6640-9
  • Liu Yang and Edmund Capon (Eds.): Masks of Mystery: Ancient Chinese Bronzes from Sanxingdui . Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 2000, ISBN 0-7347-6316-6
  • Bagley, Robert (Ed.): Ancient Sichuan: Treasures from a Lost Civilization . Princeton, NJ: Seattle Art Museum and Princeton University Press 2001, ISBN 0-691-08851-9
  • Jay Jie Xu: The Sanxingdui Site: Art and Archeology

Chinese literature

  • Li Shaoming, Lin Xiang, and Zhao Dianzeng (Eds.): Sanxingdui yu Ba Shu wenhua. [Sanxingdui and the culture of Ba and Shu] Chengdu: Ba Shu shushe, 1993
  • Zhongguo qingtongqi quanji Bianji weiyuanhui (Eds.): Ba Shu [Ba and Shu], Vol. 13 in: Zhongguo qingtongqi quanji , Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe 1994
  • Sichuan Guanghan Sanxingdui yizhi [The Sanxingdui Site of Guanghan, Sichuan Province]. Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe 1994 ( Zhongguo kaogu wenwu zhi mei )

Web links

Commons : Sanxingdui  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [1]

Coordinates: 31 ° 0 ′  N , 104 ° 12 ′  E