The Sanxingdui site in Guanghan: two sacrificial pits with 13,000 artifacts—giant 4.5ft bronze mask, 9ft statue, 1,200 bronze objects, 543 gold & 565 jade items. Dated 3,000-5,000 years old, deliberately broken & burned before burial. This Sichuan site reveals an advanced civilization predating the Shang Dynasty.
Sanxingdui: 13,000 artifacts including bronze masks unearthed in 1986
Key facts
- Discovered in 1986 by construction workers in Guanghan:
- Two sacrificial pits contained hundreds of artifacts
- 13,000 artifacts total unearthed
- 1,200 bronze objects, 543 gold artifacts, 565 jade items
- Artifacts include bronze masks, statues, and sacrificial altar
- Giant bronze mask measures 4.5 feet wide and 2.5 feet tall
- Bronze statue stands approximately 9 feet tall (2.7 meters)
- Dated to between 3,000-5,000 years ago
- Artifacts deliberately broken and burned before burial
Site mentioned
Sources
The Mysterious Ancient City That's Rewriting Chinese Historysixthtone.com
The excavation site at Sanxingdui in 1986. As the researchers' resources were limited, the site was exposed to the open air, which made it ...
Sanxingdui relics provide glimpse of early Chinese civilizationchinadailyhk.com
In 1986, two pits full of bronze artifacts, notably bizarre-looking masks and human figurines, were accidentally found in Sanxingdui, drawing ...
Sacrificial pits of the Shang period at Sanxingdui in Guanghan ...persee.fr
One of the most remarkable of recent discoveries in Chinese archaeology was made in Sichuan province in July of 1986, when brickyard workers digging for clay at ...
Sanxingdui: Discovery of a Lost Bronze Age Civilizationinternational.ucla.edu
The ancient remains found at the Sanxingdui site show us that an ancient civilization once flourished in the Sichuan Basin from about 1700 BC to 1050 BC.
Sanxingdui - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
'Three Star Mound') is an archaeological site and a major Bronze Age culture in modern Guanghan, Sichuan, China. Largely discovered in 1986, following a ...
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