Sanxingdui: Bronze Age city with monumental walls and sacrificial pits

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Key facts

• Sanxingdui means “Three Star Mounds,” referring to three raised earthworks on the Chengdu Plain, probably remnants of ancient walls.
• The site is about 40 km north of Chengdu in Guanghan, Sichuan.
• Radiocarbon-dated timbers associated with the walled city date its construction to around 1600 BC; the settlement continued until about 1100 BC.
• Archaeologists estimate that tens of thousands lived there at its peak.
• The walled enclosure covered roughly 6 square kilometres. Palace and workshop areas have been identified, while the principal ritual-pit area lies in the south.
• The rammed-earth walls were up to about 40 m wide at the base and taper upward; they likely served flood control as well as defense.
• Pits 1 and 2, excavated in 1986, yielded about 90 bronze heads in total; more than 100 are known from the wider ritual-pit complex. The heads had hollow necks for mounting on wooden bodies or supports.
• Pit 2 contained 67 elephant tusks and roughly 500 cowrie shells, including species from the Indian Ocean.
• Archaeological work began in 1984, but the major palace complex was uncovered in excavations beginning in 2020.

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