The mysteries of ancient Sanxingdui II

Archaeologists around the world were excited by the unearthling of large palatial remains in the 1980s, the remnants of the eastern, western and southern walls in 1984 and the discovery of two large sacrificial pits in 1986.

These discoveries proved that Sanxingdui contains the ruins of an ancient city that was political, economic and cultural centre of the ancient Shu kingdom.

A metropolis of its time, Sanxingdui boasted highly developed agrcultural and mining systems, and produced ceramics and sacrificial tools.

Before the excavation of Sanxingdui, it was believed that Sichuan has a history dating back 3000 years. Thanks to the excavation, it is now believed that civilized culture first appeared in Sichuan 5000 years ago.

Archaologists say that the Sanxingdui Ruins also dispel theories that the Yellow River was the sole starting point of Chinese civilization.

Of more than 10,000 relics unearthed in Sanxingdui, the nearly 1000 found in 1986 in the two sacrificial pits are considered the most valuable. In these two pits, bronze, gold, jade and marble artifacts, pottery, bone implements, elephant tusks and objects made of ivory were found. Archaeologists also discovered cowries and roughly 800 large bronze relics.

In addition to the many bronze and gold masks, the most valuable finds from the two pits included the bronze statue of the Shu king, a gold scepter and a bronze "spirit tree". With a length of 1.42 metres, a diametre of 2.3 cm and weight of 0.5kg, te design on the gold scepter features fish, birds, and human figures. The scepter is believed to be a symbol for a monarchic or theocratic order, or a combination of two. Consisting of a pedestral, a trunk and part of a dragon, the 3.95 metre-tall bronze tree is the oldest, tallest and largest of its kind in the world. Some thinks that it represents a legendary spirit tree, while many researchers believe that the tree was an all-embracing symbol.

The Sanxingdui covers 12 square kilometres, of which only four have been excavated. Chen Xiandan, deputy curater of the Sichuan Provicial Museum says: "It is likely that more exciting archaeological discoveries will be made"

The mysteries of ancient Sanxingdui I

One of the more impressive displays at the Sanxingdui Museum, in Guanghan of South-west China's Sichuan Province, is a bronze statue of a barefoot man with anklets and clenched hands.

The 2.62 metre high, 180 kg statue is throught to represent a king of the Shu Kingdom. She was the name of Sichuan in ancient times.

Dating back 3100 years, the king's statue is crowned with a sun motiff and coated with three layers of tight, short sleeved bronze "clothing", which is decorated with a dragon pattern and overlaid with a checked ribbon.

Huang Nengfu, a professor of art and design at Tsinghua University and an eminent researcher in Chinese clothing from different dynasties, considers the garment to be the countriy's oldest existing dragon robe. He also thinks that the pattern is the work of the famous Shu embriodery.

The robe has changed the traditional view that Shu Embroidery began in the mid-Qing Dynasty(1644-1911). Instead it shows Shu Embroidery appeared in the Shang Dynasty (c.16th century - c.11th century BC), according to Wang Yuqing, a Taiwan-based Chinese clothing historian.

The bronze statue of the Shu king is one of the four most important cultural relics to be found in the Sanxingdui Ruins in Guanghan, a city 40 km from Chengdu. Sanxingdui, means "three star mounds" in English, is so named because the ruins are located in a village where there are three mounds.

Since 1992, more than 10,000 relics, dating between 5000 and 3000 years ago, have been unearthed in the city's Sanxingdui Ruins. The excavations have yielded some of the most significant Chinese archaeological discoveries of the 20th century.

3000 Year-old Jinsha Coming to Life

source: china.org.cn 3000 Year-old Jinsha Coming to Life

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The archeological site of Jinsha located in the western suburbs of Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan Province, is widely believed to have been the capital of the Shu Kingdom close to 3,000 years ago. After some burial grounds and sacrifice emplacements were recently discovered, a renewed effort was made to excavate Jinsha. This vigor has now revealed the outlines of the cemetery, living areas, palace remains and sacrifice grounds.

Lying only 50 kilometers away from the famed Sanxingdui, Jinsha rose to prominence around 1000 BC and shared similar origins with Sanxingdui as can be seen from similar burial objects although unlike its hallowed neighbor, Jinsha had no city wall. So far, artifacts made from ivory, jade, bronze, gold and stone have been found at the site.

Sanxingdui flourished from 3000 BC to about 800 BC, markedly earlier than Jinsha culture. Due to this, some historians have theorized that Jinsha's culture and influence succeeded Sanxingdui's after the latter was brought low by natural disasters.

Over 800 tombs found

So far, over 800 tombs have been found in the Jinsha ruins, stretching back from the middle of Western Zhou Dynasty (c. 1100 BC - c. 771 BC) through to the early Spring and Autumn Period (770 BC - 476 BC).

Experts revealed the complete excavation of the 1,000-square-meter palace area lying to the north of the site, next to the religious ceremony ground to the northeast. The residential and cemetery areas took up the central parts of the site. The diameter of Jinsha, at its apogee, would have comprised 5 square kilometers and the individual functionality of different areas speaks of the fairly high level of development attained by the city.

Upon investigation, it was found that all the tombs faced a southeasterly direction and DNA testing has revealed that all the excavated corpses had been less then 30 years old at the time of their death, a fact attributed to frequent warfare.

Each skeleton was surrounded by potteries and jade objects. An oddity when looking in ancient funerary customs is the presence of a jade knife in each body's chest, a very rare custom for the time.

Another rarity was discovered when a tomb was found to contain two skeletons, buried side-by-side. Soil samples revealed that the area was turned from a living area into a cemetery although archaeologists are baffled as to why.

Special tomb No. M1901

According to specialists, the entire tomb area has been wholly excavated, with the exception of tomb M1901, on which excavation work began at the end of March.

Zhang Qing, director of the Chengdu Municipal Cultural Relics and Archaeology Institute's Jinsha Site Archaeological Station, explained that "when we first found this tomb, we noticed it was different from the others -- it's larger than those surrounding it, being 2.5 meters in length and 1.4 meters in width. It contains peculiar articles, unlike those in other tombs. Most of the bodies in Jinsha were well-preserved but the one in M1901 was burned before burial, something very rarely seen." Zhang surmised that this represented an ancient sacrificial ceremony in which leaves and other objects were set ablaze on the body of the deceased.

With the knowledge they now hold and although they cannot pinpoint the person's identity, archaeologists can reveal that this tomb did not contain a commoner but is also too small to have contained the remains of a prince or nobleman. Thus, Zhang explained, the man may well have been an ancient sorcerer or respected artisan.

Sorcerers conducted all of Jinsha's sacrificial ceremonies and by the luxurious items found in the sacrificial areas of Jinsha, it can be seen that sorcerers were held in high esteem.

The other conjecture is that the unknown man could be a high-level craftsman, who were highly praised at the time for their unique skills, Zhang explained.

Experts will now use "carbon 14" dating test to determine the precise age of the M1901 skeleton and his tomb.

Rare bronzewares

Altogether 74 bronze items of high quality were uncovered in the No.M1901 tomb, the first such find during the six-year excavation of Jinsha. These items were all miniature weapons or tools such as knives, arrows, arrowheads, shovels, forks and axes, measuring about 10 centimeters in length.

Archaeologists were originally baffled as to whether these were ornaments, toys or served another purpose. For his part, Zhang held the belief that these articles were simply funereal objects which served as a status symbol for the deceased they accompanied.

Besides these miniature tools, other crossed bronze artifacts were unearthed, with the particularity of having been cast in a wholly original manner for the time.

"Ancient people of Jinsha had discovered a new method of casting bronze, known as piece-mould casting method. A model of the object to be cast was first made and turned into a mould. The mould would then have sections cut away from it to release the original model. The sections would then be individually strengthened with fire before being reassembled to form a solid mould ready for casting. If the object to be cast was a vessel, a core would be placed inside the mould to ensure the vessel's cavity," Zhang Qing explained.

Jade chisel

The excavation of tomb M1901 was to provide yet another interesting turn of events. As workers thought they had fully explored the tomb and were preparing to evacuate it, they moved an earthen jar revealing a transparent piece of jade beneath it. According to Zhang, the new item is a jade chisel, used to work on wood or bamboo, and was also a symbol of death used in sacrificial rites.

The jade chisel, measuring around ten centimeters long and in good condition, is the second of its kind in the Jinsha Ruins. Its discovery will be highly valuable in providing research on sacrificial vessels of the time.

3,000-year-old bark-roofed house

The ruins also revealed remains of houses. Ancient houses were worn down to their foundations when archaeologists arrived but the humid climate around Chengdu allowed the wooden frames and bark roofs to be partially preserved, explained experts.

One house had covered around 30 square meters, with a roof wholly made of bark measuring 7 by 3 meters. After analyzing the wood, the house was thought to have been built towards the end of the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 BC - c. 1100 BC).

(China.org.cn by Chen Lin, April 3, 2007)

Salvage Begins on Sunken Ship off South China Coast

source: china.org.cn Salvage Begins on Sunken Ship off South China Coast

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Salvage operations on a sunken Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) ship started Thursday as a specially designed steel structure was lowered into the sea at about 12 a.m. near Yangjiang, in south China's Guangdong Province.

The rectangular structure was pulled by a 900-ton tug to a position just above the ill-fated ship. At 11:45 AM., it was released and began to slowly sink.

Weighing 530 tons, the double-box structure is 35.7 meters long, 14.4 meters wide and 12 meters high. It took engineers from Guangzhou Salvage Bureau more than a month to make.

The engineers have filled the gaps between the two steel boxes with sand, in order to increase the weight of the steel structure and cope with the effect of gravity under static pressure.

A score of frogmen assisted with underwater operations on Thursday. The sunken ship is expected to be hoisted out of the seawater in July.

According to the salvage plan, the upper part of the steel structure will be brought out of the seawater together with the sunken ship, while the lower part will stay on the seabed forever, said Wu Jiancheng, who is in charge of the salvage operation.

Experts spent three years planning the salvage, considered to be a world first for underwater archaeology.

Archaeologists normally excavate the relics on the sunken boat first and then salvage the boat.

The sunken ship was found accidentally in 1987 by Guangzhou Salvage Bureau and a British underwater salvage company. The first ancient vessel to be discovered on the "Marine Silk Road" in the South China Sea, it was named "Nanhai No.1," meaning South China Sea No.1.

The ship is located some 30 nautical miles west of Hailing Island of Yangjiang City, and lies at a depth of more than 20 meters. About 30 meters long, the vessel is the largest Song Dynasty cargo ship ever discovered.

Archaeologists estimate that there are probably 60,000 to 80,000 relics on the sunken ship.

It is believed that a successful salvage of the sunken ship will offer important material evidence for restoring the "Silk Road on the Sea," and for the study of China's history in seafaring, ship building, and ceramics making.

According to Wu, workers have cleared away 25 tons of silt around the sunken ship and have brought out of the seawater 390 cultural relic items. They include green glazed porcelain plates, tin pots and shadowy blue porcelain objects.

(Xinhua News Agency May 18, 2007)

Cliff Carvings May Rewrite History of Chinese Characters

source: china.org.cn Cliff Carvings May Rewrite History of Chinese Characters

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Chinese archaeologists say they have found more than 2,000 pictographs dating back 7,000 to 8,000 years, about 3,000 years before other texts, that are believed to be the origin of modern Chinese characters.

The pictographs are on rock carvings in Damaidi, at Beishan Mountain in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, which covers about 450 square kilometers with more than 10,000 prehistoric rock carvings.

Paleographers claim that the pictographs may take the history of Chinese characters back to 7,000 to 8,000 years ago.

Previously, scholars believed the earliest Chinese characters included 3,000-year-old inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells, known as the Oracle Bones, and 4,500-year-old pottery-born inscriptions, both found in central Henan Province, one of the birthplaces of Chinese civilization.

"We have found some symbols shaped like both pictures and characters," said Li Xiangshi, a cliff-carving expert at the North University of Nationalities based in Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia.

"The pictographs are similar to the ancient hieroglyphs of Chinese characters and many can be identified as ancient characters," said Li.

The Damaidi carvings, first discovered in the late 1980s, cover 15 square kilometers with 3,172 cliff carvings, featuring 8,453 individual figures such as the sun, moon, stars, gods and scenes of hunting or grazing.

"Through arduous research, we have found that some pictographs are commonly seen in up to hundreds of pictures in the carvings," said Liu Jingyun, an expert on ancient Oracle Bone characters.

"The size, shape and meanings of the pictographs in different carvings are the same," Liu said.

Liu believed the meanings of all the pictographs could be deciphered on the basis of certain classifications such as gender.

(Xinhua News Agency May 18, 2007)

中国货早在唐朝

中国货早在唐朝

在1000多年前由中国制造的杯子，为什么会有那么一点“阿拉伯味”？原来，早在那个时代，远洋订单就已经开始了。

这个杯子一起的一批唐朝千年宝藏，喊价6000多万，现在有可能会在狮城落户。

话说，一名德国人，七年前从印尼海域打捞出一批价值连城的中国沉船宝藏。这批文物的发现，证明了早在9世纪，也就是1200年前，除了陆地上的丝绸之路之外，中国早就已经开始“海上丝绸之旅”。

这艘千年前的古船，还有个奇怪的名字，叫“黑石号”。

专家说，“黑石号”是一艘来自阿拉伯的贸易船。当年，这艘船的出发地点可能是中国扬州。中国商人把一批专门为西亚人打造的中国瓷器，装上了船，准备运输到遥远的沙地阿拉伯去。但黑石号在经过苏门答腊海域时，遇上暗礁而沉没。

这就说明了，早在1000多年前，中国与千万里之外的沙地就有了海上往来，而西亚人还懂得向中国下订单，打造合他们心意的瓷器带回去卖呢！

黑石号上的宝藏，因此多带有浓郁的西亚色彩。例如，图中这个造型独特的多面金属杯上所刻绘的人物，服饰和轮廓全然不是中国人的模样。不多做说明，你会相信，这是唐朝的文物吗？

圣淘沙最近宣布，已经借来这批难得的沉船宝藏准备展出。若洽商成功，圣淘沙还考虑将宝藏买下，让它永远留在新加坡。

宝藏的主人喊价6622万新元，你说，我们买还是不买？

中国货早在唐朝● 王辉雯, 联合早报网， accessed www.zaobao.com, 11th Nov 2004, 15:46