Fully a month has passed since I took in Sanxingdui, yet, to be honest, the potential magnitude of that I saw is still sinking in. But then, I’m a believer…
The Nanjinger’s recent visit to Chengdu for business happily afforded also a day and a half of tourism, during which we checked out a pedestrian street with every shape and form of cute and cuddly panda imaginable, plus a former residence of the man regarded as China’s #2 poet Du Fu (Li Bai is #1).
Perhaps in stark contrast to the former, the latter is more or less required viewing, especially for those with a literary bent, for this is the place where Chinese poetry can finally become at least partly accessible to foreign eyes. It also reveals just how much Du had in common with his poetic counterparts of the West; the skills which made him a true master.
To follow, masters from the world of archeology, specifically China’s two most significant finds from the 20th Century, it can be argued. And yes, they are both in Chengdu.
The Jinsha Site Museum, built in 2007, is listed on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Tentative List and Major Sites Protected at the National Level.
A showcase of the ancient Shu civilisation, dating back 3,000 years to the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the Jinsha Site was discovered in 2001. Today, its Museum features over 6,000 relics, including the world’s most concentrated collection of ancient ivory.
It’s also your only chance to be up close and personal with the national symbol that is the Sun & Immortal Bird Gold Ornament.
With that, there was no else to go next and little doubt that we would end the trip on a high. With the crown jewels of course, at Sanxingdui. And to think I’d never heard of it until then.
Oddly (perhaps suggestive of a little conspiracy), and despite finding precious little online regarding any possible alien influence over the artefacts herein, there is little doubt that a suspicion thereof is the reason for them arriving in droves. Even the packing for the attraction’s branded t-shirt makes the most of it, for it would not have been out of place in an episode of 1990s cult TV drama series “The X Files”.
And bizarrely, comparisons with science fiction are apt. For this is historical reality.
It’s an odd name for a town in the middle of nowhere with supposedly off-world associations (but then, what should such a place be called?). The fact though remains, Sanxingdui is indeed a town, of the one-horse variety, through which its only thoroughfare is jammed by perputual and long convoys of visitors in their buses and cars; the road on either side a mish mash of vendors and diners offering a final bite to eat before those close encounters begin.
It’s all decidedly reminiscent of “Contact” actually; that movie with Jodie Foster in which believers and wackos alike convene in the desert upon reports of intelligent transmissions coming from another constellation.
But perhaps that has already happened, 4 thousand years ago, in Sichuan. And on this day, we were here to witness the evidence thereof for ourselves.
But unfortunately, the fact is we simply don’t know.
The Sanxingdui site, discovered in the late 1920s, is considered the largest ancient city and kingdom with the longest history in the entire southwestern region of China.
Nearly a century of archaeological excavations and research has revealed that the Sanxingdui site developed into a large settlement from the late New Stone Age until the Xia Dynasty (2205-1766 BCE).
They were the glory days; by the early Shang Dynasty, city walls and large-scale buildings abounded, while skilled techniques such as metallurgy, jade carving, and silk weaving techniques reached their zenith.
In 1986 and 2019, eight sacrificial pits were discovered at Sanxingdui, from which were unearthed nearly 20,000 precious cultural relics. These include grand bronze statues of human figures, mythical bronze trees, bronze altars, bronze masks with protruding eyes, gold masks and a golden scepter, as well as other extraordinary treasures.
Now recognised as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in modern times, that coming out of Sanxingdui also serves as compelling evidence for the Chengdu Plain being the centre of civilisation in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
So as to whether or not there was extra-terrestrial influence over the artefacts of Sanxingdui, the jury is out. But let us not forget that is exactly what keeps the crowds come flocking.
Back with popular culture, how did Fox Mulder’s poster in The X Files go again?; “I Want to Believe”. You better believe it. And you will, at Sanxingdui.
