Sanxingdui - Discovery

Discovery

In 1929, a farmer unearthed a large stash of jade relics while digging a well, many of which found their way through the years into the hands of private collectors. Generations of Chinese archaeologists searched the area without success until 1986, when workers accidentally found sacrificial pits containing thousands of gold, bronze, jade, and pottery artifacts that had been broken (perhaps ritually disfigured), burned, and carefully buried. The first sacrificial pit was found on the site of the Lanxing Second Brick Factory on July 18th 1986. The second sacrificial pit was found a little less than a month later on August 14th, 1986 only 20-30 meters from the first one. Bronze objects found in the second sacrificial pit included male sculptures, animal-faced sculptures, bells, decorative animals such as dragons, snakes, chicks, and birds, and axes. Tables, masks and belts were some of the objects found made out of gold while objects made out of jade included axes, tablets, rings, knives and tubes. There was also a large amount of ivory and clamshells. Researchers were astonished to find an artistic style that was completely unknown in the history of Chinese art, whose baseline had been the history and artefacts of the Yellow River civilization(s).

All the Sanxingdui discoveries aroused scholarly interest, but the bronzes were what excited the world. Task Rosen of the British Museum considered them to be more outstanding than the Terracotta Army in Xi'an. The first exhibits of Sanxingdui bronzes were held in Beijing (1987, 1990) and the Olympic Museum in Lausanne (1993). Sanxingdui exhibits traveled worldwide, and tickets were sold out everywhere; from the Hybary Arts Museum in Munich (1995), the Swiss National Museum in Zurich (1996), the British Museum in London (1996), the National Museum of Denmark 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 Civilisations Museum in Singapore (2007).

Nevertheless, despite the interest in the excavated finds, the site itself suffered from flooding and pollution, and was for this reason included in the 1996 World Monuments Watch by the World Monuments Fund. For the preservation of the site, funding was offered by American Express to construct a protective dike. Also, in 1997, the Sanxingdui Museum opened near the original site.