Strange Bulging Eyes: Western Scholars Look at Sanxingdui

Author: Luo Tai (Germany)
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2003-09-01
Features: The Sanxingdui Ruins are the earliest discovered and excavated sites in Sichuan, and to date, they are the largest, longest-lasting, and richest Neolithic ruins in the Sichuan Basin. Represented by the Sanxingdui sacrificial pits, the Sanxingdui culture is one of the most brilliant cultures in ancient Sichuan's religious practices, and the ancient kingdom represented by the Sanxingdui culture is one of the most powerful in ancient Sichuan. Sanxingdui civilization holds an important position and role in the history of ancient Chinese civilization. 1999 was the year when the archaeological excavation report of the striking Sanxingdui sacrificial pits was officially published, marking the 70th anniversary of the discovery of the Sanxingdui Ruins, and also the last year of the 20th century. At this moment, it is both necessary and appropriate to review the research status and existing problems of the Sanxingdui Ruins, Sanxingdui culture, and the bronze culture in the Sichuan Basin represented by them over the years, and to conduct deeper thinking and analysis based on existing research achievements. Furthermore, to explore the new issues reflected by newly published materials, it is not only appropriate but also very necessary.
In light of this, when I attended the academic seminar on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mr. Xu Zhongshu, organized by Sichuan University, I suggested to Dr. Duan Zhihong, the editor-in-chief of Bashu Publishing House, to organize a series of books on "Sanxingdui Civilization" and have it published by Bashu Publishing House. Dr. Duan Zhihong strongly agreed with my suggestion but entrusted the organizational and coordination work to me, hoping that I would take the lead in organizing scholars from both domestic and international backgrounds to compile this series. Due to my busy teaching and administrative duties at the university, I could not spare much time for this additional work, and I myself had to write one book in the series. I initially wanted to decline, but considering that the organization of this series originated from me, and that the manuscripts of foreign scholars needed to be translated, I realized that if I did not take the lead in the coordination and organization, it might not be completed on time. Therefore, I took on this demanding organizational work and reported it to Professor Yuan Xingpei and Professor Wu Tongrui of the School of Chinese Studies at Peking University, deciding to include this series as part of the research series of the School of Chinese Studies at Peking University.
After completing these arrangements, I immediately began drafting the editorial guidelines for the series and determining the overall structure of the books. My "Editorial Guidelines for the Sanxingdui Civilization Series" are as follows:
1. This series is an academic work that comprehensively and concisely reflects the current research achievements on Sanxingdui culture worldwide. The primary emphasis in compiling this series is its academic nature. To fully mobilize the enthusiasm of the authors and highlight the academic traditions of different regions in China and the world, each book in the series should have distinct characteristics and personalities. The series requires each book to strive for comprehensive and accurate reflection of the research status and existing problems of Sanxingdui culture in the academic circles of its respective region. Based on newly published archaeological materials, the series will examine Sanxingdui civilization from different levels and perspectives, proposing new insights.
2. The Sanxingdui civilization mentioned in this book does not refer only to the Sanxingdui sacrificial pits, the Sanxingdui Ruins, or even the Sanxingdui culture. It takes the Sanxingdui sacrificial pits and Sanxingdui Ruins as the most brilliant highlights, with the Sanxingdui culture as the main research object, to conduct a comprehensive examination of the origin, development, transformation, and impact of Sanxingdui culture on the bronze culture and history of the Sichuan Basin. It will also explore in depth the relationship between Sanxingdui culture and the cultures of the Central Plains and neighboring regions. Additionally, it will provide a proper assessment of the history and current state of Sanxingdui civilization research.
3. The series consists of five volumes, written by authors from Sichuan, Beijing, Japan, and the Americas. Each volume will reflect Sanxingdui civilization from different levels: the ancient culture of Sichuan, the bronze culture system of China, and the history of world civilization. The authors will represent the regions where Sanxingdui civilization is located, closely related neighboring regions, countries influenced by Chinese culture, and different civilizations and academic traditions. Each volume will have a word count of 150-200,000, accompanied by a certain number of ink line drawings (approximately 50).
4. The series is written by authors from both domestic and international backgrounds. Since the research achievements of foreign academia on Sanxingdui civilization are not widely known in China, many people are limited by conditions or language barriers and cannot access or understand original foreign works. Therefore, the series will treat domestic and international authors differently: the three volumes written by domestic authors will be entirely rewritten by the authors themselves, without including any research papers. The bibliography and index of relevant books and articles should be appended at the end of each volume for readers to consult. The two volumes written by international authors will each be divided into two parts, with each part consisting of comprehensive papers on Sanxingdui civilization by authors from their respective regions.
5. The series should have a broad readership. Therefore, while prioritizing academic rigor, authors should also strive to make the content as readable as possible. The structure of the entire series should be logical, the writing clear and concise, and the language elegant and refined.
A puzzling artifact related to the archaeology of the Western Zhou Dynasty is a jade short sword (or dagger) unearthed from Pit 1. Like the numerous stone (gē) found in both pits, it should originate from a prototype of a similar metal object. If the dating of the two pits in "The Sanxingdui Sacrificial Pits" is correct, this simple artifact (as far as I know, few have paid attention to it) could be the earliest sword in East Asia. The earliest bronze specimens known to date, some of which are decorated with elaborate sheaths, have been found in Western Zhou tombs in the northern and western periphery of the Zhou realm. Academia generally believes that they originated from places north or northwest of China, but I am not sure whether such origin theories have been fully supported. The discovery of Sanxingdui allows us to reconsider this issue. Perhaps the Sichuan region had early contact with bronze production areas beyond the northern boundary of the Shang and Zhou cultural circles, or this type of short sword originated in Sichuan. Regarding this point, we cannot say much more, as it is difficult to draw conclusions based on a single and archaeologically isolated specimen. In the late first century BC in Sichuan, the sheathed short sword was one of the most prominent weapons in the "Ba-Shu culture." The earliest examples of the "Ba-Shu" culture discovered to date come from the bronze assemblage in Moupo, Maoyuan County, which is exactly within the range of the Ba-Shu culture. Short swords are absent in the cache at the Pengxian Zhuwajie site, dated to the Western Zhou period. Before the existence of this jade artifact from Sanxingdui was known, I thought the lack of short swords could be an indicator of an earlier date. This inference now appears to be incorrect.
(8) The decoration of weapons and tools from the first millennium BC in the Sichuan region can also serve as an indicator of the continuation of the Sanxingdui style tradition. In my article "Zhuwajie," I emphasized the relevance of several specimens from these potentially earlier assemblages to the style of Sanxingdui bronze artifacts. A bronze bird was unearthed from Pit 1 of Moupo in the mid-fifth century BC. In my article, I attempted to compare it with the Sanxingdui bird statues. Based on the complete records of the "divine tree" in "The Sanxingdui Sacrificial Pits," I further determined that the bronze bird from Moupo is a product of the Sanxingdui culture. In addition to these bronze artifacts from Sanxingdui that evolved into the "Ba-Shu culture" (and Zhuwajie and Moupo), we should also pay attention to double-ear vessels, a topic I discussed in my article "Zhuwajie." This phenomenon may indicate a degree of ritual continuity, but the current evidence is not yet sufficient to confirm it.
(9) The numerous themes of ritual activities on the openwork patterns of the "temple" and "altar" in Sanxingdui provide another direction for cross-regional and cross-temporal comparisons. As mentioned earlier, this type of figurative art, which was a mainstream artistic style in many early civilizations such as Egypt, Mesopotamia, Mycenae, and most of the civilizations in the Americas, was not prominent in the tradition of the Shang and Zhou cultures. The closest geographical example to Sanxingdui is the Dian culture, which flourished in central Yunnan from the eighth to the third century BC, characterized by elaborate sculptures on bronze seashell containers. The similarity between Dian culture and Sanxingdui lies more in concepts than in style. At the same time, Sichuan must also be considered as a possible medium for transmitting bronze casting technology from the Shang to the Dian culture region. Baner observed similarities in the "casting ridge folding and hammering" technique between Sanxingdui and the bronze artifacts from Haikou, Jianchuan in Yunnan. However, rather than considering this as an indicator of the late period of Sanxingdui, I prefer to view this phenomenon as a result of early interactions between the two regions. This relationship is also evident in the various bronze weapon types of Dian culture. In my article on Moupo, I discussed a unique-style "ornament" unearthed from Pit 1, which might be a precursor to bronze casting in Dian culture. However, based on the above analysis, it is more appropriate to consider it as a link between Sanxingdui and Dian culture. The other two similarities between Sanxingdui and Dian culture mentioned in this book are the use of gold foil to enhance facial features on bronze statues and the habit of placing seashells on bronze containers. However, considering the significant differences in bronze artifacts between the two cultures, if it is indeed believed that there is a connection between them, it must be through some intermediary stage that has not yet been discovered.
In the summer of 1986, two large pits from the upper layer of Phase III were excavated. These remains were dated to the late Shang Dynasty city of Anyang, Phase II and III. Pit 1 yielded approximately 300 artifacts, and Pit 2 yielded about 600. Both pits were rectangular, with Pit 2 being slightly later. Bronze artifacts, gold artifacts, jade artifacts, ivory, stone artifacts, and pottery were found in the pits. The residual casting sand from the bronze artifacts (heads) was identified as local soil, proving that these objects were made locally. The pits also contained a large number of animal bones and seashells with burning marks. These bones were roasted or even destroyed before being placed in the pits. Strangely, many bronze artifacts also showed signs of burning. The brief report on the excavation work stated that all the items were placed in the pits in an orderly manner. Pit 1 had jade artifacts in its lowest layer, while Pit 2 had ash, small copper artifacts, jade artifacts, and seashells. The second layer of both pits contained bronze and gold artifacts. Pit 1's third layer was remnants of animal bones, while Pit 2's third layer was ivory, which was also its last layer. Pit 1 had an additional layer with pottery and bronze (gē). Archaeologists proposed that all these artifacts were sacrificial offerings for a burning ceremony, related to the worship of mountains and rivers recorded in Shang Dynasty oracle bone inscriptions. The complete report of this excavation has not yet been published, but based on the preliminary reports and my personal visit in the spring of 1989, I believe the artifacts from Sanxingdui can be divided into two groups: Group A includes artifacts with Shang elements or influenced by the Shang, while Group B consists of a group of artifacts with unique styles previously unseen in Chinese archaeological discoveries.
The western Sichuan plain was in the height of summer, with scorching heat and thunderstorms. Archaeologists set up sheds and worked in three shifts, 24 hours a day, rotating to excavate. Each shift was supervised by professionally trained personnel who meticulously recorded the excavation details. On the 26th, a trench was discovered in Pit 1, which was T-shaped in plan, with three shallow trenches in the middle and on the sides (see Figure 1-1-1). The pits and trenches were filled with yellowish-brown clay, compacted layer by layer. After painstakingly clearing the fill one inch at a time, a layer of animal bone fragments mixed with ash and clay, which was more compacted and harder than the fill, emerged. At 2:30 AM on the 30th, under the strong light of 200-watt and 500-watt lamps, a gold artifact appeared in the layer of bone fragments and ashes: a wooden staff casing, 142 cm long, made of pure gold foil. Subsequently, bronze heads and hundreds of jade and stone artifacts, bronze containers, ivory, pottery, and other gold artifacts were unearthed. Pit 1 was 4.5–4.64 meters long, 3.3–3.48 meters wide, and 1.4 meters deep. The excavation work was completed on August 14, when workers from the brick factory discovered Pit 2 while digging for soil. The excavation team immediately notified the National Cultural Relics Administration and began excavating Pit 2 on the 21st. After 30 days of hard work, the hard-packed fill in the pit was cleared, and ivory was the first to be revealed. Below the ivory layer were large bronze standing figures, gold leaves, gold fish-shaped artifacts, jade artifacts, large bronze masks with convex pupils (Figure 2-5-1·1, 2), and large bronze wheels (Figure 2-5-2·1), among other artifacts. However, in several published articles on Pit 2, it was not mentioned whether Pit 2, like Pit 1, was also filled with bone fragments. Given the detailed description of the bone fragment accumulation in the brief report of Pit 1 in the October 1987 issue of "Wenwu," and the further discussion and analysis of the bone fragment accumulation in the two subsequent articles by Chen De'an and Chen Xian-dan, it is indeed puzzling that articles on Pit 2 did not give sufficient attention to this special phenomenon. Clearly, a careful examination of the bone fragment phenomenon will be beneficial to understanding its background.
Let us revisit the published materials. All data indicate that the volume of the bone fragment layer was approximately 3 cubic meters, and the individual bone fragments were about 3 cm in diameter. The bone fragments and ashes were in a sloping manner from south to north inside the pit; most of the bone fragments were whitish, with only a small portion blackish-blue. A large amount of bamboo and wood ash was mixed with the bone fragments, and "casting cores" (this naming is either inappropriate or misused) were found, but there were no signs of smoke in the pit, indicating that the bone fragments had been burned and broken before being placed in the pit. The above details are described in the brief report on the excavation of Pit 1 and another article written by Chen De'an and Chen Xian-dan. In their brief report on the excavation of Pit 1, they provided further descriptions of the casting materials: "The bronze heads, bronze 'reins,' and other bronze artifacts were found with cores still inside. In the burned bone fragments, cores and copper slag were also found. The pieces of 'red sandstone' fragments, which had been burned, found in the compacted fill, were the casting cores used for bronze casting. These phenomena indicate that the bronze artifacts were cast in the site near the sacrificial pit." However, the use of phrases like "casting cores for bronze casting" and similar wording in other articles suggests that they are not very familiar with casting technology. Therefore, it is urgent to have the so-called casting materials authoritative identified.
In their second article, they provided more discussion on the nature of the bone fragments, stating that the bone walls (external tissue of dense bone?) were very thick, and the bone cavities were also narrow (cavities of bone marrow?), indicating that they should belong to larger animals. However, if my understanding of this text is correct—my Chinese colleagues will also find this text somewhat difficult to understand—I will question the explanation provided by the authors. A simple look at I.W. Cornwall's "Handbook of Archaeological Bone Identification" and R.E. Chaplin's "Archaeological Research on Animal Bones in Sites" will immediately tell us that the thickness of the bone wall and the width of the bone cavity of a single dense bone are different in different parts. At the same time, although I am a complete outsider to bone research, I still believe that it is crucial to have the bone fragments in the pit authoritative identified by experts. At least one scholar studying the Sanxingdui Ruins in China has proposed that human bones may exist in the bone fragments, and Tong Enzheng also holds the same view. If this argument has sufficient reason, then an in-depth study of the bone fragments is particularly necessary. Browsing through Cornwall's discussion of fragmented bones will be beneficial for this.
Additionally, Chen De'an and Chen Xian-dan mentioned that the whitish appearance of the fragmented bones indicates that the animals were bled (implying sacrificial killings), but I don't know what their basis is.
Looking back at the materials listed above, it seems that no one would doubt that clarifying the contents of the bone ash layer would not only help in estimating the age of the bone ash fill but also in explaining why these materials were chosen as fill. The only possible explanation is that a large number of animals (and possibly others?) were sacrificed as offerings. Moreover, an imaginative person would ask, how many elephants would be needed to form a bone ash layer of about 3 cubic meters that had been burned and broken? This is an interesting question. Among all possibilities, the presence of copper slag—if it indeed exists and is found in the rammed earth of the pit—undoubtedly holds special significance. Chen De'an and Chen Xian-dan might have proposed that the bronze artifacts were cast in the site near the burial pits based on this reasonable line of reasoning. However, some artifacts clearly originated from other cultural regions. For example, it was wrong to include several later artifacts (such as the zun shown in Figure 2-1-4 and the lei shown in Figure 2-2-5) in the group of bronze artifacts that might have been locally cast. More strangely, they claimed that the bronze human heads and other artifacts (including the zun and lei) were cast on-site for some ritual and used immediately before being buried. Chen De'an and Chen Xian-dan believed the two pits should be sacrificial pits, primarily based on three reasons:
(1) The presence of a large number of jade artifacts, including jade cong (cones) and jade zhang (ritual knives) (one of which was as long as 167 cm and 23 cm wide), which well explains the sacrificial nature of the burial pits.
(2) Ivory, elephant bones, and the large amount of animal bone fragments (constituting 3 cubic meters) reflected the fact that animals were sacrificed, albeit differently from the ancestor worship rituals of the Central Plains. In the Central Plains, bones were not burned or broken before burial, and even fragments of animal bones were not found.
(3) During the Shang Dynasty, it was common to sacrifice slaves and war captives (even burying them alive) in burials and construction foundations, with the heads of "human sacrifices" often being found. Therefore, the bronze human heads without bodies from Sanxingdui represent such human sacrifices, and the triangular neck may indicate that the cuts were made diagonally from both sides of the neck! The excavators did not even consider whether the terms for sacrifices mentioned in oracle bone inscriptions were appropriate before applying them to the Sanxingdui burial pits. Therefore, it seems unnecessary to examine the imprecision of their arguments in detail. However, in fact, most of the artifacts in the pits did show signs of burning and smoke, and a large amount of bamboo and wood ash was scattered throughout the pit. Therefore, it is almost certain that an extraordinary event took place, and in fact, it is a unprecedented case of non-burial burial in China to date.