Strange Exotic Eyes—Western Scholars Look at Sanxingdui

Author: (German) Luo Tai, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2003-09-01
Features: One of the most puzzling artifacts related to the archaeological findings of the Western Zhou period is a jade short sword (or dagger) unearthed from Pit No. 1. Like the large number of stone (spears) found in both pits, it should originate from the prototype of similar metal artifacts. If the dating of the two pits in The Sanxingdui Sacrificial Pits is correct, this simple artifact (which, as far as the author knows, has rarely been noticed) might be one of the earliest swords in East Asia. The earliest bronze specimens known so far, some of which are adorned with ornately decorated sheaths, appear in Western Zhou tombs at the northern and western edges of the Zhou domain. Academia generally believes that they originated from places north or northwest of China, but the author is not certain whether such origin theories have been fully supported. The discoveries at Sanxingdui allow us to reconsider this question. Perhaps the early regions of Sichuan had 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, it is difficult to add more detail, as we do not wish to draw conclusions based on a single and archaeologically isolated specimen. In the late first century BC in the Sichuan region, the sheathed short sword was one of the most prominent weapons in the "Ba-Shu culture." The earliest examples of "Ba-Shu" found to date come from the bronze artifact assemblage in Mou, Maoguan, which is exactly within the range of the Ba-Shu culture. Short swords are absent in the cache at the site of Binzhen Zhuwa Street in Peng County, dated to the Western Zhou period. Before the existence of this jade artifact from Sanxingdui was known, the author considered the lack of such a short sword to be a possible indicator of an earlier dating. 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 the article on Zhuwa Street, the author 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 No. 1 in Mou, dating to the mid-fifth century BC. The author attempted to compare this bronze bird with the bird statues of Sanxingdui in the article. Based on the comprehensive records of the "divine tree" in The Sanxingdui Sacrificial Pits, the author further confirmed that the bronze bird from Mou is a product of the Sanxingdui culture. In addition to these bronze artifacts from Sanxingdui that evolved into the "Ba-Shu culture" (and Zhuwa Street and Mou), we should also pay attention to double-ear vessels, a topic the author discussed in the article on Zhuwa Street. This phenomenon may suggest a degree of ritual continuity, but the current evidence is insufficient to confirm it.
(9) The numerous themes of ritual activities on the openwork patterns of the "temple" and "altar" at Sanxingdui provide another direction for cross-regional and cross-temporal comparisons. As mentioned earlier, this 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. Geographically, the closest example to Sanxingdui is the Dian culture, which flourished in central Yunnan from the eighth to the third century BC. It is characterized by elaborate sculptures on bronze seashell containers and other artifacts. The similarities between Dian culture and Sanxingdui are primarily in concept rather than style. At the same time, Sichuan must also be considered as a potential medium for transmitting bronze casting technology from the Shang to the Dian culture region. Ban observed similarities in the "casting ridge folding and hammering" technique between Sanxingdui and the bronze artifacts from Haimen in Jianchuan, Yunnan. However, rather than viewing this as an indicator of an late Sanxingdui dating, the author prefers to consider this phenomenon the result of early interactions between the two regions. This relationship is also evident in various bronze weapon types of Dian culture. In an article on Mou, the author discussed a unique-style "ornament" unearthed from Pit No. 1, which might be a precursor to bronze casting in Dian culture. However, based on the above analysis, it is more plausible that it represents a link between Sanxingdui and Dian culture. The two other 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 a connection between them is indeed established, it must have passed through an intermediate stage that has yet to be 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 Yinxu, phases II and III. Pit No. 1 yielded approximately 300 artifacts, while Pit No. 2 yielded about 600. Both pits were rectangular, with Pit No. 2 being slightly later. The pits contained bronze artifacts, gold, jade, ivory, stone, and pottery. The residual mold soil from the bronze artifacts (heads) was identified as local soil, proving that these objects were made locally. The pits also revealed a large number of animal bones and seashells with signs of burning. 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 stated that all items were placed in the pits in an orderly manner. Pit No. 1 had jade artifacts in its lowest layer, while Pit No. 2 had ash, small bronze artifacts, jade, and seashells. The second layer of both pits contained bronze and gold artifacts. Pit No. 1's third layer consisted of animal bone remnants, while Pit No. 2's third layer contained ivory, which was also its final layer. Pit No. 1 had an additional layer with pottery and bronze (spears). The excavators proposed that all these artifacts were sacrificial offerings for a "burning sacrifice," related to the Shang Dynasty oracle bone inscriptions describing the worship of mountains and rivers. The complete report of this excavation has not yet been published, but based on the brief reports and the author's personal visit in the spring of 1989, the author believes that the artifacts from Sanxingdui can be divided into two groups: Group A includes artifacts influenced by or related to the Shang culture, while Group B consists of a unique style of artifacts previously unseen in Chinese archaeological discoveries.
The western Sichuan plain was in midsummer, with scorching heat and thunderstorms. The excavators set up temporary shelters and worked in three shifts, 24 hours a day, rotating continuously. Each shift was supervised by trained personnel who meticulously recorded the excavation details. On the 26th, a trench was discovered in Pit No. 1, which had a T-shaped plan with three shallow trenches in the center 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 inch by inch, a layer of animal bone fragments mixed with ash and clay, which had been compacted and was harder than the fill, emerged. At 2:30 AM on the 30th, under the strong light of 200W and 500W lamps, a gold artifact appeared in the layer of bone fragments and ashes—a 142 cm-long wooden staff casing made of pure gold foil. Subsequently, bronze heads, hundreds of jade and stone artifacts, bronze containers, ivory, pottery, and other gold artifacts were unearthed. Pit No. 1 measured 4.5–4.64 meters in length, 3.3–3.48 meters in width, and was 1.4 meters deep. The excavation work was completed on August 14, when workers from a brick factory discovered Pit No. 2 while digging for soil. The excavation team immediately notified the National Cultural Relics Administration, and excavation of Pit No. 2 began on the 21st. After 30 days of hard work, after clearing the hard fill from the pit, ivory was the first to be revealed. Below the ivory layer were large bronze standing figures, gold leaves, gold fish-shaped artifacts, jade, and large bronze masks with convex pupils (Figure 2—5—1·1, 2), as well as large bronze wheels (Figure 2—5—2·1). However, in several published articles on Pit No. 2, it was not mentioned whether the pit also contained bone fragments like Pit No. 1. Given the detailed description of the bone fragment accumulation in the brief report of Pit No. 1 in the October 1987 issue of Cultural Relics, and the further discussion and analysis of the bone fragments in two subsequent articles by Chen De'an and Chen Xian-dan, it is puzzling why articles on Pit No. 2 did not give sufficient attention to this unique phenomenon. Clearly, a careful examination of the bone fragments will be beneficial to understanding their context.
Let us revisit the published materials. All sources indicate that the volume of the bone fragment layer was approximately 3 cubic meters, with individual bone fragments measuring about 3 cm in diameter. The bone fragments and ashes were in a sloping pattern from south to north inside the pit; most of the bone fragments were whitish, with only a few blackish-blue, and were mixed with a large amount of bamboo and wood ashes. "Mold cores used for casting bronze artifacts" were also found, but the pit showed no signs of smoke, indicating that the bone fragments had been burned and broken before being placed in the pit. These details are described in the brief report on the excavation of Pit No. 1 and another article by Chen De'an and Chen Xian-dan. In the brief report on Pit No. 1, they further described the casting materials: "When bronze heads, bronze 'reins,' and other bronze artifacts were unearthed, they still contained mold cores. Mold cores and bronze dross were also found in the bone fragments. In the compacted fill, fragments of 'red sandstone' that had been fired were discovered, which were indeed mold cores used for casting bronze artifacts. These phenomena indicate that the bronze artifacts were cast at the site near the sacrificial pit." However, the use of the term "mold cores used for casting bronze artifacts" and similar wording in other articles suggests that they were not very familiar with casting techniques, and therefore, an authoritative identification of the materials described is urgently needed. In their second article, they discussed the nature of the bone fragments in more detail, stating that the bone walls (external tissue of dense bone?) were thick and the bone cavities narrow (cavities of bone marrow?), indicating that they belonged to larger animals. However, if my understanding of this text is correct—my Chinese colleagues may also find this passage somewhat difficult to comprehend—I would question the author's explanation. A quick glance at I.W. Cornwall's Manual of Archaeological Bone Identification and R.E. Chaplin's Animal Bone Studies in Archaeological Sites reveals that the thickness of the bone wall and the width of the bone cavity vary in different parts of a single dense bone. At the same time, although I am a complete outsider to bone research, I still believe that it is crucial to have an authoritative identification of the bone fragments in the pit by experts. In China, at least one scholar studying the Sanxingdui site has proposed that human bones may be present in the bone fragments, and Tong Enzheng also holds this view. If this argument has sufficient justification, then an in-depth study of the bone fragments would be particularly necessary. Reviewing Cornwall's discussion of fragmented bones will be beneficial. Additionally, Chen De'an and Chen Xian-dan mentioned that the whitening of the bone fragments indicates that the animals were bled (implying sacrificial killings), but it is unclear what their basis for this claim is.
Looking back at the materials listed above, it seems no one would doubt that clarifying the contents of the bone ash layer would not only help in dating the bone fragment 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. Moreover, an imaginative person would ask how many elephants would be needed to form a bone fragment layer of about 3 cubic meters that had been burned and broken. This is an interesting question. Among all possibilities, the presence of bronze dross—if it indeed exists and is found in the compacted fill—undoubtedly holds special significance. Chen De'an and Chen Xian-dan might have proposed that the bronze artifacts were cast at the site near the two burial pits based on this reasonable line of reasoning. However, some artifacts clearly originated from other cultural regions. For example, they incorrectly included several late-era 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 asserted that the bronze human heads and other artifacts (including the zun and lei) were cast on-site for some ritual and immediately buried after use. Chen De'an and Chen Xian-dan considered the two pits to be sacrificial pits, primarily based on three reasons: (1) the presence of a large number of jade artifacts, including jade cong and jade zhang (one of which was 167 cm long and 23 cm wide), which well explains the sacrificial nature of the burial pits; (2) ivory, elephant bones, and the large volume of animal bone fragments (3 cubic meters) reflect the fact that animals were sacrificed, though differently from the ancestor worship rituals in the Central Plains culture, where no burning or smashing of bones was found before burial; (3) during the Shang Dynasty, the killing (and even burial alive) of slaves and captives as sacrifices was common in tombs and construction sites, and the heads of "human sacrifices" were often discovered. Therefore, the headless bronze human figures of Sanxingdui represent such human sacrifices, and the triangular neck seems to suggest that the cuts were made diagonally from both sides of the neck! The excavators did not even consider whether the terms for sacrifice mentioned in oracle bone inscriptions were appropriate before applying them to the Sanxingdui burial pits, so it seems unnecessary to examine the imprecision of their arguments in detail. However, in fact, most artifacts in the pits also showed signs of burning and smoke, and a large amount of bamboo and wood ashes were scattered throughout the pit, making it almost certain that an extraordinary event occurred, which is, in fact, a unprecedented case of non-tomb burial in China to date.