In the Sichuan Basin in southwest China, there is an ancient civilization no less ancient than the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, which is called the "Ancient Shu Civilization". In "The Road to Shu is Difficult", Li Bai praised the ancient Shu Kingdom: "There are silkworms and fishtails, how confused the founding of the country is! You are 48,000 years old, and you are not inhabited by Qin Sai." This ancient Shu Kingdom was in the Warring States Period. The Qin Dynasty was destroyed by the Qin Dynasty, and most of its history was not known to the world. In 1986, archaeologists discovered the Sanxingdui ruins in Guanghan, and unearthed nearly a thousand precious cultural relics such as gold, copper, jade, stone, pottery, shells, and bones, including 400 bronzes. Its splendor is no less than that of the Yin Ruins. In 2001, archaeologists discovered the Jinsha ruins again and unearthed more than 2,000 cultural relics. What is very interesting is that the cultural characteristics of Sanxingdui and Jinsha sites are very different from Chinese civilization, which has brought a lot of mysteries to today's academic circles. 1. Superb metallurgy
The Sanxingdui and Jinsha sites are representative sites of the ancient Shu civilization. Judging from the cultural relics unearthed there, their cultural characteristics are obviously exotic. First of all, from the perspective of smelting technology, the bronze smelting technology of the Central Plains civilization was very developed. From the large bronze vessels unearthed from the Yin Ruins site, we can see that the bronze smelting technology of the Central Plains is world-leading. The metallurgy of the ancient Shu civilization was very advanced, and 200 gold vessels were unearthed at the Jinsha site. The metallurgy of the Central Plains was obviously unable to compete with it. Metallurgy is a technology that ancient Egypt, the Mesopotamian Civilization, and the Indus River Civilization attached great importance to. The metallurgy of the ancient Shu Civilization is likely to be related to it.
Big Gold Mask
The representative of the gold artifacts unearthed from the Sanxingdui site is the golden staff. In the Central Plains region, there are two main types of ritual vessels as symbols of royal power: the first is the axe, which symbolizes the military power of the monarch. In the late patrilineal clan period, there was the jade axe, and in the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, the bronze Yue; the second type was the axe. It's the tripod. Among the ancient civilizations in the world, only the Chinese civilization used tripods, especially large tripods, to represent royal power. However, no tripod or bronze ax was unearthed in Sanxingdui. Instead, a golden scepter was unearthed. The three-gold staff is 143 centimeters long and weighs 463 grams. It is made of gold leather wrapped around a wooden staff. Its age is about 2000 BC to 1600 BC. Generally speaking, the scepter is a symbol of royal power in West Asia.
Golden Staff
The representative of the goldware at the Jinsha site is the sun bird gold foil. It is divided into two layers: the inner layer is a circle with twelve rotating tooth-shaped sun rays equidistantly distributed around it; the outer layer pattern is composed of four identical birds flying counterclockwise. The four birds' heads and feet are connected front to back and fly in the same direction, which is opposite to the rotation direction of the inner vortex. The image of this pattern is somewhat similar to the "Golden Crow Negative Sun" in ancient Chinese legend. However, the "Golden Crow Negative Sun" is a three-legged crow standing in the middle of the sun, but here it is four birds flying with the sun on its back. Obviously, there is a big difference. .
Sun God Bird Gold Foil
Precious gold masks have been discovered at both Jinsha and Sanxingdui sites, with gold content exceeding 80%. Its production technology has reached a very high level. In ancient Egypt, golden masks have been found in tombs in Mycenae, but none have been found in China except Sanxingdui and Jinsha ruins. This shows that the ancient Shu civilization was closely connected with the civilizations of India, West Asia, and North Africa. This can also be proved from the unearthed cultural relics. Many shells, ivory and other items from the Indian Ocean coast were found in the Sanxingdui site.
Ivory 2, a tall bronze standing figure - the image of the King of Shu
Although there are no human masks and partial human faces in the bronzes of the Central Plains civilization, basically no human faces have been found. Specialized bronze figures. The bronzes from the Sanxingdui and Jinsha sites contain a large number of bronze human heads, the most eye-catching of which is a standing bronze human figure, 172 cm high, with a thin face, a cold expression, and gorgeous clothes. He raised his arms, his hands were very big, and they were held in the shape of a ring. The two tiger's mouths faced each other, and he should be holding a scepter. This image is most likely the image of the King of Shu.
These bronze human heads do not have the characteristics of the Chinese race. In addition, the eyes of these bronze human heads are very prominent. "Huayang Guozhi·Shu Zhi" records that the founding king of the Shu Kingdom "the Marquis of Shu has silkworm bushes, and his eyes are vertical, so he became the king." There is a saying in Dongba characters that horizontal eyes show goodness, and vertical eyes show beauty. There is a myth recorded in the literature of the Yi people: "Meige" records that human beings have evolved from one-legged dwarfs to giants, from people with vertical eyes to people with horizontal eyes. "Chamu" records the one-eyed man "La Dad" to the straight-eyed man "La Tuo", and then the cross-eyed man "Lawen"... The vertical-eyed man in the Yi myth may be the "Huayang Guozhi" recorded Look at people." A similar image was unearthed from Sanxingdui. All the portraits in Sanxingdui have very prominent eyes.
Zongmu people
About the mysterious eyes, we can also get some information from the word "Shu". The ancient character "Shu" looks like a bug with big eyes, a flesh bug that wriggles like a silkworm. So it is easy to understand that the founding king of Shu is called "Cancong". Third, is the bronze divine bird tree the legendary fusang?
Some totem worship objects that are different from those in the Central Plains were unearthed from the Sanxingdui site and the Jinsha site. Judging from the cultural relics at the two sites, the ancient Shu people worshiped at least two things, one was a tree, and the other was a tree. sunbird. Eight very precious bronze sacred bird trees were unearthed at the Sanxingdui site, of which the fully restored one is 395 centimeters tall.
There is a dragon on the trunk with a head at the bottom and a tail at the top. The branches are divided into three layers, with three branches on each layer. There is a sun bird standing on each branch, 9 in a row.
Bronze Divine Bird Tree
This item is recorded in "The Classic of Mountains and Seas". "The Classic of Mountains and Seas: The Eastern Classic of Great Wilderness" says: "There is a Tang Valley below. There is a hibiscus on the Tang Valley. I bathed for ten days in the north of Heijia." The day will arrive and the day will go out, and they will all be carried in the crow." In ancient Chinese mythology, the place where the sun rises in the east is Yanggu (Tanggu). There is a hibiscus tree growing here. There are 10 suns on the tree, and they work in turn. While one Golden Crow went to work, the other nine rested in the tree. Obviously, the fusang recorded in "Shan Hai Jing" is the sacred bird tree in Sanxingdui.
Fusang Tree
But what is strange is that the "Book of Mountains and Seas" records that the book is in the east, where the sun rises in Tang Valley, while ancient Shu was in the west of China. Could it be that in In the world of "The Classic of Mountains and Seas", the ancient Shu Kingdom was the easternmost place? In fact, civilizations in North Africa and Western Asia also worshiped trees. For example, in Judaism, there is a legend about the tree of life. The so-called East is different in each region. In ancient times, Westerners thought that Assyria was the East. Assyria in ancient times meant "the place where the sun rises" or "the East". Later, the Greeks called the East Asia, which later evolved into Asia, Asia. To the West, the Sichuan Basin is the East.
Assyrian reliefs
In addition, a bronze sun wheel was unearthed in Sanxingdui, and its structure is very similar to the current steering wheel. There are 6 similar cultural relics unearthed here. The sun wheel contains an astronomical knowledge, that is, the angle formed by the five sun rays and the arc is 36 degrees, which is the height angle of the sun during the winter solstice in Sanxingdui. The gold foil of the Sun God Bird unearthed at the Jinsha site has 12 rays of the sun. Could it mean that there are 12 months in a year, or 12 hours in a day?