China is lavishing funding on Xu and his team for good reason. The researchers, who are based at a remote site near the southwestern city of Chengdu known as Sanxingdui, believe they’re close to unlocking one of Chinese archaeology’s greatest mysteries.In the 1980s, a group of researchers found two pits at Sanxingdui crammed full of strange relics: piles of elephant tusks, gold masks, and bronze figures with wild, bulging eyes. The objects were 3,000 years old, and unlike anything previously uncovered in China.
The finds were just the beginning. Other teams have since unearthed traces of more artifacts, large buildings, and even a city wall. It appears that Sanxingdui was once the capital of a powerful and technologically advanced civilization, which flourished in the region around the time of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun.
Yet the kingdom’s origins remain unknown. Ancient Chinese historians barely mentioned the Southwest, dismissing the region — then known as Shu — as an obscure backwater. And the artifacts themselves offer few clues. No written materials have ever been found at Sanxingdui.
For decades, the riddle of Sanxingdui has fascinated China. Theories about how the civilization emerged have proliferated, with some speculating the settlement was founded by travelers from Egypt – or even extra-terrestrials. But in the absence of clear archaeological evidence, these debates appeared destined to remain unresolved.
Until now. In 2019, researchers made another stunning discovery: six additional pits located close to the two uncovered in the ’80s. Like the originals, they appear to be sacrificial sites filled with ritual artifacts.When we cleared off the topsoil, the sight in front of me was really shocking,” says Xu Feihong. “You never see so many ivories and bronze artifacts packed so densely together.”
For the team, the new pits represent a golden opportunity. The latest excavations have already produced several striking finds, which have generated enormous public interest. More importantly, researchers will be able to analyze the dig sites using a range of scientific techniques that weren’t available when Pits 1 and 2 were discovered.
Every object inside the new pits — as well as the surrounding soil — is being painstakingly collected, dated, and sealed in air-tight containers, before being sent for analysis. More than 30 research institutes from across China have cleared their laboratories to receive the samples.
The hope is that cutting-edge material analysis will provide unprecedented insights into these artifacts — and the people who buried them. Though researchers are trying to remain calm, the answers to many decades-old questions may finally be within reach.It has taken nearly a century to reach this point. The first discoveries near Sanxingdui were made as far back as 1929, yet it took over half a century for the site’s true significance to be recognized.
The initial finds were made by Yan Daochang, a farmer who worked a small plot of land north of Chengdu in a place named Moon Bay. While digging a well, Yan uncovered a large stash of jade artifacts.
Some of these jades found their way into the hands of private collectors and caught the attention of archaeologists in the region. In 1933, David Crockett Graham, a Christian missionary and academic based in Chengdu, organized an excavation at Yan’s farm. The dig unearthed hundreds more pieces of jade, stone, and pottery.
