Ancient site · City
Sanxingdui
Sanxingdui, in Guanghan near Chengdu in Sichuan, was a walled city of a Bronze Age culture quite different from the Shang to the north. In 1986 archaeologists found two pits filled with deliberately broken and burned treasures: bronze heads and masks with bulging eyes, some covered in gold foil, an upright bronze figure, gold, jade and pottery, radiocarbon dated to the 12th–11th centuries BCE.
New pits excavated from 2021 produced hundreds more objects, including a gold mask. Many archaeologists link the culture to the ancient kingdom of Shu, but the people left no writing that has been read.
- Dates
- c. 1700–1150 BCE (sacrificial pits 12th–11th centuries BCE)
- Still standing
- No, or only traces
- Location
- 30.99° N, 104.20° E
How we know
No readable writing has been found at Sanxingdui; it is dated by radiocarbon, and its link to the later kingdom of Shu comes from much later texts.
Nearby sites
- Jinsha c. 1200–800 BCE (Shi'erqiao phase)
- Dujiangyan built c. 256 BCE; still in use
- Banpo c. 4700–3600 BCE
- Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang and the Terracotta Army 246–209 BCE
- Pengtoushan c. 7500–6100 BCE
- Taosi c. 2300–1900 BCE
Related
- Sanxingdui culture archaeological culture
- The world in 2000 BCE: Cities of Bronze chapter