Sanxingdui, also called Guanghan Sanxingdui, situated in Southwest China’s Sichuan Basin, is the location of ruins found dating back to the Bronze Age in the middle and late Shang Dynasty. The name was given for due to its appearance which resembles three earth pits. Excavation began in 1980. Two large sacrificial pits were later unearthed in 1986, generating great interest internationally.
More than a thousand priceless treasures were dug out, including bronze, jade, gold and earthen ware plus ivory and shells among other items. The bronze wares include vessels, weapons, large standing human figures, head portraits, animal figures, and even masks. This discovery demonstrated the existence of large-sized sculptures in the Shang Dynasty, which were created by ancient Shu people.
For the first time, people got a chance to peek into the highly developed bronze civilization of the Kingdom of Shu in the middle and later period of Shang Dynasty and its unique charms. The articles are also precious for their value in study circles.
Standing Bronze Figure
Perhaps most astonishing of all the archaeological finds at Sanxingdui is that of a life-size standing human figure. It is a statue cast in bronze and shows both realism of style and undoubted symbolic ritual function.
It is a figure of authority and ceremony, a shaman, priest or king, and its high status is indicated by the symbolic detail of ornamentation on the elaborate costume.
This remarkable figure stands, barefoot, on a tall decorated base supported by four elephant - like heads. Its overall height is 260.8cm, and it is the only complete example of a large-scale human sculpture in bronze known from the Shang and Western Zhou dynasties.
The face has features similar to those of the bronze heads discovered at the Sanxingdui site. It wears a crown with a headband with incised motifs and then a headdress that flares out and is decorated with intaglio lines.
There is a legband on each ankle and three bracelets on each arm. He wears a garment of great complexity, of three layers which are heavily embroidered with designs of scrolls, three-pointed crowns and the taotie (or stylized, horizontal animal face) mask that is characteristic of Shang art.
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