“Chinese archaeologists have made major discoveries at the legendary Sanxingdui Ruins site in southwest China’s Sichuan province that could help shed light on the cultural origins of the Chinese nation. Among those discovered are six new sacrificial pits and more than 500 items dating back about 3,000 years, with a golden face mask taking the spotlight.
Ranging from 3.5 to 19 square meters (37 to 204 square feet), the six sacrificial pits, which were discovered between November 2019 and May 2020, are rectangular in shape, according to the announcement of the National Cultural Heritage Administration (NCHA).
Among them, pits No.3, No.4, No.5 and No.6 have been excavated to the utensil layer so far, while pits No.7 and No.8 are being backfilled.
Together they form an area in which people of the ancient Shu civilization offered sacrifices to heaven, Earth and their ancestors, and prayed for prosperity and peace, according to Tang Fei, head of the excavation team at Sanxingdui and chief of the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute.
The discoveries have shown the distinctiveness of the Shu civilization and the diversity of the Chinese civilization, said Ran Honglin, another researcher with the institute.
Over 500 pieces of important cultural relics have been unearthed from these six pits, including the fragments of gold masks, bird-shaped gold ornaments, gold foil, painted bronze head portraits, giant bronze masks, a bronze sacred tree, ivory, fragments of exquisite tooth carvings, jade cong and jade tools.
With an area of about three square meters, No.5 is the smallest sacrificial pit, but it’s where the most gold pieces have been unearthed including a gold mask from the Bronze Age, according to archaeologists.
The ceremonial gold mask, which weighs around 280 grams (0.6 pounds), is estimated to be made from 84% gold, according to the NCHA.”
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