ART

THE STUNNING RUINS OF THE SHU KINGDOM

an ancient kingdom revealed

By Yumeng Wu

Quite a mask

The ancient Shu Kingdom originated in the Sheshan area of Sichuan. The Shu eventually settled in the Sichuan Province’s Sichuan Basin, near the Ya Zi River. In 1980 archeologists discovered the Sanxingdui ruins in a plain area surrounded by mountains. This closed environment made the Shu Kingdom difficult to get to, which is both an advantage (from a military perspective) and a problem (the Kingdom was isolated). According to scientists and archaeologists, the mysterious disappearance of the ancient city of Sanxingdui was the result of changes in the global paleo-climate. They speculate that a flood buried the city, destroying the Kingdom but preserving its achievements.

The Sanxingdui civilization has about 5,000 years of history and archeologists have called it, "the ninth wonder of the world.” Affected by the closed natural environment, the Shu Kingdom developed unique cultural characteristics. There are many mysteries surrounding this ancient culture. The most interesting of them is where the Sanxingdui civilization came from. For instance, their bronze figures and animals have no equivalent in any other ancient Chinese civilization and all the bronzes are exquisitely made. Even today, contemporary craftsmen would need to take a long time to make them. Their money, how they traded, and agricultural conditions are also unsolved mysteries. The Sanxingdui civilization is in the south, but archaeologists have found northern food in the ruins, suggesting that the isolated kingdom had contact with other peoples, but to what extent no one knows.

Sacrificial Pits

With the archaeological discoveries of Sanxingdui No.1 and No.2 sacrificial pits in the 1980s, the ancient Shu civilization has gradually come into focus. This has given us a glimpse of this ancient civilization. The significance of bronze wares in ancient Chinese culture is immeasurable. Before bronze or metal casting, people’s tools were exclusively made of wood, stone and ceramics. With the widespread use of bronze wares, tools and industries dependent on traditional craftworks became more productive. The Sanxingdui bronzes reveal a complex primitive culture and belief system that is tantalizing precisely because of the intricate artifacts they left behind. For example, archeologists have found evidence of sacrificial, ivory tools somewhere between 1.6 to 1.8 meters longs, exceeding the length of the ivory of African elephants.

But it is the bronzes that really capture the imagination. The shapes of the three stars mound bronzes are unique. Their exaggerated features and mysterious smiles make them look like aliens. The bronze longitudinal eye mask is the strangest of the many bronze masks unearthed at Sanxingdui. It is width of 1.38 meters and a height of 0.645 meters. The eyes are columnar and convex. A pair of carved ears fully spread to the sides, with strange shapes and mysterious auras. As far as we know this is the earliest and largest bronze mask in the world.

One Theory

Ordinary Shang Dynasty bronzes are usually containers, musical instruments, and weapons, but the bronze masks at Sanxingdui go beyond the everyday and into cultural aspects that are both baffling but fascinating. Let’s start with the faces. The features are at one and the same time exaggerated and majestic. If we look at the largest of all the masks in Sanxingdui, what’s immediately apparent are the raised eyes. According to the Sanxingdui Museum, vertical eyes are characteristic of the Can Cong ancestors of the Shu people.

Excavating Ruins

The mythical Zhu Long has a human face and a snake body. When he opened his eyes, the sky was bright, that is, daylight; when he closed his eyes, it was dark, that is, night. The shape of the 'Shu' character in ancient writings also emphasizes the image of the eyes. These show that the eyes are the objects of special worship of the ancient Shu people. 'Smart' is written in Chinese as' 聪明', and this text is composed of '耳, ear', '日, sun', and '月, moon'. The Shu clearly attach importance to the two organs of eyes and ears. The famous poet Li Bai wrote in his poem, “How Hard to Shudao”, "the route to the Chuanshu area is so high and dangerous, it's just as difficult as climbing into the sky." Li perfectly captures the complexity of what must have been the daily living conditions of the Shu. Of course, most cultures are reliant on sight and sound; they are the primary ways people experience the world, but the Shu’s interest seems far more intense and focused. For an isolated culture the ability to see and hear at a high level would be of the utmost importance.

From ancient times to the present, people are eager to explore unknown areas. The worship of eyes by the people of ancient Shu is related to the natural worship of people chasing the sun, and it embodies people's hope for light and good fortune. In Chinese, omniscient ears are “ears that follow with the wind.” The ancient Shu people believed that the ears of their king ‘Can Cong’ could hear all the sounds that follow the wind. This is why Sanxingdui’s mask has huge eyes and ears.

Another Theory

The Three Stars Mound Mask clearly stands for certain worship customs and beliefs of the ancient Shu people. Archeologists found the Three Stars Mound in a sacrificial pit. On the one hand, the ancient Shu Kingdom worshiped and sacrificed to the vertical eye god (which might seem to American ears an odd translation); on the other hand, they tried to dress themselves up as the god himself. Scholars suggest that] their large-scale sacrificial activities were a way of uniting the various tribes of ancient Shu. The ruling theocratic class of the ancient Shu kingdom relied on religious appeal, hierarchical structure, and symbols to effectively rule all tribes of the ancient Shu kingdom.

A lost kingdom

Though we have few artifacts or clues about the sacrificial activities of the ancient Shu nations, the discoveries at Sanxingdui provided a wealth of information about Shu religious practices. They produced a lot of masks in this ancient culture. This is not a random accident, but shows how the Shu people wanted to communicate with their Gods. Masks have long been associated with sacrifice. For instance, in the ancient philosophical treatise, Zhou Li · Xia Guan, there is a passage that says:

Four people are wearing a bearskin and they are wearing masks with gold eyes, black blouses, red pants, holding shields in their hands, leading everyone and expelling Disease ghosts.

The custom of wearing masks for sacrificial activities is not uncommon. It flourished in the Yellow River Basin during the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and it was a striking part of the Shu culture on the Yangtze River in the Chengdu Plain.

People worship and fear unknown powers and gods. Because God does not involve things in the real world, the only way to contact God is the illusion of the sacrificial carrier, and the bronze longitudinal eye mask is a carrier of God in the Shu people's hearts. The purpose of its existence is to communicate with God and get rid of the obstacles in the world. These shapes did not disappear with the demise of one dynasty and the rise of another one. "clairvoyance" and "omniscient ears" appeared in the Tang and Song dynasties; they echoed the bronze portrait design in Sanxingdui culture. Therefore, the Sanxingdui civilization did not disappear, but the transfer and inheritance of the center took place. Human beings have cast history, beliefs, technology, etc. on these bronzes over a long period of time. Bronze records the times, leaving an indelible footprint for history.

©Yumeng Wu and the CCA Arts Review