Master Archaeologist

Chapter 322 Reunion spanning 3000 years
The discovery of the top snake-body bronze statue was a pleasant surprise.

Such a complex and exquisite combiner not only represents the super-high bronze craftsmanship of the ancient Shu people, but also can lead modern archaeologists to explore the "myths" and legends of the ancient Shu people.

"Snake Face"

When this is mentioned, I believe that the first thing that comes to mind of most Chinese people are Nuwa and Fuxi, the two creation gods in Chinese legends!

In the inherent impression of Chinese people, the appearance of Nuwa and Fuxi is that of a human head and a snake body.

The earliest written record in China is the "Liezi Huangdi" of the Warring States Period: "Paoxi, Nvdi, Shennong, Xiahou, snake body and human face, ox head and tiger nose, this is inhuman. , and has the virtue of a great sage.”

The Paoxi family is Fuxi, the Nvdi family is considered to be Nuwa, the Shennong family is Shennong, and the Xiahou family is the lineage of Dayu, and may be the ancestor of Dayu.

What does this sentence mean?

That is to say, these ancestors all had the inhuman shape of snake body and human face, bull head and tiger nose, and this shape is the virtue of the great sage.

By the time of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the images of Fuxi's scaly body and Nuwa's snake body had basically been fixed.

Many unearthed cultural relics from the Eastern Han Dynasty depict Nuwa and Fuxi as snake bodies holding some strange things in their hands.

Some marketing accounts and self-media also trumpeted that the murals of Nuwa and Fuxi intertwined are actually expressing the meaning of "DNA double helix", which is an inspiration from aliens to Chinese people.

These are of course unreliable claims.

In fact, the images and myths of Nuwa and Fuxi have evolved many times.

The legend about Nu Wa's creation of man was born relatively early, and should have appeared before the Spring and Autumn Period.

But the perfection of this legend is relatively late.

In the "Huainanzi" in the Western Han Dynasty, it was the earliest record of Nuwa's creation of human beings.

Nuwa didn't create humans by herself, but everyone helped to create them. The Yellow Emperor determined the gender, installed ears and eyes on the upper part, and mulberry forests as arms. Nuwa can create [-] people a day!
Then in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the legend evolved again, and only then did the legend of Nuwa making humans out of clay appear.

But what is certain is that, at least around the Spring and Autumn Period, the legend about "Nu Wa created man" had already taken shape.

Because there is such a question in "The Songs of Chu Tianwen": "Nuwa has a body, who can make it?"

That means, if Nuwa has a body, who created it?
It shows that at that time, the legend of Nu Wa creating human beings was already widely recognized.

So, when can the earliest unearthed cultural relics related to Nuwa be traced back?

About 7000 years ago!
The earliest Majiayao culture in the Central Plains, six to seven thousand years ago, found paintings of human head and snake body on pottery, which is considered to be the earliest worship of Nuwa and Fuxi!
Now, in the sacrificial pit of the Sanxingdui civilization, a figure with an obvious Nuwa worship and a human head and a snake body has also been found. This obviously proves once again the connection between the Sanxingdui civilization and the Huaxia civilization in the Central Plains.

Obviously, in the Sanxingdui civilization, there are also myths about Nuwa, so the Sanxingdui people cast such a bronze statue with a snake body, which may be used as a ritual vessel for the priest Nuwa!
This is another proof that the Central Plains civilization had a profound impact on the Sanxingdui civilization!

If according to the records in the history books, the ancient Shu people were indeed a country established by the descendants of Zhuanxu, then as the grandchildren of the Yellow Emperor, they were also influenced by Shennong.

So Sanxingdui people have Nuwa worship, that is a very logical thing!

This top bronze statue with a snake body is 1.5 meters high and fell sideways in the pit.

It took Chen Han and Zhuang Yunpeng more than two days to completely clean up and extract this large bronze vessel, and even with the help of modern technological equipment, they transported it from the pit to the Sanxingdui cultural preservation and restoration center.

However, what is unexpected is that after the comparison of the Sanxingdui Cultural Heritage Restoration Center, the bird-footed figure unearthed in Pit No. 1986 in 2 can be combined with it!
And the position of the stitching is exactly the position of the "snake's tail" that Chen Han thinks.

At the position of the "snake tail", there is actually only half of it, and the lower half can be joined together with a bird's foot in Pit No. 2!
In other words, this portrait is not actually a human head and snake body, but a human head and bird feet!

All of a sudden, Chen Han's original conjecture about his "nuwa worship" came to nothing.

The artifacts "fitted" in the cultural relics protection and restoration center are over 1.5 meters high, with a goblet-shaped statue on the top of the head, hands supporting the goblet and standing upside down, the body is curled upwards, and the feet are like bird claws, which makes people marvel at the imagination of the ancient Shu people again.

Fortunately, this discovery also confirms that Pit No. 2 and Pit No. 8 were formed at the same time.

Another day later, the Sanxingdui Cultural Heritage Restoration Center announced that they had successfully matched the top snake-body bronze statue newly discovered in Pit No. 8 with the remnants of the bronze bird-footed figure unearthed in Pit No. 1986 in 2.

These two cultural relics, which were divided into two sacrificial pits, finally reunited after 3000 years of "separation"!

This is a reunion that spans 3000 years!

Afterwards, the Sanxingdui Cultural Relics and Restoration Center renamed this cultural relic as the statue of the bird-footed curved body and the top statue, thinking that this imaginative and precious cultural relic can be called the "peak work" of the Chinese bronze civilization!
Although it can't compare with the bronze sacred tree with a height of 380 centimeters.

However, at a height of 150 centimeters, this bronze ware composed of statues, portraits, and shackles is also a rare treasure in the history of Chinese bronze civilization!
Even if it is compared internationally, it is also a world-class treasure.

In the field of bronze civilization, Chinese civilization is undoubtedly the most splendid civilization!
Whether it is a large bronze tripod that weighs several kilograms, or a bronze sacred tree with a height of more than three meters, or the statue of a god with a bird's foot and a curved body, these are all crafts that other bronze civilizations of the same period cannot do!
In other European bronze civilizations in the same period, they still remained at the time of primitive knives, swords, small shields, rough animal and human figures.

The Chinese civilization far in the east can already use bronze to cast various large handicrafts.

The brilliance, exquisite craftsmanship, and quantity of the bronzes in the eight sacrificial pits discovered by the Sanxingdui civilization alone far exceed the amount of bronze cultural relics unearthed by any single bronze civilization in Europe!

And Huaxia, which has such a bright, mature, and developed bronze civilization, unexpectedly in the eyes of Europeans, there was no civilization before the Shang Dynasty.

What a ridiculous conclusion this is?
If there was no civilization in China before the Shang Dynasty, how did the merchants, and the Sanxingdui Late Shang period before us, develop such a mature and developed bronze craft?
Could it be that aliens suddenly appeared and taught such advanced bronze craftsmanship to the Chinese who were still in the Neolithic period?

Then they suddenly became the top of the global bronze civilization?
Could it be that this statement is more credible than that the Chinese had developed a gradual bronze civilization before the Shang Dynasty?

(End of this chapter)