Master Archaeologist

Chapter 332 Bronze Altar
"Expert consultation room."

This is a very interesting conference room.

The expert consultation here, of course, does not refer to doctors consulting patients, but archaeological experts consulting on cultural relics.

Well, in a sense, it can be regarded as a method of "seeing a doctor".

At this time, more than a dozen staff members were already sitting in this small conference room.

The main personnel are front-line archaeologists supported by the Institute of Archeology of the Academy of Social Sciences, as well as several colleagues from the Sichuan Institute who were doing field archaeology in the No. [-] sacrificial pit.

The reason why everyone is invited to the consultation room today is of course not for small talk.

During the archaeological work on the No. [-] sacrificial pit, Lin Ya encountered a problem.

For archaeological work, once some difficulties are encountered, the best way to deal with them is to find a group of experts and hold a meeting to discuss how to deal with them.

Rather than a person to bite the bullet and deal with it.

When dealing with these historical relics, we must be more cautious and more cautious. It is better to simulate a hundred meetings than to act carelessly and cause damage to the cultural relics!

"Now, the altar and the beast have been completely separated, and this thing is not easy to deal with."

"The amount of soil in the upper and lower parts is very large now."

"What we want is to remove the entire soil from the foundation..."

Following Lin Ya's speech, many other participants shook their heads and sighed.

You can't do this. If you do this, there will be no support below, and the cultural relics will collapse.

Now, No. [-] sacrificial pit has entered the stage of intensive extraction, which is also the most difficult stage in the entire extraction work.

And the cultural relic that everyone is discussing is a bronze altar.

This is the only cultural relic in the No. [-] sacrificial pit.

In previous excavations, only the first excavation of the Sanxingdui sacrificial pit in 1986 had the same bronze altar unearthed.

However, compared with the altar spit out in 1986, the altar in the No. [-] sacrificial pit is larger and more completely preserved.

The height of the entire altar is 80 centimeters, and the bronze altar should only be in half, and the complete shape should be more than one meter high.

The remnants of the bronze altar are divided into three layers, with a height of 3 centimeters.

"It's unrealistic to dig out the foundation, and it will affect the whole body."

Qin Zhan, a researcher at the Sichuan Institute of Archeology, frowned and rejected Lin Ya's proposal.

As an archaeologist who has been working with soil, he is very aware of the importance of the foundation. There are so many cultural relics in the No. [-] sacrificial pit. Once the soil under the foundation is dug out, there will be a risk of the cultural relics being dumped after the foundation collapses.

He shook his head and put forward his own suggestion: "The current state of the bronze altar is also broken, so we use segmented extraction, first take the beast, take it out first, and then we will carry out the restoration of the altar. Take it."

"It's broken into upper and lower parts, so let's start with one part and one part at a time."

After discussing for a while, everyone felt that it was still necessary to proceed step by step, and agreed with Qin Zhan's idea.

Afterwards, everyone seriously thought about the excavation plan they wanted to do, and whether there were any loopholes or other emergencies, they just rehearsed it in their minds.

After confirming that everything was OK, Lin Ya took a few researchers from the Academy of Social Sciences and began to extract and excavate the altar.

The altar was broken when it was discovered, so the archaeologists planned to extract it in two parts.

The first thing to extract is the little mythical beast on the top. Its shape is very strange, like a mixture of many kinds of animals. Its body is similar to that of a horse, with a big tail and a very wide mouth.

It should be a fantasy beast in the myths and legends of the Sanxingdui people.

This kind of "fantasy" mythical beasts or gods based on existing animals is very common in early civilizations around the world.

The "dragon" of China combines the parts of many kinds of animals.

There is also Xuanwu, a fusion of turtles and snakes.

The Sphinx of ancient Egypt, as well as the various gods with animal heads and human bodies, are also products of fusion.

The little beast on this altar should be the same, not an animal that once existed.

Because the animals that lived in the Sichuan Basin 3000 years ago, even if they are extinct, there will be more or less skeletons that are not even fossils, so that modern people are not ignorant.

In fact, I was quite worried during the whole process of mentioning.

Especially when Lin Ya and Zhuang Yunpeng were in the pit below, during the cleaning process, they found that the base part was actually a little detached and crumbling.

In order to prevent it from falling off during the extraction process, the two hurriedly tied it with cotton rope.

But it also took a long time, from 2 o'clock in the afternoon to clear the last little bit to more than [-] o'clock in the evening.

A very interesting thing was also discovered during the extraction.

There was a group of people on the surface of the platform. Lin Ya and the others thought it was three groups of 12 people.

But while cleaning up, they found a 13th person standing in the middle.

On the altar, you can actually see a person in the middle, and it is the first time I have seen a portrait of this kind in Sanxingdui. In this way, he tied it on his back.

Very realistic and very cute.

This is also the first time that Sanxingdui has discovered a portrait of this shape.

Moreover, the movements of these bronze figures are almost the same, that is, they are lifting the divine beast above.

The four bronze figures around lift up the beast, and the rest of the Tongren are either squatting or kneeling, and the posture of their hands is also different.

Chen Han speculates that this is very likely to show the scene of the sacrificial activities of the ancient Shu people.

It reproduces the appearance of the Sanxingdui civilization when it was sacrificed at that time, and it is a very precious "Sanxingdui sacrifice material"!
It can be seen that the necks of the four bronze men carrying the beasts are a little crooked, or it is the same as the people who carry the sedan chairs we usually see.

This detail is handled very well.

Moreover, the wrists, ankle joints, ankle protrusions and other small parts of the bodies of these bronze figures are also very delicately made.

Including the fingernails, including the fangs, they are all made very small, even only a few millimeters!

And the bottom of the altar at the bottom is a hollowed out square platform, which is equivalent to the base, which is what Lin Ya called "the base of the platform", and there are some hollowed out reliefs on it, which are very delicate.

We cannot look at all the cultural relics in Sanxingdui from a conventional perspective, because it is too easy to give you a different feeling, especially the unique cultural system of Sanxingdui.

Overall, the preservation of this altar is relatively good!

It is of great significance for the study of the unique cultural system, sacrificial system, and humanistic society of Sanxingdui civilization.

For example, the 13 bronze figures are all dressed differently, which may represent their different status among the ancient Shu people!
This is of great significance for understanding the "social class" of the ancient Shu Kingdom!

(End of this chapter)