The surprise came in 1986, when experts and scholars at that time conducted six consecutive excavations on the east, west and south sides of the Sanxingdui site based on the information obtained from previous excavations.
This time, the ruins of the ancient city wall made of adobe were cleared.
The east city wall is about 1090 meters long, the south city wall is about 1150 meters long, and the west city wall is about 650 meters long.
Since it is a remnant, the original city wall may actually be longer.
House sites, sacrificial pits, workshop ruins and tombs were discovered within the city site.
The most important discovery is that in the two sacrificial pits No. 1 and No. 2, a large number of bronze wares, gold wares, jade wares, stone wares and ivory wares were unearthed.
What was discovered this time was much more valuable than when it was first discovered.
From November 2019 to May 2020, archaeologists excavated the Sanxingdui site again.
Six new "sacrificial pits" have been discovered. So far, gold mask fragments, bird-shaped gold ornaments, gold foil, painted copper heads with eyes, giant bronze masks, bronze sacred trees, ivory, decayed tooth fragments, jade congs, and jade tools have been unearthed.
There are more than 2,000 important cultural relics.
The six newly discovered artifact pits this time and the two pits excavated in 1986 are all located in the eastern part of the Sanxingdui Platform.
There are also small circular pits, rectangular trenches and large trench-type buildings related to sacrificial activities scattered around.
The shapes and directions of the six newly discovered "sacrificial pits" this time are similar to those of pits 1 and 2 excavated in 1986, and the unearthed cultural relics are also similar.
The archaeological team also found traces of silk in the ash layer of Pit No. 4 and on the surface of the bronze vessels in Pit No. 3.
In the early Chinese era, the highest-grade silk was mostly used for solemn occasions such as sacrifices.
In the ancient Shu Kingdom, silkworms were raised and silk weaved a long time ago.
Technology like this was not uncommon in ancient Shu.
In "Sacrificial Pit" No. 5, many gold objects and a large number of round gold ornaments with holes, jade tube beads and ivory ornaments were found.
Preliminary judgment shows that these gold pieces, jades and gold masks are regularly combined and were used by the ancient Shu kings to hold grand sacrificial ceremonies.
The latest carbon 14 dating of Sacrifice Pit No. 4 shows that the time was approximately 1200 BC to 1000 BC, which is equivalent to the late Shang Dynasty to the early Western Zhou Dynasty.
Sacrifice pit No. 1 is a rectangular earth pit 4 meters long and 2.8 meters wide at the bottom. 420 artifacts of various types were unearthed in it, including 178 bronze artifacts.
Human heads, kneeling figures, masks, human-faced figures, dragon-shaped vessels, tiger-shaped vessels, tiger-shaped ornaments, Ge, etc.
Also unearthed along with the bronze wares were gold wares, jade wares, pottery, stone wares, bone wares, as well as a large amount of ivory, seashells, bone residues, etc.
Most of these utensils, especially bronze ones, have traces of fire.
Sacrifice pit No. 2 is also a rectangular pit, 5 meters long and 2 meters wide at the bottom. 1,300 artifacts of various types were unearthed, including 735 bronze artifacts.
In addition to some artifacts that are similar to those in Pit No. 1, the bronze artifacts also include standing human statues, animal masks, eye-shaped vessels, eye-bulb-shaped vessels, sun-shaped vessels, sacred trees, altars, temples, etc.
Surprisingly, like Pit No. 1, many artifacts in Pit No. 2 also have traces of being burned by fire.
Like the scattered bones and ivory, they were burned white.
The necks of many bronze statues were melted by the fire and rolled up.
Some small bronze vessels are even tightly stuck together due to burning.
The large bronze statue and the bronze sacred tree unearthed from Pit No. 2 were probably smashed by someone who buried them before they were buried.
Chen Wenzhe saw this very clearly, because the large bronze statue was broken into two parts.
Various decorative accessories on the bronze sacred tree, such as leaves, sun birds and other decorative accessories, were splashed everywhere.
In addition, many masks were also smashed into a pile of rotten copper, some of which had been melted beyond recognition after being burned.
Chen Wenzhe moved forward quickly to check the archaeological harvest of that year.
He has accompanied archaeologists for decades and watched ancient artifacts being unearthed one after another.
He looked at the burned bronzes and ivory and felt very bad.
Why were these treasures burned and buried here?
This required him to look back, but the scene he saw now was also very attractive.
Chen Wenzhe saw archaeologists making discoveries after observing the placement of artifacts in the two sacrificial pits.
Most of the artifacts in Pit No. 1 are stacked at the south end of the pit.
Larger jade artifacts such as jade Ge and jade seals are distributed in the east of the pit.
Smaller jade and stone tools such as jade chisels, jade adzes, and jade axes are piled in the west corner of the pit.
Bronze human heads and faces are distributed from the center to the northwest of the pit, while bronze vessels are mixed in with the bone residue.
The arrangement of artifacts in Pit No. 2 is similar to that in Pit No. 1.
These things are obviously divided into three layers.
The upper layer is neatly arranged with 60 ivory tusks, under the tusks are large and medium-sized bronze vessels, and the lower layer is many small bronze vessels, various ornaments and some jades.
Obviously, the buryers smashed and burned these artifacts before burying them.
Then according to the relevant etiquette procedures, they were placed into categories and then buried.
Seeing this situation, Chen Wenzhe felt much better.
He discovered that these artifacts were not destroyed for no reason, but perhaps as a ritual.
The utensils are too hot, which is most likely the "burning sacrifice" mentioned in the oracle bone inscriptions.
The sacrificial objects are placed on the pyre and burned.
The bone remains in the two pits were later identified to be of large animals, and there were no human bones.
This is basically in line with the sacrificial methods of "Mao Niu" and "Mao Sheep" recorded in oracle bone inscriptions.
What's more important is that most of these utensils are ritual utensils and are specially used for sacrifices. Therefore, it can be determined that this is a special ritual for the ancestors of ancient Shu to worship heaven and gods.
As he continues to fast forward, Chen Wenzhe discovers more and more secrets.
Soon, his sight was fixed on a tall bronze divine tree.
This sacrificial pit should be Pit No. 2, but there are indeed many bronze sacred trees unearthed from it.
It turns out that Chen Wenzhe had always thought that there was only one sacred bronze tree unearthed in Sanxingdui.
Unexpectedly, he saw a lot now.
After careful counting, I found that there were a total of 6 bronze sacred trees in the No. 2 sacrificial pit.
These bronze sacred trees are also different, there are 2 large and 4 small.
Among them, the largest sacred tree No. 1 is 3.96 meters tall and the trunk is 3.84 meters high.
The sacred tree consists of a base, a trunk and a flying dragon.
The base of the sacred tree is conical and painted with images of the sun and clouds, which should symbolize the towering sacred mountain;
On the top of the sacred mountain is the tree trunk.
The branches "growing" from the trunk are divided into three layers from top to bottom.
Each branch is decorated with flowers, fruits and sacred birds.
There is also a horse-faced flying dragon next to the tree, swooping down with its fangs and claws spread.
This makes Chen Wenzhe naturally think of Kunlun, Fusang, Ruomu and Jianmu in the mythology of "Shan Hai Jing".
In this myth, the sun appears as a golden crow every day.
They rise along Fusang, then descend along Ruomu in the evening, enter Yuyuan and Huangquan, circle back to Fusang from the ground, and rise slowly from Fusang again the next day.