Sanxingdui’s Bronze Masks Reveal an Unknown Culture

In the summer of 1986, brickyard laborers near the town of Guanghan in Sichuan stumbled upon subterranean deposits that altered understanding of China's Bronze Age. Digging into the earth, workers revealed pits packed with layers of burnt, fractured objects, including ivory tusks, jade blades, and striking cast bronzes. A second pit uncovered just weeks later yielded hundreds more artifacts, confirming that an extraordinary ceremonial deposit lay buried in the Chengdu Plain.

Decades before this sudden emergence, isolated traces had surfaced around Guanghan. A farmer uncovered a cache of jade pieces while clearing an irrigation canal in 1929, drawing the curiosity of local scholars and Christian missionaries who arranged preliminary documentation and an excavation in 1934. Yet the scale of the broader urban center remained hidden until systematic field archaeology documented a large walled city. Bordered by the Yazi River and an extensive canal network, the settlement extended across several square kilometers, featuring packed earth fortifications, distinct industrial and residential zones, and large timber-and-adobe halls.