Before they land at Hong Kong’s Palace Museum, here’s a look at China’s Sanxingdui relics, among the biggest finds of the 20th century
- New museum in Sichuan boasts 600 artefacts on display for first time from ancient site formerly home to mysterious civilisation
- From spectacular bronze masks with exaggerated facial features and sculptures of deities, museum showpieces draw 15,000 visitors daily from across country
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‘Grand Mythical Creature’: mysterious newly unearthed Chinese artefacts heading to Hong Kong
The crowds at Sanxingdui Museum in Sichuan did not put a damper on tourist Huang Jinwen’s mood as he jostled with visitors marvelling at ancient masks, some in bronze and others coated in gold, with the relics’ exaggerated facial features even more stunning when seen up close than on television.
“It is far more shocking, stunning, surprising and mysterious to see them in person,” the 37-year-old civil engineer said.
Huang, like tens of thousands of visitors who came from cities across China daily, said he flew with his wife and two young children from Jiangmen in Guangdong to see the new discoveries and museum that opened about a month ago.
Considered one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century, the museum pieces are among 16,000 artefacts unearthed from the Sanxingdui archaeological site about 55km northwest of provincial capital Chengdu in the past two years.
Many of the displays will also be among 120 artefacts to be shown at the Hong Kong Palace Museum in the West Kowloon Cultural arts hub in late September, themed “Gazing at Sanxingdui: new archaeological discoveries in Sichuan”.
Ran Honglin, Sanxingdui Museum deputy chief, said: “Many of those heading to Hong Kong are recently discovered artefacts or have never been shipped out of the country.”
First discovered in the 1920s but left intact until the 1980s, the Sanxingdui ruins were located in Guanghan city, Sichuan. Mainland archaeologists believe they were remnants of the Shu Kingdom, or Shang dynasty during the Bronze Age – about 3,800 years ago or around 1800 BC.