The Sanxingdui site (c. 2500–900 BCE), located about forty kilometres north of Chengdu in Sichuan province, China, has been the focus of some of the most exciting archaeological work being done in China over the past three decades. In 1986, with the discovery of two pits containing tens of thousands of objects made from bronze, gold, and jade, as well as elephant tusks, scholars worldwide were fascinated by the distinctive culture of the Sanxingdui, when compared to those of the Central Plains of China as well as to other Bronze Age cultures in Eurasia (Bagley, 2001). Since 2019, the discoveries of more than 15,000 objects from the newly found six pits once again made Sanxingdui a key topic in Chinese archaeology, as more unparalleled finds further enrich and transform the understanding of this unique civilization. The sensational media coverage and live streaming of the new excavations created an extremely high level of public interest in Sanxingdui archaeology, bringing global attention not only to the astounding objects but also to the new excavation and conservation techniques at the turn of a century of modern Chinese archaeology (fig. 1).

It must be noted that the academic and popular fame that Sanxingdui enjoys today was not achieved just during the past thirty years. Rather, it was accumulated over a century of archaeological work. The site was first found at the end of the 1920s, when a farmer named Yan Daocheng was excavating a cistern near his village home in Yueliangwan, the northern part of the Sanxingdui site, uncovering more than 400 jade and stone objects (fig. 2). David C. Graham (1884–1961), the director of the museum of West China Union University in Sichuan, conducted the first archaeological excavation at Yueliangwan and coined the name ‘Guanghan culture’ for what he described as a non-Han ethnic culture. In 1946, Cheng Te-k’un (1907–2001), the museum’s appointed curator that year, identified the objects as ceremonial. In 1963, the historian and anthropologist Feng Hanji (1899–1977) and members of the history department of Sichuan University conducted further excavations at Yueliangwan. They identified stratigraphic layers with remains of houses and burials, proposing that the site was probably the capital of the ancient Shu kingdom, as recorded in later dynastic texts such as Records of the Countries to the South of Mount Hua (Huayang guozhi) by Chang Qu (c. 291–361 CE) (Feng and Tong, 1979). Since the 1980s, archaeologists have conducted extensive surveys and excavations at Sanxingdui. Today, the archaeological data has clearly demonstrated that Sanxingdui was an urban centre enclosed by walls covering 3.6 square kilometres, and it was one of the largest metropolises in East Asia at that time (fig. 3). The city included a possible palace complex, workshops, sacrificial areas, and residential neighbourhoods.

1
View of Sanxingdui excavation site, 2020–22
Photo courtesy of the Institution of Sanxingdui Archaeology and Research

One of the key issues to understand about the Sanxingdui civilization is its formation process. The most recent C-14 dating demonstrates that the duration of the Sanxingdui culture was from 1800 to 900 BCE, approximately. This time span is relatively contemporaneous with the heyday of the Bronze Age in central China, including both the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow and Yangzi rivers. This was also a period when societies in central China underwent tremendous changes. If we parallel this time span with the Chinese dynastic chronology, it falls within the period between the late Xia (c. 2070–1600 BCE) and the early Western Zhou (c. 1046–771 BCE) dynasties.

Much academic attention has been devoted to explaining the mechanisms for the emergence of bronzes, jades, and gold from the Sanxingdui culture. The possible origins taken into consideration include the Erlitou culture and the bronze cultures in the middle Yangzi river. Some scholars even further traced the origins down to the much earlier Liangzhu, Shijiahe, and Qijia cultures. Although it has been widely recognized that the direct ancestor of the Sanxingdui culture is the neolithic Baodun culture in the Chengdu plain, the sources of the Sanxingdui’s bronze metallurgy and the techniques of making jade and gold objects may not have originated locally. Thus, external impetus played an important role in the formation of the Sanxingdui civilization. Chinese archaeologists often employed terms such as ‘cultural exchange’ and ‘cultural influence’ to explain these similarities. These terms are more descriptive than interpretive. The checklist of similar objects can grow ever longer, but we need a more effective concept to explain these similarities.

We argue that the key moment in the formation process of the Sanxingdui culture was the adoption and expansion of the bronze metallurgy, a process of ‘bronzization’ (Vandkilde, 2016). The patterns of interregional communication linked by bronzes or bronze metallurgy at Sanxingdui were unique. The local adaptation of bronze-making techniques, object types, and usages on the Chengdu plain demonstrates that materials and ideas from one place may not be entirely adopted but often are adapted, and certain aspects are transplanted from one place to another.

There is a consensus among scholars on the origin of the bronze metallurgy at Sanxingdui: it was imported to the Chengdu plain from central China and was not a local invention. However, Sanxingdui creatively applied this technique to make ubiquitous bronze objects not seen in other areas. Among all the contemporary Bronze Age cultures in the world, Sanxingdui was one of the most successful examples in localizing the bronze metallurgy. The Sanxingdui culture’s notably rich variety of bronze objects not only serves as the link between the Sanxingdui and other bronze cultures in China but also represents the emergence and development of bronzization in the Chengdu plain.

The earliest bronzes of the Sanxingdui culture are plaques inlaid with turquoise (fig. 4). They can be dated between 1600 and 1700 BCE, the early period of the Sanxingdui culture. For a long time, most scholars traced the origin of these plaques to the Erlitou culture, but a recent study indicates that these plaques are stylistically closer to those found in southern Gansu province. This means that bronzes, or bronze metallurgy, in the Chengdu plain were imported from northwestern China through the corridors of the Min and the Bailong rivers, not directly from the Central Plains, the core area of the Erlitou culture.

However, for reasons unknown, after the introduction of the bronzes to the Chengdu plain, bronzes did not immediately become the major component of the material culture in the region. Bronze objects continued to be a rarity until about 1200 BCE. Most scholars agree that the Sanxingdui culture underwent three phases. Bronzes did not become an important component in the early and middle phases, indicating that the bronzization process was rather slow in the Chengdu plain. (The mechanism for this phenomenon deserves further investigation.)

5
Dragon-shaped object, excavated in 2022
China, Sanxingdui, pit K8; c. 1300–1100 BCE
Bronze; length 120 cm, max. height 38 cm
Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology

This situation was completely changed in the late phase of the Sanxingdui culture. The Sanxingdui people not only manufactured a large quantity of bronzes but also imported a significant number of bronzes from the middle Yangzi river area.
In contrast to the northwestern sources of early Sanxingdui bronzes, the late Sanxingdui turned to the east, which is more connected with the middle Yangzi river.

Although the Sanxingdui piece-mould casting technique originated from the Central Plains, it was mostly used to produce objects related to religious activities. This is very different from the practice of the Central Plains, where most bronzes were ritual vessels and weapons. Moreover, the Sanxingdui bronzes excavated so far have not been found at burials, suggesting that they were not used as mortuary objects, a common practice of the Central Plains. In terms of casting techniques, the Sanxingdui artisans did not focus on delicate, minute details. Instead, their attentions were on shapes and sizes. Many of the large-size sculptures, such as human statues, mystical animal structures, and altars (figs 5–7), are not seen in any other regions during the Bronze Age. Therefore, the bronzization process of the Chengdu plain had very strong local characteristics.

The prominent eyes depicted on bronze heads, masks, figures, and other objects are a distinct characteristic of Sanxingdui ritual art. Obvious yet mysterious, ancient yet futuristic, they suggest stories now lost to history due to the lack of writings that may explain them. Why were there hundreds of objects made that directly depict gazing eyes or have decorative eye motifs? Whose eyes were they? What would we see if we looked out from those eyes?

Interestingly, research on Sanxingdui so far has neglected to critically and contextually examine the special and many eye-shaped objects and motifs. We argue that the theory of the gaze can be applied to examine these unique Sanxingdui bronzes. ‘The gaze’ is a widely applied theoretical concept in philosophy, sociology, and psychoanalysis, as well as in art-historical studies and art criticism. Particularly, the term in art-historical theory refers mainly to how individual or group viewers engage with other individuals or groups, visual media, or oneself. It also emphasizes the power dynamics between the gazer and the gazed. The gaze theory thus provides particular utility in facilitating our understanding of the mutually engaging power relationship between objects and human beings, including both the ancient people and the modern museum audience. It also structures ways of illuminating the intangible components of these eye-shaped objects, specifically their intentions, original usages, and symbolic meanings (figs 8–9).

The subject of the sacred depictions and the ‘piety of the gaze’ began as early as, if not earlier than, the European Middle Ages (Scribner, 2001). It rested on the assumption that people could apprehend the gods through seeing, the most concise moment of which was assigned to attendees during ceremonies. Theoretically, when people look at objects, at a certain point, instead of being in control of the looking, they may begin to sense the objects staring back at them (Lacan, 1978). A shift in power begins to take place when a subject of a person’s eyes looks back. Once the attention of a person was attracted, the engagement of emotion and feeling would be hard to resist within the appropriate contexts (Freedberg, 1989).

In the Sanxingdui case, it is believed that there was a theatre-like space or open site where the eye-related objects and other sacred statues were displayed (Rawson, 2022). The protruding, aggressively imposing, and mostly oversized eyes evidently were symbols of the powerful, influential, and divine (figs 10–11). Thus, the almost ubiquitous recurrence of different eye elements among the Sanxingdui objects may provide clues for how the invisible and intangible spiritual cosmology of Sanxingdui operated.

The special exhibition ‘Gazing at Sanxingdui: New Archaeological Discoveries in Sichuan’ (27 September 2023–8 January 2024) at the Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM) celebrates the achievements of the rich Sanxingdui culture as well as the dynamic interchanges among regional cultures. Mainly focusing on Sanxingdui, the exhibition features 120 remarkable bronze, jade, gold, and ceramic objects; nearly half of them come from the latest archaeological excavations, from 2020 to 2022 (figs 12–14). The exhibition explores Sanxingdui through four aspects: its art, its urban life, its spiritual world, and its origin and development.

In the contemporary context of museum galleries, the gazes of the various Sanxingdui eyes easily attract attention. By delicately accentuating their inviting and provoking characteristics through spatial design and lighting, the HKPM exhibition enables visitors to have an immersive experience and observe, reflect on, and potentially have ‘eye contact’ with objects, breaking the boundary between material reality and ancient spirituality.

Furthermore, the audience is invited to partake in a visual dialogue with archaeologists. The exhibition hopes to encourage and even modify audience viewing practices in a way that visitors begin to examine the objects through the archaeologists’ eyes. Objects are no longer gazed upon or understood as merely separate things but rather become entities with lives: in the original historical context, in the archaeological and research contexts, and, eventually, in the gallery space.

Tianlong Jiao is Head Curator at the Hong Kong Palace Museum. Shengyu Wang is Assistant Curator of the Hong Kong Palace Museum.

Selected bibliography

Robert W. Bagley, ed., Ancient Sichuan: Treasures from a Lost Civilization, Seattle, 2001.

Feng Hanji and Tong Enzheng, ‘Ji Guanghan chutu de yushiqi’ [On Jade and Stone Artifacts Unearthed at Guanghan], Sichuan daxue xuebao 1 (1979): 79–85.

Rowan Flad, ‘Survey, Excavation, and Geophysics at Songjiaheba: A Small Bronze Age Site in the Chengdu Plain’, Asian Perspectives 52, no. 1 (2013): 119–44.

David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response, Chicago and London, 1989.

Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis, New York, 1978.

Jessica Rawson, ‘Discover Sanxingdui’, online discussion co-organized by Oxford Brookes University Confucius Institute and Southwest Jiaotong University, 29 September 2022, oxfordpublish.org.

Sanxingdui Yizhi Jisiqu Kaogu Gongzuodui (SYJKG) [Archaeological Team of the Sacrificial Area at the Sanxingdui Site], ‘Sichuan Guanghan shi Sanxingdui yizhi jisiqu’ [The Sacrificial Area at the Sanxingdui Site in Guanghan, Sichuan Province], Kaogu 7 (2022): 15–33.

Robert W. Scribner, ‘From the Sacred Image to the Sensual Gaze: Sense Perceptions and the Visual in the Objectification of the Female Body in Sixteenth-century Germany’, in Robert W. Scribner and Lyndal Roper, eds, Religion and Culture in Germany (1400–1800), Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, Leiden, 2001, pp. 129–45.

Helle Vandkilde, ‘Bronzization: The Bronze Age as Pre-Modern Globalization’, Prähistorische Zeitschrift 91, no. 1 (2016): 103–23.

Jay Xu, ‘Defining the Archaeological Cultures at the Sanxingdui Site’, Journal of East Asian Archaeology 5, nos. 1–4 (2003): 149–90.

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