Posted on 07/13/2005 7:21:21 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Archeologists shake up history
NEW EVIDENCE: Artifacts found at a building site and the subsequent discovery of a lost civilization have forced historians to rethink Chinese history as a whole
AFP , JINSHA, CHINA
Wednesday, Jul 13, 2005,Page 4
 A worker stands on a stack of bags of cement before a huge billboard featuring the famous ''bronze human head figure with gold mask,'' one of the treasures of the Sanxingdui Museum in Guanghan, Sichuan Province in this photo from May. Recent archeological finds from previously unknown civilizations such as the Sanxingdui and the Jinsha are dealing shattering blows to traditional views of Chinese history. PHOTO: AFP |
Day after sweltering day on the banks of the Modi stream, archeologists are dealing shattering blows to traditional views of Chinese history as they work their way through the parched, yellow earth.
One of the world's great cities once flourished here at Jinsha village in China's southwest, the 1000BC equivalent of New York or Paris, and then inexplicably vanished, leaving no trace behind in the historical records.
Until recently, locals had no idea they were living on top of a great lost bronze-age civilization.
"Of course, people get excited when they hear that their home area has such a long history, such an advanced culture, and such refined art," said Jiang Zhanghua, deputy head of the Institute of Archeology in nearby Chengdu City.
The discovery of the site was entirely fortuitous, reflecting how much of the patchy record of the pre-historic past has come together merely by chance.
On a winter day in early 2001, excavation teams sent to the site by a property developer unearthed large numbers of ivory and jade artifacts that clearly suggested a major find.
If the company had decided to just carry on its work, covering the site in concrete as is believed by archeologists to be quite common, the Jinsha civilization might have been forgotten forever. But they called in authorities.
Weird masks
In and by themselves, the artifacts are striking in their weirdness -- masks with strangely protruding eyes, cult statues frozen in poses of unknown, but likely religious, significance.
More importantly, the spectacular discovery in Jinsha has added to the mass of evidence forcing historians to rethink Chinese history as a whole.
It is now clear that Chinese culture had multiple origins and did not, as previous generations of historians confidently believed, follow a simple path from just one single source.
It is a popular idea that the cradle of Chinese civilization is in the Yellow River valley about 1,000km northeast of Chengdu, and matured there before gradually spreading southward.
If nothing else, this traditional concept of history is supported by ancient myths about the Yellow Emperor and other early rulers, held dear by many Chinese.
But historians have long suspected this cannot be right. Ever since, that is, the discovery of the Sanxingdui civilization, about 50km from the Jinsha excavation site.
Here archeologists have been unearthing artifacts for most of the 20th century, discovering what now is confirmed as one of the world's major pre-historic civilizations.
The Sanxingdui culture, which blossomed from 5000BC to 3000BC, is characterized by the same radical strangeness as that unearthed at Jinsha.
Masks with oversized eyes and eyebrows, with some of them covered with gold leaf, are among its hallmarks.
But even as they display unique features, both Sanxingdui and Jinsha also show remarkable parallels with other ancient cultures.
Sacred sun and trees
"Sun worship was practiced here at the same time as it formed a central part of ancient Egyptian cults," says Zhu Yarong, a young historian at the large museum erected at Sanxingdui.
"People here appear to have worshipped sacred trees, just like in Mesopotamia, in modern-day Iraq," she says.
As the archeologists analyze the finds, they try to solve important questions, such as why the Sanxingdui site had a city wall while Jinsha did not.
The absence of a city wall in Jinsha is particularly strange, because cities in ancient China emerged as concentrations of political power, not trading centers as was mostly the case in the west.
Researchers also know little about the ties the Sanxingdui and Jinsha people had with other cultures, even if they can determine that exchanges must have been frequent.
The archeological teams have uncovered large numbers of ivory tusks originating from China's current border with mainland Southeast Asia.
The question is, how did they get here, and why?
Other questions remain. Where did the Sanxingdui and Jinsha people come from? Where did they go? And what exactly characterized their religion?
These are questions that may never be answered, because the Sanxingdui people left no written record. It is odd that people at their stage of development did not invent some type of writing system, but it is not unheard of.
Other civilizations, most notably in pre-Columbian America, were also illiterate, even as they were highly advanced in other fields such as architecture and astronomy.
Hidden knowledge
For Zhu, the museum historian, the discovery of written records would be a dream come true, unlocking hidden knowledge about how the mystical ancient inhabitants of the area lived and what their thoughts and feelings were.
"We don't know if they actually did invent writing. Maybe they did, but they used a material that has not survived to this day. It would be major, major step forward if we found written records," she says.
This is probably some of the 250,000 Shang who 'took to the sea' at the collapse of the Shang Dynasty. My guess is that these are the elites and skilled from the Shang Dynasty...notice that one of the first things they did was build a pyramid.
Oops. Post #61 is for you too.
Well it is plain to me that the reaces of mankind are one specie offshooting from a common ancestor. Where we went wrong in our the0rizing was the timeline. It is becomming clearer of recent that Homo sapiens has been around a lot longer than we once thought. By a factor of say .... 10 or so. Thus time is found for the wide diversification of the races we see today.
I believe as well it is no accident that the Story of Noah allows for one common ancestor. Just as it is no accident that the ancient Hebrew texts speak of the circles of heaven in the same epoch that Hindus believed the earth was balanced on the backs of four celestial elephants and thousands of years before the great thinkers of the West were sure the earth was flat.
You mean those thin, round, shiny objects, with the hole in the center?
Some schools believe they were used as money, since they come in at least three distinct and uniform sizes, though this theory is losing ground
The theory that they were worn as jewelry was quickly discarded.
The most viable theory is that they were ritual objects. Because so many are found in various containers (so called "jewel cases") that vary both in elaborateness and number held (one/case being the most common, though sometimes as many as three); and because many have been found inserted into primitive 'electronic' devices, we feel they were a way of attempting to communicate with the 'gods', akin to our ancestors' use of prayer wheels.
There is still a major controversy over whether or not the larger, more primitive hole-less disks (some of which are embossed with the enigmatic inscription "Frisbee") are related; precursors; contemporaneous; or totally unrelated.
Egypt
Rome
Maya
Sanxingdui
Alien
Yoda
So, Elvis came from Rome?
I'm afraid that I, personally, put the story of Noah and those in the Upanishads in with Zacharia Sitchen's.
Real science will reveal the truth.
And whether we've been around for, say, 15,000,000 years or more...well, read Michael Cremo's books for that sort of theory. He's a Western Hindu who believes mankind has been around for 100,000,000 years, as the Hindu texts teach. His evidence is scant, but interesting.
Incredible stuff, Tiger.
Heck, most of the coastal Southeast would depopulate if air conditioning became unavailable. If I can't have air conditioning, I'm moving to a mountain top in Alberta.
Ping !!
very cool stuff.
this is a museum i'd like to see someday.
does that face look at bit polynesian to you?
sort of tiki bar-ish?
maybe these guys were part of the culture that went across the pacific but lost out locally to the northerners.
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