Sanxingdui Bronze Facial Mask

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Sanxingdui Bronze Facial Mask was made in the late Shang Dynasty, with distinct features of ancient Bashu Culture. This facial mask is cast by means of block combination. It deforms man’s facial features with distortion to make it awing and ugly, which shows strong and mysterious religious connotation. This facial mask is one of the most unique bronzewares in Chinese history. In the Central Plains of the same era, such a large bronze fifi gure artwork is unfound up to now. Thanks to bold artistic concept, huge ears, protruding eyes and icon-based treatment almost become the symbol of Sanxingdui Culture. This large bronze facial mask is inferred as sacrififi ce vessel.

We don’t know why craftsmen made column-shaped protruding eyes, but we can feel visual shock from such treatment. Perhaps “it” is a god with super vision from extraordinary eyes. These eyes can rotate and extend at free, which may be inspired by crab eyes.

Sanxingdui Ruin

“Dui” refers to high mound, which means “tomb” in Sichuan dialect, in particular overground part. “Dui” has large size than grave, which mostly keeps the people with noble status. Sanxingdui, located in Guanghan, Sichuan, is a complex consisting of similar three tombs. In 1986, many bronze statues were unearthed here.

Sanxingdui Bronze Statues

Sanxingdui Bronze Statues were made in the late Shang Dynasty, with sophisticated craftsmanship. They have artistic style which is different from that of bronze statues from the Central Plains of the same era. They show distorted fifi gure shapes, with wide eyes, ears, nose and mouth, as well as broad eyebrows. Some eyes are like apricot leave, while some eyes are column-shaped protruding. In terms of shape structure, Sanxingdui Bronze Statues should be combined with buildings, which may be used in sacrififi ce ceremonies.

Bashu Culture

Bashu refers to Chengdu and Chongqing of Sichuan in ancient China. Since ancient times, this region kept close contacts with southwestern ethnic groups and the South Asia, and gave birth to unique regional culture. Bashu Culture has a long history of 5000 years, which enjoys important status in the primitive culture system of China.