What is Sanxingdui? Back to the lost civilization of 3000 years ago

hey guys I'm back in session again but this time I'm not here to build kind of a content organized before I'm here on a quest to rediscover an ancient civilization big words I know but hear me out in order to uncover the past I'm heading to the present-day capital of Citroen province Chandal and the nearby city of Guan Han where our story begins nurtured by the Fertile jungle plains for millennia this area has been a center of human activity but it wasn't until recently that archeologists discovered something incredible here the remains of a hitherto unknown civilization every story has a humble beginning and ours takes us back to 1929 when a farmer digging a ditch stumbled upon a remarkable cache of jade and stone artifacts experts would identify the site as belonging to a city more than three thousand years old sensing doing today only a hillock marks a site where in 1986 archaeologists made another startling discovery inside two sacrificial pits they found the treasure trove of jade bronze and gold they were particularly struck by dozens of cast bronze faces some the size of a small car they'd been made with the complexity and style never before seen in China they'd found the Bronze Age city of San singly there we go guys this is sensing dude there's the museum over there that over there is the excavation site where they found this most mysterious civilization when they excavated the sacrificial pits they found that many of the items inside had been deliberately burnt some beyond recognition which begs the question why I'm actually kind of nervous oh my god beneath my feet Lee riddles that challenged our understanding of the Bronze Age in China buried here were artifacts that were more refined than anything previously found anywhere in the country but where did the sensing do people get the resources and the know-how to create them whose were the bronze faces and why did they look so alien to solve this mystery would be to redefine the origin of Chinese civilization north of the excavation site is the museum where I begin my quest proper there we are my key to unlocking all the mysteries there the oldest archeological finds in China dates from the Shang Dynasty which came to power in the second millennium BC centered on the Yellow River Valley a thousand kilometers northeast of here experts were astonished to discover that another civilization had been flourishing at roughly the same time in this remote part the country welcome to one of China's greatest mysteries sensing three displayed inside the museum's two exhibition halls our complete collections of the relics unearthed at sensing doing they reveal a previously unknown world filled with seemingly strange beliefs and stranger people close to a thousand bronzers have been found at sensing three most it appears were used in rituals yet before the discovery of sensing Dewey the only Bronze Age sites in the world that had ever yielded such life-sized bronze statues masks and heads were found in Greece and Egypt this was a first for China so who were these enigmatic people and where did they come from Wow look at you Wow most say it's the eyes that draw you in those long snail-like windows to the soul of this lost civilization what a mysterious face you know this was the largest bronze mask of its time and its faces full of mysteries full of secrets how did they make it where is this mask from who made this mask and perhaps most important of all why did they make it there are a lot of theories and nobody knows for sure but some experts say that this mask was cast in the likeness of one of the legendary kings of sensing during a semi mythical figure called Santo he supposedly had protruding bulging eyes but here the eyes i exaggerated they come out they jut out of the face as if to say I can see everything and the years they grow out from the side of the head as if to say I can hear everything I and the Almighty God of sensing me much of China's most ancient history is grounded in myth but at sensing tui some facts have been identified behind the fable we know now that it was the capital of the kingdom of Shu a southern rival to the powerful Shang Dynasty in the north it was a time when Stonehenge was going up in Britain when the alphabet was still in its infancy a time coinciding with Homer's Troy once thought legend now confirmed as true coming up next we explore the theme of power and the intimate link in form between sensing doing the Sun in this episode of travelogue I'm on the hunt for one of China's greatest mysteries the lost civilization of sensing going these are not typical of bronze-age china the much bigger supposedly more powerful shang dynasty rarely made masks and when they did it was just for decoration these are the products of belief symbols of power who are you primal and benevolent with eyes that penetrates when they discovered sangria they found close to 60 of these incredible bronze heads over 3,000 years old and yet they're so intricately cast but I think probably the most striking feature of these heads are the eyes and the noses Billick me the Chinese not only look Western some people even say they look alien but probably the most impressive of these bronze heads were the ones that they found covered in gold leaf for the Egyptians gold was the color of the gods the embodiment of the Sun the Greeks thought it indestructible and immutable for gold was a rare resource and only the most important relics were gilded though these heads look similar there are subtle differences a headband here pierced ear lobes there perhaps they represented the ethnic groups that made up sensing to a society one thing however is safe to assume these heads represented people in the highest echelon of the ruling elite you experts believe that these heads represented the shaman's who held positions of authority in sensing those theocratic society but interestingly six of them were found with gold leaf plastered over the face the thing is China doesn't really use gold during that time ancient Egypt use gold ancient Greece use gold but so far to this day these are the only gilded bronze masks to be found in China a vast sea of faces staring until the end of time Wow now this portent us especially standing down here looking up at him which is how he would have been intended to see back when he was made he was the tallest bronze statue of a human and in his oversized hands some have said he would have held a ritual wrestle perhaps an elephant's tusk which means that he would have been incredibly important perhaps he was actually the Shaymin and leader of sensing doing and this statue is a testament to his power the great leader of Shu a Shaymin king who could communicate with the gods indeed this was not an uncommon concept for more than 2,000 years the Emperors of China believed they were the sons of heaven as did the god kings of Egypt but who were his gods what could have been a really big car but what we do know is that this is a bronze sun wheel and during a time of sensing the Sun worship was prevalent across the world because it was at a time when agriculture was becoming the main form of survival for many people and here in sensing the the Sun motif can be found on relics such as the bronze burs the shaman's and headdresses and a message is clear humans working together with nature during the Bronze Age the Sun became the most important deity a symbol of life and fertility worshipped by all the great civilizations at sensing Dewi intricate bronze odors have been found along with kneeling human figures these probably represents shamans or high-ranking ministers and would have featured in the most important rituals their posture suggests they were giving offerings to the gods or perhaps they themselves were the offerings that's actually a pretty faithful rendition of one of the relics dug up at sensing do obviously this one's significantly bigger than the original but it gives us a good idea of the atmosphere and the majesty of the rituals that could have taken place at sensing day many ritual weapons were uncovered from the sacrificial pits but no human remains were found only the charred bones of pigs sheep and oxen interestingly some of the masks were found with traces of cinnabar and black pigment on them the dis suggests they were bringing them to life interesting well I wonder what actual rituals were like back in the days of sensing day but this is a pretty good representation I think who is wonder what their rituals would have looked like what these shaman's I guess would have looked like with their masks on hey yo ha that's how are you getting laid about well hide show no initial offers revive Oh Tigger's chica would other linkages homes annually Lynam do this aside you get it oh that's really easy yeah that's what I told mother not me it's the child record Ohio Bahama yeah yeah da you mr. Getchell she never going to be yeah you go to your house with your son so what y'all don't know because over good it's home to say yo caracal thing with a dog collar should one yeah you drool cobia to be this monuments around Ohio theatre lace you didn't die me and Judah would on your dead need you look at gonna say you this maybe I need not I'm hard we already did live that the early on so now is your Buddha I mean so Sheila coming up next I explore the ingenuity of sensing to his craftsman and wonder if they had any help from the outside we now know that sensing Dewey was once the biggest city in southern China it was even bigger in scale than Babylon the most populous city in the world at the time it was a seat of power rivaling that of the Shang Dynasty zone capital in the Yellow River Valley this was the political commercial and spiritual hub of the kingdom of Shu on the shin de Santa deliver to do really well haha Lambie endure to go secondly the ocean one they just Chindi handle salinity dollar sign in Bermuda Jung Hwan was the Northern District of sensing to a city that's all a man just reading once in chair one husband phase I'm home for hire some girls I knew cause I'm waiting seriously jakey Jewish young you collage in the cultural got Heidi a party got useful London to show me a reason hunted ah also solutions unlock some jail danger cause it'll handle it was here in 1929 that a farmer would stumble upon the lost city of San sing doing the Legion with you you you Jake hold up really want another you go Ponyo Ponyo Oh Oh Giggy Joshua at home town the answer ha ha ha ha Sheila Oh who shall to go home yet wha just let me out yet until the Hugo sensing do you reach the height of its power around the second to first millennium BC however scientists believe the area was populated as far back as 5000 years ago the evidence is in the wall it is incredibly impressive to see this ancient city war in the flesh it's over 3,000 years old and of course now it just looks like a you know a very high pile of mud and dirt but back in the days they would have required so much effort manpower and the know-how to build something this high earthenware was the hallmark of a developing civilization and on some of it was found primitive script the first signs of a written language therefore many it was the bronzes that made sensing very famous but in fact it was Jade that caused this place to be found in the first place but for ancient Chinese people Jade wasn't necessarily one kind of stone as long as the stone was precious and beautiful enough it would be called Jade because they thought that it had the ability to communicate with the divine and at sensing do they found loads of jade ritual objects from circular disks to weapons shaped like daggers and blades for sacrificing to the heavens to the mountains to the earth the ancients believed Jade was the universe condensed the discovery of so much jade close to a thousand pieces suggests sensing day was just as sophisticated as the Shang Dynasty tigger Sangha shaggy are younger foreign boy girl so man you can saw her heart just con su Jade from T'Challa doesn't leave tons reticle Sheng up whoa Barton who to those who in power ticket even dangle photos oh no shaggy ah : key ha Somali when she sang we talked to the Honduran gotta go - no take a highway I'll convey kehndi yo is on Solyndra Angus on highway haya paya Zoe Sanada 40 so ah - so tidy Sosa so society go sandy Masergy yo cha-cha-cha DNG Hindu yong-ho Kosovo jelly sandwich Amanda it have Santa circuit Allah uses open contentious or soda nine Francis of the row a link between scenting Dawei in the West what a tantalizing thought can you guess what this is this was the ultimate symbol of power a gold staff nothing like it had ever been seen before it would have shone like the Sun the detail is so exquisite it's thought it could only be reproduced today using laser etching some people say the staff had more to do with Near East civilizations like Mesopotamia and Egypt than China so was there a connection when experts first found this they had no idea what it was they thought it was a gold belt because in China the traditional symbol of authority has always been a bronze vessel called a Dean staves were things of the west to find such a staff in China as a complete anomaly how they were able to learn such advanced craftsmanship is likely to forever remain a mystery what a masterpiece this is the magnum opus of sensing doing a divine tree at the center of their world on its branches nine Birds symbols of the Sun when this was first found it was shattered into many pieces and it took archeologists and an ottoman amount of time to put back the pieces of this puzzle and when they did they were able to rebuild this the world's oldest and tallest bronze tree it was sensing to his very own stairway to heaven it was their Tower of Babel the birds and the tree there were mediums to communicate with the very gods themselves and the craftsmanship was so exquisite that's a day standing here I still feel the same kind of or respect and solemnity as I would have felt 3,000 years ago almost every ancient civilization in history had a sacred tree for some it represented life while for others it was their very world a Han Dynasty text some 2,000 years old refers to a legendary tree on which Sat ten birds each day one would fly into the sky and become the Sun when sensing Dewey's tree was finally put together the top was missing was there once a tenth bird whatever their original intention the meaning is clear statues of human legs with avian feet man merging with nature the story of sensing Dewey is the story of Sun and China theirs was a tale of harmony and coexistence the desire to become one with the goddess so perhaps sensing Dewey wasn't so alien after all in fact it's people may have been quintessentially Chinese their ideals going on to shape later beliefs like Taoism and the open-minded cooperative mentality of southern China today the name Xu still lives on as an abbreviated form of Citroen province you know if I was thought that maybe it's not the religion but the land that influenced the way sensing doing people work with nature and perhaps continues to influence the lifestyles of Suetonius people today alright brother let's take you home funny sometimes isn't it that some of the world's greatest archaeological discoveries were simply down to serendipity nobody could expect that so many years ago a farmer digging his own irrigation system would uncover a lost civilization that would change the face of Chinese history forever and I was simply down so bronze mask

Channel: CGTN

Views: 87,569

Rating: 4.8657718 out of 5

Keywords: CCTVNews, News, CCTV, Breaking, politics

Id: teCKq6AJtP8

Length: 29min 4sec (1744 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 26 2015