The Sanxingdui ruins are located in Sichuan province in southwestern China. The site has been extensively explored over the years, and excavations have yielded thousands of remarkable artifacts.
The Sanxingdui ruins are located in Guanghan City. According to Live Science, the site was first discovered in 1929 by a farmer who found jade and stone artifacts while repairing a sewer ditch. According to China Daily, formal scientific excavations did not begin until 1934.
Since the first excavations, research and discoveries have continued at this site. According to China Daily, two pits were excavated in the 1980s and more than 1,000 artifacts were unearthed. The finds included figurines and human face masks.
The Sanxingdui ruins have yielded thousands of precious ancient finds. There is a museum in Guanghan that specializes in ancient excavations. (Liu Kun/Xinhua via Getty Images I Xinhua/Li He via Getty Images I Wang Xi/Xinhua via Getty Images)
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Sources said six more pits were excavated between 2019 and 2020, and more than 500 artifacts were discovered, including shells, silk, ceremonial bronze vessels and gold masks.
A number of remarkable finds were discovered in the treasure trove of artifacts discovered at the Sanxingdui ruins. Among the recent discoveries, the gold mask is one of the important discoveries at this site.
For example, in September 2022, China's National Cultural Heritage Administration announced that a 3,000-year-old golden mask was discovered at a site surrounded by royal tombs.
The golden mask is one of many notable finds unearthed from the site. (Tang Bungo/Xinhua News Agency, via Getty Images)
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ARTNews reported at the time that the ancient mask dates back to the Shang Dynasty and is older than another golden mask discovered at the Sanxingdui site the previous fall.
According to China's Xinhua news agency, a complete gold mask weighing about 100 grams was unearthed at the site in 2021. The gold mask was larger but weighed less than another gold mask fragment found at the site in early 2021, according to the Sichuan Provincial Research Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology.
According to China's Xinhua news agency, more than 4,000 artifacts including pottery, jade tools, and stone tools have been excavated from the Sanxingdui site since 2022.
Other exhibits at Sanxingdui Museum are inspired by ancient artifacts found during excavations. (Tang Bungo/Xinhua News Agency, via Getty Images)
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Officials say more than 60,000 artifacts have been discovered at the site so far.
The Sanxingdui ruins are widely known as one of the world heritage sites. According to China's Xinhua News Agency, it is “the world's largest archaeological discovery of the 20th century.” Experts believe that the Sanxingdui ruins are from the ancient Shu Kingdom.
The Sanxingdui Museum first opened in 1997 and has since been expanded to offer visitors the opportunity to see first-hand the many artifacts discovered at the site over the years.
