Ancient Shu jades map cultural exchanges

Recently, the specialized academic work Ancient Shu Jades: A Comprehensive Study of Excavated Jades from the Sanxingdui and Jinsha Sites was officially released in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.

At the book launch, author Wang Fang, former deputy director of the Jinsha Site Museum in Chengdu, Sichuan province, said over 2,000 jade artifacts have been unearthed at the Sanxingdui site in Guanghan, Sichuan, believed to be a capital of the ancient Shu state in southwestern China from more than 4,000 years ago. More than 3,000 jade items have also been recovered from the sacrificial area of the Jinsha site, widely believed to have served as another Shu capital after the decline of Sanxingdui.

The types of jades found at the two sites are highly consistent. They include bi discs and cong tubes used for ritual offerings to heaven and earth, ritualized weapons such as blades, daggers, and yue axes, as well as ritualized tools and ornaments — including chisels and adzes — along with bracelets, rings, bead ornaments, shell-shaped pendants and insect-patterned plaques.

None of these artifacts show any traces of use, indicating that they were made exclusively for sacrificial purposes. Building on the traditions inherited from Sanxingdui, Jinsha jade culture developed further, embodying the continuity, innovation, and inclusiveness of ancient Shu jade culture, Wang said.

Taking the jades excavated from the Sanxingdui and Jinsha sites as its starting point, this book presents a comprehensive and systematic study and analysis of ancient Shu jades from multiple perspectives, including archaeological excavation, material analysis, provenance surveys, processing techniques, stylistic features, and cultural connotations.

It represents the latest major achievement in the study of ancient Shu civilization. At the same time, drawing on a broad academic perspective, the book compares ancient Shu jades with contemporaneous remains from the Liangzhu culture — an important Neolithic culture that flourished 5,300 to 4,300 years ago in the Yangtze River Delta — as well as those from China's Central Plains and even Southeast Asia. Through comparative research into exchanges and mutual influences among the jade cultures of ancient civilizations, the book broadens understanding of the development of Chinese jade culture and the pluralistic yet unified nature of Chinese civilization.

"This book dispels the millennia-old mist surrounding ancient Shu jades and elucidates their significant value in the development of Chinese civilization. It is a highly substantial and outstanding work of research on ancient Shu jades," said Xu Lin, a research fellow at the Palace Museum in Beijing.