The small out-of-the-way village of Sanxingdui in today's Sichuan Province just seemed like a typical rural backwater, when in 1929 a local farmer digging a ditch discovered an unexpected treasure trove: some 400 pieces of colorful jade artifacts. This unwitting discovery opened the door on a previously unknown culture that had existed during the period of the first civilizations of China between 3,000 - 5,000 years ago, but which had left no clues in historical records, that seemingly disappeared without a trace and which left artifacts never before discovered elsewhere in China.

The farmer and his family had thought to keep the discovery of the jade a secret at first, but the archaeologists were soon on the case and in 1934 excavations began in earnest at the Sanxingdui remains. In just ten days another 400 jade pieces plus some earthenwares were uncovered. In the next 70 years more artifacts were unearthed as generations of archaeologists worked on the discovery and understanding of the Sanxingdui culture. In 1963 the archaeologist Feng Hanji pointed to Sanxingdui and told his students around him, "the remains are so abundant here, it may very well be a central city of ancient Shu” – a prediction that would be confirmed years later.

Although the walls of an ancient city were uncovered first in 1980, it was not until another accidental discovery in 1986 that anything more substantial was found, when workers found some jade objects while digging for clay to make bricks. This caught widespread attention in academic circles, and on 1 Mar, 1986, the largest scale archaeological excavation of Sanxingdui yet began. A treasure trove of over 100,000 earthenware pieces and about 500 bronze wares, jade wares and lacquer wares was uncovered. Just a month later the archaeologists were called again to a spot less than 30 metres away, where two major sacrificial pits were found.

The excavations of the two pits produced thousands of artworks in bronze, jade, gold, stone, pottery and exotic materials purposefully layered with burnt animal bones and elephant tusks. Among nearly 1,000 bronze objects were over 100 human and zoomorphic figures, masks and heads that would suggest an independent and powerful culture. All the Sanxingdui discoveries aroused scholarly interest, but the bronzes, which demonstrated remarkably advanced bronze casting technology, were what excited the world most. Task Rosen of the British Museum considered them to be more outstanding than the Terracotta Army in Xi'an.

Many Chinese archaeologists and historians now believe that Sanxingdui was, as Feng Hanji had predicted in 1963, the capital of the ancient "Shu Culture" of the Sichuan area between 2800 BC - 800 BC (ie. from the Neolithic Dragon Hill Culture to the end of the Shang and early Zhou period). Evidentally, Sanxingdui was quite a metropolis in its time, covering about three square kilometers, and with highly developed abilities in agriculture, ceramic technology and mining. Nothing is known about the unique part-human, part-animal masks that have become the symbol of Sanxingdui and its mysterious culture, but it is easy to assume they were used as religious objects—and maybe also political, as it was common for ancient cultures to use religion as a form of power.

The discovery of such an advanced culture at the beginning of Chinese civilization not only forced a major rethink on the dating of the Chinese Bronze Age, but also perhaps raises questions on just how "primitive" a primitive culture was. Naturally such a tantalizing mystery has also produced its fair share of weird and wonderful theories over the years, including the inevitable conjecture about alien involvement, and some speculation over the authenticity of the findings.

At this point, the unique culture that produced these artifacts still remains a mystery. There is no clue as to where the culture evolved from and no clue what became of it. Whatever the truth, the Sanxingdui ruins still provide plenty of opportunities for archaeological discovery and speculation. And maybe that’s part of its fascination after all- that we don’t have all the answers to the questions it poses.

Photos by David Schroeter at Flickr, used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic license. See more of his photos from the Sanxingdui Museum