What are the new exhibitions and highlights?, Completion, Use and Restoration of the New Sanxingdui Museum | Cultural Relics | Highlights

Bronze bird foot statue. The picture is provided by the Sanxingdui Museum

A bronze human head with a golden face. The picture is provided by the Sanxingdui Museum

Tourists are visiting the new Sanxingdui Museum. Photo by Xie Yong

The immersive archaeological cabin scene in the new Sanxingdui Museum showcases the excavation site of the Sanxingdui site's sacrificial area. The picture is provided by the Sanxingdui Museum

The pottery high necked urn and pottery perforated circular foot plate unearthed from the third excavation area of Sanxingdui. The picture is provided by the Sanxingdui Museum

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With an exhibition area of 22000 square meters and nearly 600 first-time exhibited cultural relics... Recently, the new Sanxingdui Museum has been completed and put into use in Guanghan City, Sichuan Province. It showcases the latest unearthed cultural relics, research achievements, and technological means to the audience, allowing them to appreciate the splendid ancient Shu civilization and experience the diverse unity and long history of Chinese civilization.

Recently, in the northwest of Guanghan City, Deyang, Sichuan, on the quiet banks of the Duck River, the Sanxingdui Museum, which has been closed for over a month, opened to welcome visitors.

Before 8 o'clock in the morning, the square at the entrance of the Sanxingdui Museum was crowded with tourists who came from afar. Under the azure sky, the newly completed glass curtain wall of the Sanxingdui Museum's new building forms the "Eye of Ancient Shu", which is particularly bright.

In 1986 and 2020, the Sanxingdui site launched two consecutive excavations of eight sacrificial pits, with nearly 20000 cultural relics unearthed. The Sanxingdui Site represents the ancient Shu civilization and development level thousands of years ago, and is the capital site with the richest cultural connotations and largest area in the Yangtze River Basin during the same period.

In the new museum, people stop for a long time in front of cultural relics such as the Bronze Divine Tree, Bronze Standing Man, and newly unearthed Bronze Altar, as well as Bronze Beast Riding Top Statue, to appreciate the brilliant civilization created by the ancient Shu ancestors thousands of years ago, witness the important achievements of "Chinese characteristics, Chinese style, and Chinese style archaeology", and feel the diverse unity and long history of Chinese civilization.

Nearly 600 cultural relics made their debut, including over 300 newly unearthed relics

Standing at a corner of the square, you can have a panoramic view of the new Sanxingdui Museum - the smooth and winding stone walls, the large and transparent bronze eyes, and the sloping planting roof... Looking down from a high place, the new museum is composed of three undulating and overlapping arc-shaped buildings, "stacking three stars", reproducing the ancient city wall's "three stars accompanying the moon". The exterior facade composed of glass curtain walls and bronze sunshades, combined with a pile of natural granite, forms the iconic "Ancient Shu Eye" of Sanxingdui.

Compared with the old museum, the new one has a larger area, with an exhibition area of 22000 square meters and a total of more than 1500 cultural relics on display. Among them, nearly 600 cultural relics were unveiled to the audience for the first time, including more than 300 newly unearthed cultural relics.

The first publicly disclosed bronze altar combination consists of a bronze mythical beast unearthed from the No. 8 sacrificial pit and a hollowed out pedestal with 13 small bronze statues on it, a bronze top altar portrait and a bronze bird holding upright portrait unearthed from the No. 3 sacrificial pit, a bronze top statue kneeling and sitting portrait unearthed from the No. 7 sacrificial pit, and a bronze horn seat top statue kneeling and sitting portrait unearthed from the No. 2 sacrificial pit. It has a complex shape and rich connotation, reflecting the sacrificial scenes of ancient Shu.

The new exhibition is divided into three major parts: "Pursuing Dreams in the Century," "Weiran Wangdu," and "Heaven, Earth, People, and Gods." The exhibition design is innovative, enhancing the visual impact and artistic appeal of cultural relics.

The complete "parts" of the No.1 and No.2 bronze divine trees are displayed in the same space, making ancient casting techniques clear at a glance; The large-scale display of the section of the ancient city wall of Moon Bay reproduces the ancient and mysterious culture of Sanxingdui; The archaeological shelter restored through naked eye 3D technology allows visitors to immerse themselves in the exciting moments of unearthed cultural relics.

The golden face is stunning, the bronze is peculiar, and each Sanxingdui cultural relic precipitates and tells the magnificent and magical, diverse and innovative early Chinese civilization. Zhu Yarong, Deputy Director of the Sanxingdui Museum, introduced that in addition to updating the exhibits, the new museum has also reconstructed the exhibition content, carefully sorted out the archaeological achievements of Sanxingdui, and from the perspective of the origin and development of Chinese civilization, deeply interpreted the important significance of Sanxingdui.

Reflecting interdisciplinary research achievements, visitors can observe the process of cultural relic restoration up close

The unearthed cultural relics from the Sanxingdui site are considered a perfect combination of the rich imagination and exquisite craftsmanship of ancient Shu ancestors, including bronze vertical masks with protruding eyes and huge ears, bronze standing portraits over 2 meters high, and bronze divine trees nearly 4 meters high.

From the discovery of silk traces to the determination of the formation age of sacrificial pits, from the discovery of rice in plant archaeology to the tracing of ivory sources in animal archaeology, the achievements of interdisciplinary research in Sanxingdui have been reflected in exhibitions in recent years.

A major highlight of the new round of archaeological excavations at the Sanxingdui site is the participation of multiple disciplines, especially modern technological means, which is particularly evident in the laboratory archaeological area. In this round of archaeology, high-tech technologies such as portable X-ray fluorescence, scanning electron microscopy, and global positioning measurement devices have been widely used, forming a new work model that deeply integrates traditional archaeology, laboratory archaeology, technological archaeology, and cultural relic protection. It is an example of scientific protection of archaeological excavation sites in China.

On the workstation of Guo Hanzhong, Director of the Cultural Relics Restoration Room and Deputy Director of the Exhibition and Preservation Department of the Sanxingdui Museum, there is a bronze altar base unearthed from the No. 8 sacrificial pit not long ago. Next to it are several broken altar components and restoration tools. On the other side of the table is a proportionally restored 3D printed model of the bronze altar for research purposes.

Guo Hanzhong has been engaged in cultural relic restoration work for nearly 40 years, participating in the restoration of over 6000 cultural relics, especially in the restoration of cultural relics in the first and second sacrificial pits of the Sanxingdui site.

In 2021, with the excavation of six new sacrificial pits at the Sanxingdui site, Guo Hanzhong became busy again. Nowadays, there are various methods for restoring cultural relics, such as X-ray inspection, CT, metallographic analysis, etc., which greatly enhance the restoration work.

In Guo Hanzhong's view, the restoration of cultural relics is urgent and cannot simply "race against time". "This round of archaeological excavations has unearthed tens of thousands of cultural relics, which are still in the cleaning and matching stage." Guo Hanzhong said that at the Cultural Relics Protection and Restoration Museum in Sanxingdui, visitors can observe the process of cultural relics restoration up close.

Using intelligent construction technology and equipment to make museums smarter

"Newly unearthed cultural relics, new research achievements, and new display methods have been used in the new museum to showcase the civilization of Sanxingdui from thousands of years ago through technological and artistic means, comprehensively enhancing the visiting experience. This is Mr. Wang, an archaeologist,'s third visit to the Sanxingdui Museum. The first two visits were to the old museum, and he specially brought his son to visit the new museum.".

From March 2022 to July 2023, during a period of more than 400 days, the new Sanxingdui Museum, the largest single building of a archaeological museum in southwestern China, has gone from scratch. With fast speed, high quality, and new technology, it has built a new model of world-class large-scale museum construction.

"The Sanxingdui Museum exhibits a wide variety of cultural relics. In response to the different temperature, humidity, and air cleanliness requirements of cultural relics in different storage areas such as ivory, jade, bronze, and gold, a large number of intelligent construction technologies and equipment such as constant temperature and humidity systems and inhalation smoke and fire detection systems have been installed and applied." Li Wenbo, the project manager of China Construction Eighth Bureau in charge of construction, said that the design of the new museum should not only make the audience happy, but also make the cultural relics "stay at ease".

Not only the hardware awesome, the new Sanxingdui Museum is also deeply integrated with digital and intelligent technologies in cultural relics preservation, exhibition and display, building a smart museum, creating a complex cultural and creative space, and bringing more intuitive, vivid and convenient exhibition experience to the audience.

In order to ensure that the newly unearthed heavy objects from Sanxingdui can be displayed in the new museum and meet with the audience, as well as to smoothly carry out the next step of cultural relic protection and research work, the new museum adopts a new exhibition method of digital restoration demonstration.

According to restoration experts and AI algorithms, the digital restoration demonstration utilizes multimedia interpretation to achieve a 1:1 realistic assembly and restoration of related artifacts, as well as an animated display of detailed interpretation. This new exhibition method utilizes AI technology and 3D printing for cultural relic restoration and exhibition, balancing the needs of cultural relic protection and display effects.

In addition, the new Sanxingdui Museum, relying on mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and other technologies, has built a smart museum system that includes a comprehensive management platform, a smart navigation system, a smart explanation system, a ticketing system, a collection management system, an academic resource management system, online monitoring of cultural relics, portals and public service resources, to make the museum more "smart".

"We must do better and take it to the next level, not to disappoint the enthusiasm and love of the people." Lei Yu, the director of the Sanxingdui Museum, said that the museum will showcase the most beautiful Sanxingdui to visitors from all over the world with the most precious cultural relics, the most advanced research results, and the most distinctive experience.