Bronze kneeling man

Width: 8.2 cm, Height: 14.6 cm

Unearthed in Pit 2 at Sanxingdui

The kneeling man has a serious bearing, looking straight forward with eyes and mouth wide open. He puts his hands on knees and wears bracelets and socks. Based on his attire, some scholars believe the kneeling man should be a slave of the lowest social stratum. However, some others don’t agree. They maintain that the kneeling man was possibly sculpted after a shaman, as kneeling was popular in both daily life and sacrificial rituals for either the noble or the humble in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and it’s not likely to make sculptures for the humble with bronze, the rare material at that time.

Jade Bi

Outer diameter: 17.8 cm; Inner diameter: 6.7 cm

Unearthed in Pit 2 at Sanxingdui

Many jade objects, including Zhang, Cong, and Bi, were unearthed at Sanxingdui. Bi is a jade ring. Most of the Bi unearthed at Sanxingdui are surprisingly large, with the heaviest one exceeding 50 kilos. This indicates the bold and unconstrained artistic style of craftsmen in ancient Sichuan, which was greatly different from that of their counterparts in the Yellow River Valley.