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Jinsha Archaeological Site is a pretty recent find. It’s located in western Chengdu (near the 3rd Ring Road, not too far from Dufu Cottage). Whenever line 7 of the subway opens, there’ll be a subway station nearby. In the meantime, taxi is the easiest way to get here. (Yes, there are buses, but taxis are quite cheap here in Chengdu…life in general isn’t too expensive by first world standards.)
The site was discovered by accident during real estate construction in early 2001. (Thank you, Wikipedia…) Here are the interesting facts from Jinsha…
It’s associated with Sanxingdui, a bigger archaeological site about 50 km away from Chengdu. (I haven’t been there yet, but it’s on my list of things to do…) It may not be the same group of folks who lived at Sanxingdui, but there are a lot of similarities in the objects found at both sites, so general consensus, I believe, is that a group lived at Sanxingdui and eventually, for some reason, moved here to Jinsha.
Among the items found at both places are ivory, jade, bronze artifacts, gold objects, carved stone objects, etc. Regarding what’s on display here at Jinsha, I’m glad to say it’s a very well-presented and well-preserved museum. Certainly makes for a nice few hours. Combined with Dufu Cottage, it would make for a very nice day that combines history from different periods.
What Jinsha showed is that people have been living on the site of Chengdu since at least 1000 BC. (It’s pretty neat living in a city that’s at least 3,000 years old…) Actually, there is a lot of evidence of ancient archaeological sites in Chengdu, but Jinsha is the only one that’s readily available to visit.
According to Wikipedia (and from what I remember of signage around the museum), the Jinsha site was active from 1200-650 BC. There was no city wall (unlike Sanxingdui), and it was the political center of the Shu Kingdom.
The current emblem for the city of Chengdu is a piece of gold-plated art that was dug up here: a circular golden ornamental disk called “Sun and Immortal Bird.” If you’ve been to Chengdu, you’ve probably noticed it on any of the street lamps downtown and also on all the taxis.
All in all, Jinsha is nice and quite interesting if you have an interest in archaeology and ancient human history. I’ve only been once so far, but am sure I’ll go back again (and also to Sanxingdui).
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This shot can also be found in a group called Route Artifacts. Please come check the others in the group.
Rangers Rauney and Courtney documenting an artifact at the Guana Ruins archaeological site. Photo by Candace Killian.
Our team was discussing which artifacts and displays should be included in the prison cell. Notice the guitar case underneath the bed...
The Trobriand Islanders are one of the classic anthropological case studies. American Museum of Natural History.