Large Bronze Sculpture Removed from Pit at Sanxingdui Ruins

SICHUAN, CHINA—CGTN reports that a 3,000-year-old bronze sculpture weighing more than 300 pounds has been removed from sacrificial pit Number 8 at the Sanxingdui Ruins site in southwestern China. In all, more than 14,000 artifacts have been recovered from the pits at the site. This sculpture is said to depict a mythical beast with a horn on its head standing about three feet tall and three feet long. A thin man wearing a long robe is shown standing on the horn. An image of a tree was found engraved on the beast’s chest. “The tree is engraved directly on it and can be seen as Sanxingdui people’s worship of the sacred tree, or has taken the sacred tree as a kind of divine presence,” said archaeologist and team member Zhao Hao. He added that most of the bronzes removed from this pit are less than one foot long. To read more about the Sanxingdui pits, go to "Seismic Shift."