![\"Mystery](\"http:\/\/baidun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/bowers.gif\")
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In 1929, jade and stone artifacts were discovered in Sichuan, but the importance of this finding wasn’t understood until 1986, when two pits of Bronze Age riches were excavated by archaeologists.\u00a0 In these pits, there were 100 elephant tusks, jade, and bronze sculptures that measured 8 feet high; this demonstrates an impressive technical ability that was not present anywhere else in the world at the time!\u00a0 It was found that these exhumed treasures came from a lost civilization, Sanxingdui; Sanxingdui was a major ancient Chinese walled city located on the banks of the Minjiang River, and it is believed that \u00ad\u00adthe culture was destroyed sometime between 3,000 and 2,800 years ago.<\/p>\n
14 years ago, archaeologists found remains from another ancient city called Jinsha, and these findings had similarities between the artifacts previously found at Sanxingdui. New research is suggesting that an earthquake that happened nearly 3,000 years ago may be the culprit in the disappearance of one of China\u2019s ancient civilizations.\u00a0 It is believed that an earthquake may have caused catastrophic landslides and destruction, forcing the city\u2019s inhabitants to divert to a new location; in addition, it is believed that the earthquake might have caused landslides that obstructed the river, forcing it to reroute to Jinsha; this reduced water supply could have been the reason why the people from Sanxingdui may\u00a0have relocated to Jinsha. There are some historical records supporting this theory, however as ancient writers in 1099 B.C. recorded an earthquake in the capital of the Zhou dynasty, in the Shaanxi province. Now, even though this is roughly 250 miles away from Sanxingdui, at that point in time records were not generally kept so there is a possibility that the epicenter of the earthquake was actually close to Sanxingdui, it just wasn’t recorded at that location. There is also geographical evidence that suggests that there was an earthquake that occurred in the general region sometime between 3,330 and 2,200 years ago, and the geological sediments also suggest that massive flooding did occur.\u00a0 All in all, the findings do hint at a major earthquake occurrence that triggered a landslide that blocked and rerouted the rivers flow, but keep in mind this theory is still very speculative.\u00a0 While the geological story is definitely possible, the mystery of Sanxingdui continues as it still doesn’t answer the question, why would these people bury their culture into two pits, and why didn’t their culture reemerge at Jinsha?<\/p>\n
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In 1929, jade and stone artifacts were discovered in Sichuan, but the importance of this finding wasn’t understood until 1986, when two pits of Bronze Age riches were excavated by archaeologists.\u00a0 In these pits, there were 100 elephant tusks, jade, and bronze sculptures that measured 8 feet high; this demonstrates an impressive technical ability […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25,26,19],"class_list":["post-290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-history","tag-ancient-china","tag-mystery-of-sanxingdui","tag-world-history-2"],"yoast_head":"\n