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Archaeological Site · Active excavation

Sanxingdui

~1200 BC · found 1986, Guanghan, Sichuan, China
ACTIVE DIG
Evidence status: Historical tradition. no documented source (historical tradition); legal status unknown (manual verification recommended). This account is presented as historical tradition, not verified fact. Manual verification recommended. Repository evidence: 0 sources · 0 timeline events · 0 media items · legal unknown · view on the Map Evidence on file: historical tradition

Sanxingdui: still unexplained.

A lost Bronze Age civilization with no name

The law of this ground: Chinese state archaeological site under active, protected excavation.
The subject
developing the photograph…
Of note
A lost Bronze Age civilization with no name
The account

A brick-worker's spade broke into a sacrificial pit in 1986 and out came faces, towering bronze masks with protruding eyes, a god-tree, gold, jade, and ivory from a culture that left no writing and matches no known dynasty. New pits opened in the 2020s keep adding thousands of relics. A whole civilization, rich and strange, that history forgot to record.

Leads, where the trail points now
  • Sacrificial pits at Sanxingdui in Sichuan keep yielding bronze masks and gold from a lost civilization that left no written name; new pits were opened from 2020.
  • It is a protected state excavation, so the open work is interpreting a culture with no records, and more pits very likely remain.
  • The unanswered questions are who these people were and where the city that made this gold actually lies.
What the record holds

What remains open

  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
What we know, and what we don't
Established

No documentary claim is yet established. The account rests on tradition.

Still open
  • No period map of the site has surfaced.
  • No contemporary press coverage has been found.
The evidence room

No documentary or visual exhibits have been located yet. The trail below and the open leads are where this dossier grows next — every exhibit that enters here carries a source.

Where the trail points now
  • Sacrificial pits at Sanxingdui in Sichuan keep yielding bronze masks and gold from a lost civilization that left no written name; new pits were opened from 2020.
  • It is a protected state excavation, so the open work is interpreting a culture with no records, and more pits very likely remain.
  • The unanswered questions are who these people were and where the city that made this gold actually lies.
  • Search Library of Congress + DPLA (IIIF) for period cartography of the site.
  • Run Chronicling America for dated newspaper mentions.
  • Query NARA for archival records tied to the site.

Have a source, a map, or a clipping? Add a lead and it enters the record with its citation.

Start the hunt here
The first leads, so no one walks in cold.
Sources and the record
Related case files

The full hunt kit

Starting brief, what's known and disputed, evidence timeline, source list, map card, coordinate-confidence and legal-access summaries, and a field checklist, free with a Fellowship account.

Latest Word From the Newswire

Context, not proof. The dossier's own sources remain the evidence record.

Checking the wire…

Chart position 31.000°, 104.200° (approx.) View on the Map