Ancient Sichuan: Treasures from a Lost Civilization

Ancient Sichuan is the catalog of a spectacular exhibition organized by the Seattle Art Museum. Recent discoveries from Sichuan Province are revolutionizing the history of ancient China, showing that the traditional cradle of Chinese culture, along the Yellow River, had sophisticated competition from distant regions 3,000 years ago. Stately bronze trees and huge bronze heads--some with gold-foil masks, some with strange alien eyes on foot-long stalks--are the centerpieces of the show. Dating from the 12th century B.C., these exotic objects, found with elephant tusks and ritual jade weapons in two vast sacrificial pits, are artifacts of a previously unknown culture whose existence took archaeologists by surprise. These pieces alone would be sufficient for a groundbreaking exhibition, but the show and this beautifully designed catalog take the distinctive nature of local Sichuan culture into Han times, 1,000 years later. Lively ceramic sculptures of entertainers and erotic scenes on wall tiles demonstrate the creativity and exuberance of ancient Sichuan society. Essays by leading scholars in the field compellingly describe the context and significance of the often breathtaking objects. A wealth of comparative material, photographs, and drawings explains how original and different Sichuan culture was from what has long been considered the Yellow River Bronze Age mainstream. With the finds illustrated in Ancient Sichuan, the cradle of Chinese civilization begins to look like a large double bed. --John Stevenson