Exhibition of Shang Dynasty Artifacts from the Xingan Tombs, Jiangxi

In 1989, an archaeological excavation on the east bank of the Gan River in Xingan County, Jiangxi Province, awakened a king who had slumbered for 3,000 years. The king's burial objects were extremely rich and luxurious. Among them, a pair of large bronze yue (axes) demonstrated the king's supreme power. Although the sand obscured the king's face, it could not hide the king's former dignity and power. The king returns, his majesty remains. The Xingan Tombs are a large, square royal mausoleum. 475 bronze artifacts, 754 jade artifacts, and 139 pottery artifacts were unearthed from the site. Archaeological excavations have revealed that the Xingan Tombs are the largest Shang Dynasty tombs in China with the most abundant variety of unearthed bronze artifacts. They are known as one of the three major discoveries of Shang Dynasty bronzes, along with the Tomb of Fu Hao at Yinxu and the Sanxingdui sacrificial pits, and are known as the "Bronze Treasury of the South of the Yangtze River." The highly developed bronze civilization represented by the Xingan Tombs, Wucheng, and Niutoucheng has changed people's understanding of the ancient civilization in the Gan River Basin and reshaped the cultural landscape of the Chinese Bronze Age. The discovery of the Xingan Tombs has advanced the study of Chinese bronze civilization and the entire history and culture of the Shang Dynasty to a new stage, and is a major breakthrough in archaeology in southern China.