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An earthquake nearly 3,000 years ago may be the culprit in the mysterious disappearance of one of China's ancient civilizations, new research suggests. The massive temblor may have caused catastrophic landslides, damming up the Sanxingdui culture's main water source and diverting it to a new location. That, in turn, may have spurred the ancient Chinese culture to move closer to the new river flow, study co-author Niannian Fan, a river sciences researcher at Tsinghua University in Chengdu, China, said Dec. 18 at the 47th annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. [Ancient Chinese Warriors Protect Secret Tomb]

The objects found in the sacrificial pits included animal-faced sculptures and masks with dragon ears, open mouths and grinning teeth; human-like heads with gold foil masks; decorative animals including dragons, snakes, and birds; a giant wand, a sacrificial altar, a 4-meter-tall (13-foot-tall) bronze tree; axes, tablets, rings, knives, and hundreds of other unique items. Among the collection was also the world’s largest and best preserved bronze upright human figure, measuring 2.62 meters (8 feet). However, by far the most striking findings were dozens of large bronze masks and heads represented with angular human features, exaggerated almond-shaped eyes, straight noses, square...

Striking Gold It all started in 2001, when a bulldozer driver heard a scraping sound as his machine's blade bit deep into the dirt. Working at a new real estate development site on the west end of Chengdu, capital of Southwest China's Sichuan Province, the driver looked down to see what his scoop had snagged. He had struck a collection of golden and jade objects in the earth. Soon after construction workers and passers-by rushed to the site, snapping up the treasures and scurrying off. Those too late to get anything were disgruntled, and then reported the incident to the...

Unmasking Sanxingdui Ruins www.chinaview.cn 2004-05-07 00:15:40 CHENGDU, May 6 (Xinhuanet) -- In an out-of-the-way area of southwest China not on the beaten path of most foreign tourists visiting the picturesque home of the giant panda, giant Buddha and Tibetan people lies a little-known site that holds its own unique mystique. Some 100 years ago, Sanxingdui in today's Sichuan Province hadn't seemed to anyone anything more than a typical rural area, and just 20 years ago its significance was not fully known. But when a farmer hollowing out a just-dug ditch in 1929 found some jade he unwittingly opened the door...

Niannian Fan, a river sciences researcher at Tsinghua University in Chengdu, China, presented new thoughts on the disappearance of the Sanxingdui culture from a walled city on the banks of China's Minjiang River some 3,000 years ago, at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. "The current explanations for why it disappeared are war and flood, but both are not very convincing," Fan told Live Science. In the 1980s, scientists found two pits of broken Bronze Age jades, elephant tusks, and bronze sculptures. Similar artifacts have been found nearby at another ancient city known as Jinsha. Did the people...

3000 Year-old Jinsha Coming to Life The archeological site of Jinsha located in the western suburbs of Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan Province, is widely believed to have been the capital of the Shu Kingdom close to 3,000 years ago. After some burial grounds and sacrifice emplacements were recently discovered, a renewed effort was made to excavate Jinsha. This vigor has now revealed the outlines of the cemetery, living areas, palace remains and sacrifice grounds. Lying only 50 kilometers away from the famed Sanxingdui, Jinsha rose to prominence around 1000 BC and shared similar origins with Sanxingdui as can...

Archeologists shake up historyNEW EVIDENCE: Artifacts found at a building site and the subsequent discovery of a lost civilization have forced historians to rethink Chinese history as a wholeAFP , JINSHA, CHINA Wednesday, Jul 13, 2005,Page 4 A worker stands on a stack of bags of cement before a huge billboard featuring the famous ''bronze human head figure with gold mask,'' one of the treasures of the Sanxingdui Museum in Guanghan, Sichuan Province in this photo from May. Recent archeological finds from previously unknown civilizations such as the Sanxingdui and the Jinsha are dealing shattering blows to traditional views of...