A young jolt to ancient charm

In tandem with each treasured collection, museums are powered by every archaeologist, curator, conservator, designer, and visitor involved. Drawn to Sanxingdui by shared passion, their dedication makes the unique charm of Chinese culture shine ever brighter.

Young "Earth Movers"

In October 2020, excavation officially began on six newly discovered sacrificial pits at the Sanxingdui site. The project brought more than 30 archaeological and research institutions from across China together. Among them, the team from Sichuan University's School of Archaeology and Museology made key contributions to discoveries in Pits No. 5, No. 6, and No. 7, with young figures leaving a vivid imprint on the excavation site.

Leading the team is Li Haichao, the youngest professor at Sichuan University's School of Archaeology and Museology. At 35, he has servedas excavation director for the three pits since 2020. Professor Li and his graduate students painstakingly unearthed a giant gold mask from Pit No. 5 as well as a tortoise-shell-shaped netted vessel and over 200 ivory tusks from Pit No. 7.

Thanks to technological advances, archaeological conditions have changed dramatically. Organic and inorganic laboratories line the large excavation shelter, allowing artifacts to be examined and preserved on site with seamless coordination. The shelter merges the excavation site and labs, and large equipment can be lowered directly into the pits.

This "labs in the field"approach gives young people their first real taste of "technological archaeology."Huang Ping, from Chongqing, still remembers the excitement of entering the shelter for the first time."It was full of large instruments,"she said. "You could stand on a platform and be lowered into the pit to work."The shelter's constant temperature and humidity create a protective shield for the artifacts. Huang could immediately tell that she was about to take part in a multidisciplinary technological challenge.

Despite the high-tech tools, archaeology is far from a simple "brush and reveal"affair. It involves daily tedium and hard labor. "When I got to the site, I found the soil clinging to the relics was a kind of clay so hard you couldn't even scratch it off with a fingernail. A brush was useless."Wang Nanjun, who joined the team in 2024, felt this pain. On his first excavation, he and his classmates spenta week or two clearing weeds with local workers before they could even lay out trenches. His trench went down more than four meters before confirming a huge ditch beneath. "You can't tell from the surface—you just have to go deeper, layer by layer,"Wang noted. "Every artifact in a museum represents painstaking efforts by countless archaeologists."

During the ivory extraction, the extensive use of high-tech equipment still didn't eliminate the need to perform basic cleaning and excavation manually. After millennia, the tusks were eroded and often found in complex, overlapping layers. The longer the extraction took, the greater the risk of damage. To avoid contamination, team members had to wear heavy protective suits and remain kneeling or squatting for hours. "It gets really hot inside those suits,"Wang recalled. He'd heard senior colleagues say they used to write motivational slogans and draw graffiti on the suits to make the best of it. But once inside the pit, these young people immediately switched to professional mode: excavating, sampling, photographing, and recording data with clear division of labor and orderly workflow.

Finding joy in repetitive fieldwork is not easy. Li Jiaxi, from Guangdong Province, finds joy by shifting perspectives: "I see a trench as a crime scene and myself as a detective. The features and artifacts are clues, and I connect them and look at the bigger picture."This detective mindset taught her that "archaeology is not just about what's in front of you, but the overall context."That was the biggest shift in her thinking during graduate school.

During the excavation of Pits No. 5, No. 6, and No. 7 in the Sanxingdui sacrificial area, the archaeological team from Sichuan University worked for more than two years, unearthing thousands of valuable artifacts. They have published more than 100 papers in leading journals such as Archaeology and Cultural Relics and delivered dozens of public lectures on Sanxingdui to young people across China. On May 3, 2023, the team received the 27th China Youth May Fourth Medal Collective Award. Their actions illustrate how these young "earth movers"are redefining archaeology.