The 2025 Sanxingdui Forum in Deyang, Sichuan Province, will reveal new discoveries about the Sanxingdui civilization. Moreover, research offers fresh insights into bronze-casting, gold craftsmanship, and early rice cultivation. Consequently, researchers aim to reconstruct the Sanxingdui civilization and ancient Shu culture more systematically.
Discovered in the late 1920s, the Sanxingdui Ruins cover 12 square kilometers in Guanghan, about 60 kilometers from Chengdu. Archaeologists believe the site preserves remnants of the Shu Kingdom, dating back 4,500 to 3,000 years. Experts consider the ancient Sanxingdui culture one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of the 20th century.
The forum will present results from interdisciplinary studies conducted over the past year. Researchers will discuss dating methods, crafting technologies, subsistence patterns, and cultural preservation of the Sanxingdui civilization. New findings include precise dating of sacrificial pits, bronze-casting innovations, gold work, pottery production, rice cultivation, and ivory preservation.
Ran Honglin, deputy director of the Sanxingdui Museum, said the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology collaborated with domestic and international institutions. Their work also includes functional zoning, artifact sourcing, plant and environmental archaeology, and archaeological equipment development. These efforts strengthen understanding of the Sanxingdui civilization.
Looking ahead, archaeologists will expand excavations at rivers, roads, city walls, moats, water gates, and workshops. They will also map palace, workshop, and residential districts. In addition, they will study social structures, ethnic composition, and burial practices of the ancient inhabitants.
The forum, under the theme “Civilizational Exchange from an Archaeological Perspective,” will feature an opening ceremony, a main forum, and four sub-forums: “Decoding Civilization,” “Global Dialogue,” “Cultural Communication,” and “Youth Innovation.” Sessions will highlight discoveries related to the ancient Sanxingdui culture, cultural heritage preservation, and international knowledge exchanges.
Multidisciplinary research will focus on settlement structures, artifact production, resource utilization, climate studies, ritual contexts, and links between Sanxingdui and Jinsha sites. Scholars will also examine cultural exchanges between the Sanxingdui civilization and other civilizations.
Overall, the Sanxingdui civilization forum highlights China’s commitment to archaeological research, cultural preservation, and global scholarly exchange. Researchers hope the findings will deepen understanding of the Sanxingdui civilization and its contributions to Chinese history.
