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authorName23242: Yuqing Xi
Date: 06/02/2021
Email: info@chinatourstar.com
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0086 13801211578
tours@chinatourstar.com
Chinese Name: 三星堆博物馆 Pronunciation: Sānxīngduī Bówùguǎn
Building Time: 1997
Recommended Time for Visit: 2 Hours
Occupied Area: 330,000 square meters
Address: No. 133, Xi’an Road, Guanghan City, Sichuan Province, China
Building Function: Displaying cultural relics unearthed from Sanxingdui Ruins and promoting Bashu (Sichuan) culture from ancient times.
| Types | Ticket Price |
| Gallery Ticket | 72 yuan |
| Garden Ticket | 5 yuan (excluding Gallery 1 & Gallery 2) |
1. English Guide Service: 160 yuan (Group below 20 persons)
2. Guide Range: Gallery 1 & Gallery 2
3. It takes about 1 hour for each guide service.
4. Chinese & English auto-guiding devices are free of charge with a deposit of 200 yuan.
1. Children shorter than 1.2 meters (including 1.2 meters) can visit the galleries and garden free of charge.
2. Seniors over 60 years old(including 60 years old) can visit the galleries and garden free of charge.
3. On International Children’s Day(June 1st), children under 14 years old can visit the galleries and garden free of charge.
| Date | Tourists | Price |
| International Women’s Day (March 8th) |
Female tourists | 40 yuan |
| International Museum Day (May 18th) |
All tourists | 40 yuan |
| China’s National Tourism Day (May 19th) |
All tourists | 40 yuan |
| Cultural and Natural Heritage Day (The second Saturday of June) |
All tourists | 40 yuan |
| Museum Galleries | Gallery 1 | Gallery 2 |
| Opening Hours | 8:30-18:00 | 8:30-18:30 |
| Ticket office Opening Hours | 8:30-17:00 | |
Sanxingdui Museum is located in the northeast corner of Sanxingdui Ruins (Sanxingdui Site), a national key cultural relics protection unit. It is in Guanghan City, Sichuan Province, 38 kilometers away from Chengdu in the south and 26 kilometers away from Deyang in the north. It is a large-scale modern thematic site museum in China. The foundation of the museum was laid in August 1992 and officially opened in October 1997.
Sanxingdui Ruins covers an area of 12 square kilometers and has a history of 3,000 to 5,000 years, making it the most extensive, longest lasting, and the culturally richest ancient Shu (Sichuan) culture site ever discovered in southwest China.
The ancient site of Sanxingdui Ruins is known as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. It shows that the Yangtze River Valley, as well as the Yellow River Valley, is the mother of Chinese civilization. It is known as “the origin of the civilization of the Yangtze River”.
The establishment of Sanxingdui Museum has led to a new understanding of Shu (Sichuan) culture, changing the historian’s view. In the past, historians believed that ancient Shu (Sichuan) was a relatively isolated area compared to the Central Plains of China, with no or little interaction with the Chinese civilization.
However, Sanxingdui Ruins and Sanxingdui Museum prove that ancient Shu (Sichuan) is an important cultural center around the Xia and Shang Dynasties, or even earlier in China and has some connection with the Chinese culture. The discovery verifies the authenticity of the ancient records of ancient Shu (Sichuan) in ancient Chinese literature.
In the past, historians believed that the birthplace of the Chinese nation was the Yellow River Valley, and later the Chinese nation gradually spread to the whole country. The discovery of Sanxingdui Ruins pushed the history of ancient Shu (Sichuan) back to 5000 years ago, proving that the Yangtze River Valley and the Yellow River Valley were both the birthplaces of the Chinese nation.
Relics in Sanxingdui Museum are precious human cultural heritage. Among the vast and magnificent cultural relics groups in China, Sanxingdui Ruins is one of the most valuable cultural relics groups with historical, scientific, cultural, and artistic value.
Among these secret treasures of ancient Shu (Sichuan), there are many strange and bizarre bronze forms, including a 2.62-meter tall bronze standing man, a 1.38-meter wide bronze mask, and a 3.95-meter tall bronze sacred tree. All of these are unique and unparalleled spectacular artifacts.
The goldware, represented by the glowing gold scepter, and the jade artifacts, represented by the sacrificial utensils with sophisticated decorated patterns, are also unprecedented and rare treasures.
With a total of nine sections, Sanxingdui Museum has two exhibition galleries, namely Gallery 1 (displaying gold, bronze, jade, stone, pottery, and other types of cultural relics) and Gallery 2 (specialized bronze gallery).
The two galleries are large in scale and well laid out with highlighting the importance of the exhibition line. They reveal the profound connotation of Sanxingdui Ruins and reflect the brilliance of the Sanxingdui civilization with their combination of rich knowledge, interesting storytelling, and elegant artistic appreciation. When entering the museum, you will be immersed in the antique atmosphere as if you were back in the ancient Shu (Sichuan) State.
Sanxingdui Museum covers an area of about 330,000 square meters, with more than 80% of green area. It enjoys beautiful environments and proper layout in the museum, open paths, weeping willows, wonderful flowers, shimmering lakes, and artificial mountains outside the museum. The museum and its surroundings embody the perfect combination of humanity and nature, as well as elegant and natural landscape features in Western Sichuan.
The shape of the main museum building pursues the combination of geomorphology, historical sites, and the modeling of cultural relics, so as to integrate primitive culture and modern atmosphere as a whole.
The building of the Gallery 1 is a semi-arc slope ecological building, with its design concept of promoting the humanistic spirit of the harmonious coexistence between man and nature; the building of the Gallery 2 is a three-in-one spiral building. The whole construction is a symbol of “ancient relics from Sanxingdui Ruins” and “the evolution of human history”. The two galleries both are large in scale, exquisite in layout, ingenious in design, and excellent in production.
Outside the galleries, there are magnificent antique sacrificial platforms and a large-scale performance hall for modern cultural and sports activities. The designed performance echoes the gallery building, expressing the profound historical implication of Sanxingdui culture.
Since the completion and opening of Sanxingdui Museum in October 1997, it has received more than three million tourists from home and abroad and achieved good social and economic benefits. Chinese leaders including Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, Li Peng, Zhu Rongji, and Li Ruihuan have come to visit and spoke highly of Sanxingdui Museum.
Relics from Sanxingdui Ruins have been exhibited abroad many times. Since 1993, Sanxingdui cultural relics have been exhibited in Switzerland, Germany, Britain, Denmark, the United States, Japan, Australia, Canada, France, and other countries, arousing sensation in every place.
Sanxingdui Museum has established a reputation for its cultural relics, architecture, display, and garden. It is one of the five major tourist attractions in Sichuan Province and is one of the first batches of national AAAA-level tourist attractions. Moreover, the museum is the national youth science and technology education base.
In April 1988, the Preparatory Office of Sanxingdui Museum was established.
In March 1989, the architectural design of the main building of Sanxingdui Museum was approved.
In August 1992, the foundation stone of Sanxingdui Museum was laid.
In July 1994, the civil works for the main building of Sanxingdui Museum were completed.
In June 1995, the design scheme of the “Ancient Kingdom and Shu (Sichuan) Culture Exhibition” for Sanxingdui Museum was approved.
In August 1996, the interior decoration and exhibition of Sanxingdui Museum, external garden construction, and ancillary buildings started.
In October 1997, the construction of Sanxingdui Museum was completed, and it was opened to the public, displaying the cultural relics of Sanxingdui Ruins.
In July 2008, the display and renovation project of Gallery 2 of Sanxingdui Museum was completed.
Gallery 1 comprehensively exhibits gold, bronze, jade, and pottery artifacts and great achievement in every field. The gallery introduces the history of ancient Shu (Sichuan) and the remarked achievements of the ancient state at Sanxingdui in various fields comprehensively and systematically.
The gallery is divided into six sections: the first section is “Dominating the Southwest: 2000 Years of Vicissitudes of Ancient Shu (Sichuan)”; the second section is “History of Prosperous Heaven in Ancient Shu (Sichuan): Agriculture and Trade in Sanxingdui”; section 3 is “From Clay Period to Wares Times: Sanxingdui Pottery”; section 4 is “Using Jade to Communicate with the Divine: Sanxingdui Jade Artifact”; the fifth section is “Fire Melting Metal: Sanxingdui Smelting”; the last section is “The Through-Heaven Divine Tree: A Symbol of Wisdom and Spirit of the Ancient Shu (Sichuan) People”.
The gallery takes the panoramic wall screen of Sanxingdui Ruins as the main exhibit, and the pair of peculiarly shaped beasts at the bottom of the altar as the prototype for the main sculpture, supplemented by a large mural “The Origin of Yangtze River Civilization”. All of them reveal the depth and significance of the Sanxingdui civilization and characterize its typical significance as an outstanding representative of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
The history of ancient Shu begins from the Late Neolithic period to the late Shang and early Zhou dynasties. The grand scale of Sanxingdui ancient capital of Shu (Sichuan) is displayed in an all-around way. It reveals the nature of the site of Sanxingdui, a prosperous ancient city and state in the early civilization of southwest China, and highlights its importance in China’s early urban civilization.
This section introduces the general landscape of agriculture and commerce in the ancient Shu (Sichuan) State. Numerous wine vessels and all kinds of domestic animal artifacts show that agriculture was already at a high level and livestock breeding also developed on a certain scale. The flourishing trade and commerce of that time can be reflected from seashells, bronze shells, lacquerware, jade ornaments, costumes, and crown ornaments of bronze figures unearthed from the two pits of Sanxingdui Ruins.
In section 3, the artifacts reflect the achievements of the ancient Shu (Sichuan) State in pottery making and show the distinctive types of pottery and the mature and sophisticated pottery making techniques. The various types of pottery products made by the wheel-making method (still used today) can tell the great progress of pottery-making in ancient Shu (Sichuan). The small and delicate pottery pieces in the shape of figures, animals, and plants embody the lifestyle and aesthetic style of the ancestors.
This section presents the jade artifacts unearthed from Sanxingdui Ruins and sacrificial pits, highlighting their cultural value and artistic value. From the items on display, visitors can find out the technological process of making jade artifacts from raw materials to semi-finished products and finally to finished products. It is the jade artifacts that reveal the connotation, function, and spiritual value of jade in ancient Shu (Sichuan) religious rites.
The fifth section shows some bronze ritual vessels of Sanxingdui to reflect the metallurgical technology of ancient Shu (Sichuan) State in Sanxingdui. The Sanxingdui bronzes are exquisitely crafted and exquisitely shaped, reaching the highest level of the model casting process at the time. The Sanxingdui gold vessels are mainly made by three steps, hammering, molding, and pasting. The whole process apparently represented a high level of craftsmanship during the Chinese Bronze Age.
The purpose of this section is to reveal the symbolic meaning of the “cosmic tree” in ancient Shu (Sichuan) primitive religious culture. The grand artifact was built to pursue the primitive religious concept of the unity of man and nature and the communication between man and God, as well as the worship of the sun god and the space-time view of the three realms and the world. As the most appealing exhibit, the “cosmic tree” plays an important role in expressing Sanxingdui culture at the end of Gallery 1.
Gallery 2 presents a comprehensive and systematic display of the majestic bronze sculptures of Sanxingdui Ruins and a group of mysterious and bizarre bronze artifacts of ancient Shu (Sichuan) through a continuous combination of progressive scenes.
When entering the preface, visitors will see the main iconic sculpture: a bronze figure, a man with a bird’s head, accompanied by a large bronze relief as the back screen. It is intended to reveal the theme– “Human and God”, which reflects the spiritual pursuit of the ancient Shu (Sichuan) people and the prospects of a bright future for mankind.
The group of bronze masks represented by the Zongmu mask (mask with both eyes projecting outward in a columnar fashion) is one of the most distinctive cultural relics among those of Sanxingdui Ruins. Also, it is the earliest and largest unearthed mask group in China.
This hall is dedicated to the display of bronze masks, mainly focusing on the Zongmu mask, the crowned Zongmu mask, and extra-large masks.
A large number of human masks and animal masks line up to gather around the main exhibits. Numerous strange eye-shaped artifacts with masks are also arranged here, thus creating the grand momentum and mysterious atmosphere of the hall.
In ancient China, where the tradition of idolatry was largely non-existent, a large number of bronze figures from Sanxingdui Ruins can be regarded as the highest quality at that time. They are not only symbols of gods, but also representatives of the ruling groups on earth. The central display case is backed up by tall display cases on both sides of the hall, forming a multi-layered progressive space. In doing so, the bronze figure group can be fully presented.
“Rituals were the most important events in ancient societies”, which is enough to explain the ideology of the ancestors. Based on the prototypes of the Sanxingdui cultural relics “Altar of God” and many figure statues, and with the help of archaeological examples of the Chengdu sacrificial platform in the ancient Shu (Sichuan) period, this hall constructs a simulation scene of ancient ritual performance and sacrifice ceremony.
The high sacrificial platform, the towering altar, the worshiping crowd, and the big firelight are all aimed at expressing the spiritual pursuit of the theory that man is an integral part of nature.
From that scene, visitors can know the ancient people’s desire - living in harmony with nature. Hence, it makes sense to understand the strong sense of life and broadly inclusive cosmic consciousness of the ancient Shu (Sichuan) ancestors.
Huge Bronze Standing Man is another precious relic from Sanxingdui Ruins. Its identity should be a spiritual leader and secular leader in ancient times. The Huge Bronze Standing Man was set in the special hall to show its unparalleled dignity and preciousness. In this hall, several full-body figures of Sanxingdui bronze figures are set here, which represent the characteristics of the cultural relics exhibited on the first floor.
This hall is located on the second floor and contains 10 pieces (groups) of mysterious and typical artifacts of Sanxingdui Ruins. These artifacts are peculiar in shape, well-made and rich in connotation. Most of them were permanent important articles in ancestral temples at that time.
They were used for worshiping gods, channeling spirits, and suppressing evil spirits. Through these grotesque, wonderful, and quirky bronze shapes, visitors can gain a picture of the spiritual world of ancient Shu (Sichuan) ancestors and may admire the infinite charm of ancient artifacts.
This hall is located on the third floor, and it is composed of three parts: the first is to tell the story of Sanxingdui’s discovery. It mainly introduces the brief history of Sanxingdui’s discovery and excavation for more than half a century in the form of “old photos”.
The second one focuses on some of the “ancient mysteries” about Sanxingdui Ruins, leaving endless suspense and imagination for visitors. The third part, the special digital museum and the small projection room provide an advanced way of the exhibition by modern and high-tech devices. In this hall, visitors will have an opportunity to participate in and spend leisure time here.
Sanxingdui is distributed on the high platforms on the banks of the Mamu River. It is composed of three mounds with a length of about 10-100 meters and a height of 5-8 meters. There is a beautiful story about Sanxingdui.
According to the legend, the Jade Emperor (the Supreme Deity of Taoism) scattered three handfuls of earth from the sky and they landed on the bank of the Jianjiang River in Guanghan, forming three large mounds that stood out on the plain like three gold stars in a straight line. Hence, it was named Sanxingdui (Three-Star Piles).
On the other side of the Mamu River, there is a curved plateau that rises above the surrounding area. Inspired by the shape, people call this piece of plateau Moon Bay. Sanxingdui and the Moon Bay are across the river from each other and have been in existence since ancient times. Later, it became one of the eight scenes of Guanghan --Three Stars Accompanying the Moon.
The discovery story of Sanxingdui Ruins will begin with a pit of jade wares accidentally discovered by a local farmer named Yan Daocheng and his son in their spring plowing in 1929. According to experts, there are more than 300 pieces of varied types of jade artifacts.
In the spring of 1931, after hearing the news, Dong Duyi (Archdeacon Donnithorne), a British missionary in Guanghan County, asked the local garrison to help publicize, protect, and investigate the discovery. He also handed the collected jade artifacts to the West China University Museum.
After that, the curator of the West China University Museum organized an archaeological team in the spring of 1934 and conducted a ten-day excavation near the discovery spot. As a result, more than 600 cultural relics were unearthed and collected in the West China University Museum.
Take bus 11, 13, 6 and get off at the Sanxingdui Museum Station.
Chinese: 请带我去三星堆博物馆。English: Please take me to Sanxingdui Museum.
If you go to Sanxingdui Museum from the Chengdu city center (Rhombus Park Aura Chengdu Hotel), it takes about 1 hour (about 100 yuan).
If you go to Sanxingdui Museum from Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport, it takes about 1.5 hours (about 135 yuan).
If you go to Sanxingdui Museum from Chengdu Railway Station, it takes about 1 hour (about 100 yuan).
If you go to Sanxingdui Museum from Chengdu East Railway Station, it takes about 1 hour (about 100 yuan).
If you go to Sanxingdui Museum from Chengdu West Railway Station, it takes about 1 hour and 20 minutes (about 120 yuan).
If you go to Sanxingdui Museum from Chengdu South Railway Station, it takes about 1 hour and 20 minutes (about 120 yuan).
0086 13801211578 
tours@chinatourstar.com 
Room 814, Building B, No.15 jia1hao, Jianguo Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing,100024 China. 
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