Sanxingdui Museum

Sanxingdui Museum is an archaeological museum in Guanghan, Sichuan Province, that houses artifacts from the Bronze Age Shu culture uncovered at the nearby Sanxingdui site. The collection is especially noted for its large bronze masks, figures and unusual ritual objects dating to the late second to early first millennium BCE.

The museum’s highlights include life-sized and oversized bronze masks, bronze trees and complex ritual vessels that are distinct from contemporaneous finds in the Yellow River core. Exhibits present material recovered from multiple large sacrificial pits and accompanying pottery and jade objects.

Initial discoveries at the Sanxingdui site date to the early 20th century, with major, site-changing excavations in 1986 that revealed concentrated pits of bronzes and other ritual items. The museum state facility opened in 1997 and was substantially expanded with new exhibition space that opened in 2021.

The museum sits in Guanghan county-level city, roughly 30-40 kilometres north of central Chengdu in the Sichuan Basin, and is accessible by road from Chengdu and surrounding cities.

• 1986 excavations: Major excavations in 1986 revealed a series of large sacrificial pits containing thousands of bronzes and other artifacts, transforming understanding of the Shu culture.
• New exhibition halls (2021): A major new museum facility and expanded exhibition galleries opened to the public in 2021 to display additional finds and larger bronzes.

What to See #

• Main Exhibition Halls: Permanent galleries that display Bronze Age finds from the Sanxingdui site, including large bronze masks, ritual vessels and other artifacts recovered from the archaeological pits.
• Archaeological site and pits: The archaeological park and preserved excavation areas that interpret the location of multiple large sacrificial pits uncovered at Sanxingdui during 20th-century excavations.