Today’s article and translation is about a Chinese archaeological site called 三星堆 （sānxīng duī), Three Star Mound in English. Although it first emerged as an archaeological site in 1929, it wasn’t until 1986 that really important artefacts were unearthed. The site hit the headlines again in March 2021 when over 500 artefacts were unearthed including gold masks, pottery and jade. These discoveries brought the site back into the international conscious and led to a record number of visitors to the 三星堆 museum and visitor centre on the weekend of the 2021 QingMing festival (Festival of the Dead) with almost 20,000 visitors recorded on the 3rd of April alone.
Today we present our translation of a video about the Sanxingdui 三星堆 site that appeared on the 2nd April 2021 on YouTube. A use for this translation might be found from a variety of quarters. If you are a Mandarin Chinese student at intermediate or advanced level you will find this video and our work useful for your studies. Or maybe you are an IELTS student from China looking to learn how to describe your countries rich ancient history. Finally, you may be an amateur historian looking to find out about one of the world’s oldest and most mysterious ancient sites.
The video is called 解密三星堆 – Lost Civilisation. Basically this means decoding the lost civilisation of Sanxingdui. If you would like to see more of his videos then check out his YouTube page: XIAOHAN YOUTUBE.
Part 1 三星堆 – The Video
You will note that there is a difference between the Chinese characters that appear as subtitles in the first 38 seconds of the video and the characters that appear below. This is because in the first 38 seconds of the video they use traditional Chinese subtitles, whereas we have used Mandarin Chinese below.
00.00 – 00.38
The translation：
0.00 Mandarin1986一群砖瓦厂的工人正在地理取土烧砖。他们发现了土里有一些玉石的碎片。于是上报考古队赶来对这里的土层进行了挖掘。发现了一些形状怪异的青铜人像这。些人像让见多识广考古学家们都惊讶不已，因为这里出土的每一件文物都和中国传统的文物相差甚远。这就是著名的三星堆遗址。他们处在距今3000多年的时代，但似乎没有表现出和当时的中原地区有过交流的痕迹他们到底来自何方。今天我们就来聊一聊中国历史上最特别的三星堆文明。
English – In 1986 a team of workers from a brick and tile factory were taking soil from the ground to burn in the process of firing bricks. While working they came across some jade fragments. They immediately reported these findings to a team of archaeologists who came to excavate. They unearthed some strange bronze figures which confused the team because they bore no resemblance to other discoveries of the same time frame in China.
Part 2 晓涵哥来了 – Brother XiaoHan is Here
In the next section we get to meet the author of this video, a YouTuber from China called 晓涵 XiaoHan. Again in this part of the video you will note that the subtitles are in traditional Chinese characters.
00.40-
Mandarin – 大家好我是晓涵哥。今天我们来聊三星堆。首先这个地方为什么叫三星堆？在四川广汉地区的真武村。有三个不明原因形成高5-8米的巨大土堆。呈三颗星星的排列状，人们就把他们叫三星堆。在这三个土堆的北面还有一个月亮形状的阶梯状地貌叫月亮湾。所以这里也叫做三星伴月堆。1929年中国大地正处在新旧交替。各方势力割据混战的时期。三星堆附真武村的一名叫做燕道城的村民。在自家门口清理水溝. 突然挖出一个长方形的抗道这些抗道被石板盖住。 他翻开了石板发现了里面堆满了玉器。
English – Hello everyone, I am brother Xiaohan. Today we will talk about Sanxingdui. First of all, why is this place called Sanxingdui? In Zhenwu Village, Guanhan District, Sichuan for unknown reasons there are three huge mounds about 5-8 high. They are arranged like three stars, so people call them Sanxingdui. There is also a moon-shaped, raised platform to the north of the three mounds. This area is called SanXing Banyuedui. In 1929 the land of China was under a process of transformation from the old to the new. It was a period of conflict between various competing forces. In this year in Zhenwu Village a villager named Yandaocheng was repairing a ditch on his property when he hit a rectangular barrier. The barrier was covered with slabs. He opened one of the slabs and found it was full of jade.
1.27
Mandarin – 燕道城于是将悄悄坑道还原，之后告诉家人。在夜晚将坑道内的400多件玉器，全部搬回家了中藏了起来。但是这个秘密随着燕道城及年后在古玩市场是上以低廉的价格出售部分玉器时被发现。当时这名精明的古玩商人一眼就看出这些玉器的不同。随后他打听到了这些玉器是出土广汉三星堆的地方。这些玉器也成为成了知名的 “广汉玉器”。
1931年当时在附近传教的英国剑桥大学博士董宜笃对这些广汉玉器非常感兴趣。他向燕道城借了几件文物拿去紧定。最后经过的地址学家戴谦和鉴定得出是商周时期的文物。随之就有人就在当地偷挖。最后当地县长下令该地所有出土的所有文物都帰国家所有禁止私人挖掘违反者法办。这才避免了三星堆被盗掘一空。燕道城也主动将所挖文物上缴国家。
1934年由华西大学组织的考古队对月亮湾一带这行滴一次挖掘。仅仅只挖掘了10多天就出土了文物600多件。所出文物交给当时对青铜器颇有研究的郭沫若。其断代为公元前1100年。后来随着中国战乱考古工作终止. 这个时候并未挖掘出三星堆的核心文物。
直到1986年一群砖瓦厂的工人发现了玉石的碎片。上报后才有考古队前来这行保护性挖掘。最后发现这里是个规模巨大的遗址堆。
(instead of reporting this to the authorities) Yan Dao Cheng then decided to cover the tunnel and told his family about his find. At night they returned and removed over 400 fragments of jade from the tunnel and hid them elsewhere. However, their secret was brought to light a few years later when they tried to sell these fragments at an antiques market. At a glance the shrewd and experienced trader was able to see that these were not typical jade pieces. After some more research he discovered that thes pieces were unearthed in Guanghan, in SanXingDui. As such the pieces were names as the ‘Guanghan Jades.’
A couple of years later these pieces were brought to the attention of an English missionary called Vyvyan Donnithorne who was a preacher in a town near Sanxingdui. This Cambridge educated scholar was immediately aware of the possible significance of thes epieces and reported their existence to the authorities.