You will find plenty of information on-line about Sanxingdui, unfortunately a lot of it is supposition as there are few known records of this time and place in China’s history. The culture appears to have vanished.

This means that little is actually certain about the culture that existed at Sanxingdui and Jinsha other than the artefacts themselves of which the bronzes and gold masks are the ‘rock stars’.

The photos below do not cover all the bronzes and to be honest I just ran out of time to see everything.

Getting to Sanxingdui, once you are in Chengdu, is a little awkward but manageable. Most common route seems to be to get to the Panda Park, where you can get a very large dose of cute pandas – recommended.

But even if you don’t want to see the pandas locals seem to still go to the panda park first and then catch a bus to Sanxingdui. The bus will pick you up again after  few hours and then drop you back in Chengdu.

There are plenty of other spots of interest in Chengdu including the Dufu Poet’s Thatched Cottage which is essentially a nice park in the middle of Chengdu set around the site of the famous poet’s cottage.

Chengdu – Jinsha & Dufu Poet’s Thatched Cottage …

A visit to Jinsha is also recommended. Jinsha is an archaeological site covering  the culture that followed Sanxingdui.

Another subject for theories – why the move to Jinsha? Earthquake, invasion, flooding, …. pick your theory.

Jinsha has more masks but the piece de resistance is the Golden Sun Bird below.

Jinsha is accessible via the Chengdu Metro.

Anyway – back to Sanxingdui and it’s stunning bronzes.