Sanxingdui

Sanxingdui is the ruins of the capital of the ancient Shu Kingdom. In the 1980s, researchers found two pits full of strange relics: piles of elephant tusks, gold masks, and bronze figures. The objects were 3,000 years old, and unlike anything seen in China.

Sanxingdui was once the capital of a powerful and technologically advanced civilization, which flourished in the region around the time of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun.

The prize find was a huge bronze statue known as the Large Standing Figure — a giant, intricately detailed rendering of a man standing 2.6 meters tall and weighing nearly 200 kg.