Sanxingdui Hair: Unbalanced Power

Among about 2,000 artifacts and thousands of fragments of relics unearthed in the eight pits of the Sanxingdui Ruins site in Sichuan Province in China’s southwest, bronze masks and figurines have attracted the most attention. They are of unusual appearance, and have particularly protruding eyes. Do they resemble the ancient Shu people of this area, or perhaps people from West Asia or even further away, say, Egypt? Some even say they are images of aliens, a speculation dismissed by scholars. 

Some possible keys to the secret are not only found on their faces in the front, but also from behind. There are two hairstyles. In one style, the hair is kept upright by hairpins. In the other style, the hair is in braids which either go down the back of head or are in buns on top of the head.  Some researchers believe the bronze figures with hairpins are theocratic authorities, while those with braids are secular authorities. These hairstyles may also provide clues to a riddle that has puzzled scholars for a long time: why for thousands of years the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River was the center of the Chinese civilization with diversified origins?