Evidence Of Silk Was Uncovered In Bronze Age Sacrificial Pits Located In China
At the Sanxingdui archaeological site in Sichuan, China, researchers have confirmed the use of silk in sacrificial rituals practiced by a civilization from the Bronze Age in the Yangtze River Basin.
Silk was a key material in the development of the global trade network along the Silk Road. Due to the organic material’s susceptibility to degradation, tracing the origins of silk use is challenging.
Limited evidence has been left behind in the archaeological record. However, tools associated with silk production, dating back to the Neolithic period, offer some indirect clues.
Researchers from the China National Silk Museum and the Sichuan Research Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology uncovered layers of ash and burned artifacts, such as bronze and jade, in eight sacrificial pits at the Sanxingdui site. The pits date back to the late Shang Dynasty, which occurred from 1600 to 1100 B.C.E.
Among the pits, there was a bronze “grid-like ware” embedded with jade. It contained fragments of fabric, prompting the researchers to investigate whether silk was present.
They used advanced analytical methods like immunoaffinity column enrichment, enzyme-linked immunoabsorbent assay, scanning electron microscopy, and proteomics to identify silk remnants. These techniques helped detect silk in samples that were severely degraded.
The samples were taken from traces of fabric on bronze and jade artifacts and from layers of ash in a sacrificial pit.
The protein that makes up silk’s structure, silk fibroin, was analyzed. Tests confirmed that silk fibroin was in the fabric remains and ash layers.
Mulberry silk was also identified as the material that was used, illustrating that silk farming required mulberry trees to be grown in order to feed silkworms. The finding aligned with historical accounts of silk production.
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Overall, the analysis determined that fabrics recovered from the Sanxingdui pits contained silk. The partial preservation of the silk residues was made possible by mineralization processes that were driven by copper ions released from surrounding bronze artifacts.
The traces of silk were wrapped around jade artifacts and the bronze grid-like ware, implying that they were used in rituals. The fact that some silk residues were left behind meant that not all silk was burned up during these rituals.
The researchers suggest that silk was used in religious ceremonies as a way to communicate between heaven and Earth. It verifies historical records of silk being utilized in ancient China for sacrificial temple clothing and rituals.
Previous radiocarbon dating of the Sanxingdui site found that it was 3,148 to 2,966 years old. This makes the silk fibers the oldest examples ever discovered.
In the broader Yangtze River region, including areas near Sanxingdui, silk farming began over 5,000 years ago.
Today, the location is still known for its mulberry tree-fed silk farming and is the biggest producer and exporter of silk in the world.
The study was published in Scientific Reports.
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