Origins of our journey

According to Luo Shan, a young woman working as a receptionist in the Sanxingdui Museum in Guanghan, Sichuan, the site has been inundated with visitors and there aren't enough guides to show them around.

As a matter of fact, the Sanxingdui Ruins and Jinsha Ruins are closely related. Zhu Zhangyi, curator of the Jinsha Site Museum, says: "The National Cultural Heritage Administration is promoting their joint application for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List."

The Jinsha Ruins are most likely to be the political and cultural center to which the ancient Shu (ancient name for Sichuan) Kingdom moved from Sanxingdui about 3,000 years ago, says Zhu, who has been an archaeologist since his participation in the excavation of the No 1 and No 2 pits of the Sanxingdui Ruins in 1986.

Archaeologists have conducted excavations at the site since the 1930s, following the discovery of the Sanxingdui Ruins in 1929 by a farmer digging a ditch in his fields.