Bronze spoked wheels from Sanxingdui and ancient indian myths about Garuda

Abstract

The article presents a review and analysis of bronze wheels with fi ve spokes each and anthropomorphic statue of the Bronze Age Sanxingdui culture spread in the Sichuan province of the PRC. The author calls “statues” life-size human figures with a height of at least 50 cm (but not their parts, such as heads), assembled from pre-cast parts. He suggests calling the smaller sculptures, cast at one time, “statuettes” . The design features of bronze anthropomorphic statues of Sanxingdui allow us to synchronize the time of their creation with the existence of bronze masks of types A and C, as well as bronze “spirit trees” No. 2 and No. 1, since the same technological methods were used in their production. Bronze wheels could be related to the skirt-wearing human fi gure with talons holding in them two snake-like creatures with bird’s heads. Both those wheels and the statue could be interpreted with the help of ancient Indian myths about Garuda. Recent fi nds in JK8 sacrifi cial pit from Sanxingdui were also taken into account in the article.

Keywords

• аrchaeology
• china
• bronze age
• sanxingdui
• sichuan province
• anthropomorphic statues
• sacrificial pits
• bronze casting
• interpretation
• hindu mythology