The Young Chinese Crafter Remakes The Sanxingdui Gold Mask

“Talking” with master from 3,000 years ago, A young Chinese crafter Cai Qian spent 15 days remade the gold mask to restore the radiance of newly-unearthed gold mask relics from the Sanxingdui Ruins site and recorded the whole process. The Chinese National Cultural Heritage Administration shared his video on its social media platform, encouraging him to study cultural relics.

About The Sanxingdui Gold Mask

In 2021, archaeologists discovered the partial remains of a 3,000-year-old gold mask at the Sanxingdui dig in China’s Sichuan province.
The mask weighs 280 grams and is estimated to be 84 percent gold, with 13-14 percent silver, and other materials. With a square face, large hollowed-out eye, triangular nose, and a large ear, the mask represents a typical Sanxingdui style. Much bigger than any human face could wear, it is thought to be meant for religious rites and sacrifices.

▲The photo shows a gold mask unearthed from an ancient sacrificial pit at the Sanxingdui Ruins site in southwest China’s Sichuan province. (Photo/Courtesy of Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute)

Who Remakes The Gold Mask

Bilibili uploader”才疏学浅的才浅” (hereinafter referred to as 才浅) released a video, with 500 grams of pure gold hand-recovery of the Sanxingdui gold mask, at that time, netizens praise him, he is not “才疏学浅”, but “才华横溢”.
He is neither an archaeologist, nor a non-genetic person, a pure handicraft enthusiast.
From Sanxingdui cultural relics to anime weapons, the ultra-high degree of restoration allows him to have over 4million fans on Bilibili.

The Remake Process of The Gold Mask

It is evaluated that the whole gold mask could weigh more than 500 grams.

From a small, square gold nugget to a gold piece with an average thickness of about 0.3 mm, it is pounded purely by hand.
It is first softened by fire, then pounded quickly and hard with a 1.8 kg hammer.
This process is repeated back and forth and requires tens of thousands of pounds.
Just listening to it, hands are already starting to get sore.

If beating the gold thin is a physical job, then making the gold sheet into a three-dimensional mask is a technical job.
Only shallow speculation, 3000 years ago the ancients, should be the first to create a bronze mask, and then put the gold sheet on the bronze, pounding out the gold mask.
But where to get bronze masks? Can not, can only “fabricate from thin air”.

The gold nugget becomes a thin sheet, the thickness of 3 sheets of A4 paper.

With a glue hammer, the outline is knocked out little by little on the cast mold.
The whole process is as interesting as moving from 2-D to 3-D.

Of course, there’s plenty of trouble.
The carved nose kept getting creases and how it wouldn’t whack flat, whacked, broken, and had to be repaired.
But miraculously, after making the folds on the sides of the nose, all the unevenness on the nose disappeared.

In fact, it’s all the experience of the ancients who figured it out in practice.
Because the pounding style of making gold and silver will inevitably form folds, so the ancients used beautiful folds to take away the folds.
This unexpected conversation, spanning three thousand years, gave Caiaphas great confidence.

Notes

才疏学浅 [Pinyin: cái shū xué qiǎn], Chinese idiom, meaning have little talent and less learning; be crude and unlearned; one’s ability is inferior and one’s knowledge limited. ; wanting in ability and shallow in knowledge; have slight talent and superficial learning.
She is untalented and unlearned.
她才疏学浅。

才华横溢 [Pinyin: Cái huá héng yì], Chinese idiom, meaning very talented, mostly refers to literature, art and other aspects.
He is a talented craftsman.
他是一个才华横溢的工匠。