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Hong Kong’s Sanxingdui museum showcase: sacred trees, mythical creatures among relics brought to life by holograms

  • Feature will be part of exhibition at Hong Kong Palace Museum from September 27 to January 8, 2024, boasting 120 ancient items mostly from mysterious kingdom
  • Sanxingdui finds in Sichuan regarded as one of the most important archaeological discoveries of 20th century

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A nearly four-metre-tall bronze tree at the Sanxingdui Museum in Sichuan province. Considered too valuable to leave its home in mainland China, the tree will be on display in hologram form in Hong Kong. Photo: May Tse
Denise Tsang

Against the backdrop of a dark universe, birds fly around a shimmering gold tree while others perch on its flower buds and branches. This is a 1:1 holographic projection that brings to life a mysterious artefact among China’s Sanxingdui ruins, with the relic believed to date back some 3,000 to 3,800 years.

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Little is known about the story behind the nearly four-metre-tall (13 foot) structure, believed to be a sacred tree and one of the largest bronze creations of its kind found in China. It is among tens of thousands of relics that had been unearthed since the 1920s at the Sanxingdui archaeological site in Guanghan city in Sichuan province.
Hong Kong Palace Museum assistant curator Wang Shengyu (left) and head curator Jiao Tianlong (right) pose in front of a multimedia installation. Photo: May Tse
Hong Kong Palace Museum assistant curator Wang Shengyu (left) and head curator Jiao Tianlong (right) pose in front of a multimedia installation. Photo: May Tse
Although the prized tree – deemed too precious to leave its exhibition ground – sits at the Sanxingdui Museum, also in Sichuan in mainland China, the multimedia holographic presentation of the relic will be part of a coming show at the Hong Kong Palace Museum, called “Gazing at Sanxingdui: new archaeological discoveries in Sichuan”.

The exhibition from September 27 this year to January 8, 2024, in the West Kowloon Cultural District arts hub will showcase 120 artefacts mostly from Sanxingdui and some from the Jinsha ruins in the same province, marking the first time such items will be shipped out of the mainland.

The Sanxingdui finds are considered one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century, and among the most prolific in China since the Qin dynasty’s Terracotta Warriors in 1974. But Sanxingdui, shrouded in steeper mystery, is at least a millennium older.

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