Relics from mysterious ancient Chinese civilisation on display in the US

When the mysterious people of China's Sanxingdui packed up and moved away 3,000 years ago, they left behind no written language and no indication of who they were, where they were going or why.

What they did leave was a gigantic cache of intricately fabricated, larger-than-life bronze art works - each created at a time during which historians doubted technology even existed to make a bronze on such a grand scale.

They also left several dozen elephant tusks, in an area where elephants were not believed to have been introduced yet.

Now the objects themselves are moving, just as their creators did three millennia ago, and will go on display today at southern California's Bowers Museum, the first stop on a rare US tour.

"China's Lost Civilisation: The Mystery of Sanxingdui" includes more than 100 ancient pieces, some never seen outside China. The exhibit will remain at the Bowers until March 15, after which they will move to the Museum of Natural Science in Houston, Texas.

"You look at these figures and they're really unworldly," said the museum's president, Peter Keller, as he stood in the shadow of a 2.5-metre-tall statue of a man in bare feet, flowing robe and elaborate headdress.