Cultural Tour 1

Bowers Museum

China’s Lost Civilization: The Mystery of Sanxingdui

Bronze Masks of Human-Animal Composite Creatures

The Bowers Museum is located in Santa Ana, California. This museum has several focuses from early California culture to Mexican art and the history of the California Missions and also has a collection of Polynesian and Asian artwork and cultural artifacts on display.

I traveled to this museum to visit a special exhibition called China’s Lost Civilization: The Mystery of Sanxingdui. This particular exhibit will only be available for a limited time since it is regarded as a Chinese National Treasure and will have to leave in a few months and travel to a new museum to share highlights of a rare and significant look into the bronze making capabilities of an early previously unknown civilization living in the central plains region of China. The civilization only survived for about 350 years and then vanished with no written historical explanation as to why or where they went. Unusual sculptural human and animal hybrid icons, masks, weapons, jades and a huge cache of elephant tusks were also unearthed which was unusual because elephants did not live in China then and they do not live there now. The pieces shown in this collection were mysterious and beautiful and left me with a curiosity of wanting to know more about these people.

What this short lived cultural period could point to from a business stand point is that China has the ability to be very advanced in many ways culturally, through artwork, and technological abilities and yet still remain off the record and secretive. As a business person it would be very important to know that the Chinese are an ancient civilization and take care to reflect on the history as a guiding tool for how to live now by looking to their past.