Exhibitions

2000-2010
Masks of Mystery
Fri 22 December 2000 - Sun 18 March 2001

China reveals another dimension to its distant past in this remarkable exhibition of Bronze Masks from the Sacrificial Pits of the Ancient Shu Kingdom. In 1986 workers in a small village in South West China made an astonishing discovery - two ancient sacrificial pits dating from the 13th century BCE. Buried inside beneath a layer of elephant tusks and charred animal bones, they uncovered the most incredible revelations of the ancient Chinese imagination � amazing bronze masks of spectacular modernity.

Little is known of the people who resided in the ancient Shu Kingdom or their beliefs. Were they of deities, ancestors, priests or shamans? All we know is that these truly are Masks of Mystery.

Masks of Mystery is a major exhibition in the 2001 Sydney Festival.

 
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