Warriors of Ancient Ba Tribe

There was no difference in alloy content between swords in the south and those in the north. The content of tin was 18-20%. The rest was almost copper. Lead accounted for about 2%.

In the 1980s, experts used modern scientific and technological means to measure the alloy proportion of a Ba sword unearthed at Xiaotianxi, Fuling, Chongqing. They concluded that except for the relative loss caused in the process of smelting, the alloy proportion was basically identical to that of bronze weapons used on the Central Plains in ancient times as described in the 鈥淏ook of Diverse Crafts鈥 Their conclusion happened to coincide with Dong Yawei鈥檚 view.

During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Ba craftsmen from generation to generation made bronzes with their own experience and skills. They did not have the aid of any instruments.

Those kids that collected bronzes by the river are now in their fifties. As inhabitants of this land, their life is always connected with the mysterious objects lying in the land and their stories. Almost every villager here is a skillful hand of archaeological excavation. To help the archaeological team in the excavation is part of their life. The reward they obtain is an important source of their income.

Shao Kaisheng (Villager):

We discovered a special tomb in 1998. We dug and found a body. His chest was covered with such a big bronze. We didn鈥檛 know what it was.

During that excavation, Shao Kaisheng, a villager, first found a bronze object the local people had never seen before.

Sun Zifeng (Staff member, Cultural Relics Preservation Office, Yunyang County, Chongqing):

The bronze board had 4 symmetric handles.They were shaped like this. The surface of the bronze board carried marks of rattan.

After it was unearthed, the grotesque bronze was damaged when it was moved, leaving behind infinite suspense. The excavation of many bronze weapons brought another doubt to archaeologists. From the tombs of the states of Qin and Chu on the Central Plains dating back to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, archaeologists found that aside from weapons buried with the occupants of the tombs, there were relevant coats of mail. The Ba people had advanced bronze weapons, but no coats of mail have been found from the ruins of the Ba people and their tombs.