Out with the old, in with the new

In Xu's eyes, archaeology involves long-term devotion and any expectations for quick success or instant rewards should be left at the door. "It has been my good fortune to work at the Sanxingdui site, but the sensational discoveries my team has made could be seen as quite accidental," he said.

Speaking of the pit team, Xu says more than half the members were born in the 1990s. The daily work of Xu and his team can be split into two parts: the indoor work of reorganizing materials and conducting research, and the outdoor archaeological fieldwork, both of which require great meticulousness. Take archaeological excavations as an example. With countless relics in the sacrificial pits and the artifacts piled layer upon layer, the archaeological team cannot directly step into the pit in case they cause damage to the fragile treasures.

"After much trial and error, we came up with better ways of working," Xu said. Finally, they decided to use a suspended scaffold that people could lie on and go about their work.

But despite such careful planning, sometimes the weather lets them down. "Fieldwork is, of course, susceptible to natural conditions. It's heartbreaking to see some of our structures collapse due to heavy rain, making all our hard work in vain," Xu said.

But the archaeologists are never defeated by such difficulties since patience is a must-have quality for the job, Xu noted.

"Excavation at Sanxingdui actually goes back almost 90 years, and it took more than 30 years to make just two major discoveries," he said.