Layer: Expert Theories

Suzanne Cahill

It has been suggested that the tusks, the ivory, are part of a very early trade between the Sichuan Basin, where these figures were found, and Southeast Asia, where elephants were abundant. There may well have been what we could now call a 'Southern Silk Road;' that is, trade across land and by sea with Southeast Asia.

Narrator

And what about the pits themselves?

Suzanne Cahill

The answer that we'll probably come to but not yet proven, is that they were sacrificial pits, and everything was dumped in all at once, as part of some very gigantic and extravagant sacrifice.