Scholars believe the site was established 2,800 to 4,800 years ago, and that the archaeological discoveries show that it was a highly developed and prosperous cultural hub in ancient times.

The site was discovered accidentally in 1929, when Yan Daocheng, a villager in Guanghan, unearthed a pit full of jade and stone artifacts while repairing a sewage ditch at the side of his house.

From the 1930s onward, numerous archaeologists conducted excavations at the site. The breakthrough came in 1984, when the remains of large palaces and parts of the eastern, western and southern city walls were found at the site. Two years later, two large pits full of bronze artifacts, including bizarre masks and human figurines, were found at the location.

The discoveries confirmed that the site housed the ruins of an ancient city that was the political, economic and cultural center of the Shu Kingdom. In ancient times, Sichuan was known as Shu.

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