Discovering the Sa Huynh Culture

      One hundred years have passed since French customs official M. Vinet discovered a large field that contained burial urns in Duc Pho district, Quang Ngai province in 1909 and wrote about her discovery in the Vien Dong Bac Co School's magazine (Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient). Since then, many people have studied this culture. On July 8, 2009, the National Museum of Vietnamese History for the first time unveiled an exhibition entitled 'Sa Huynh - 100 Years of Discovery and Research'.
The physical remains of the Sa Huynh culture have been studied by both Vietnamese and foreign archeologists. So far nearly 80 relics of the Sa Huynh culture have been found in Ha Tinh, Binh Dinh, Hue, Da Nang, Quang Ngai, Dong Nai, Khanh Hoa and Tay Nguyen (the Central Highlands).
At the exhibition, various kinds of objects have been put on display, including jewelry, stone weapons, axes, hoes, graters, necklaces, earrings, animal bones, and many things made of glass, agate, pottery and brass (harpoons, arrows, fishhooks, daggers, lances and breastplates). Of the artifacts, the burial urns are most unique and attractive. The burial urns are cylindrical, oval and spherical in shape. The covers of the jars are in the shape of truncated cones. The largest burial urn is 1.8m tall and has a diameter of 1m. Most of the burial urns are less than 1m tall and have an average diameter of 55cm. The lives of Sa Huynh people were associated closely with the sea and for this reason, the Sa Huynh people cremated the bodies of their dead and the ashes were put in the large urns along with stone/iron/brass instruments or jewelry into jars and buried in groups in the coastal sand dunes.
In late 2008, a peach-shaped burial urn was found for the first time at the Bai Coi historic site (Xuan Vien, Nghi Xuan, Ha Tinh). This jar is now on display at the National Museum of Vietnamese History. It was found at a depth of 0.38m. The jar is covered with decorative patterns and its cover is in the shape of a truncated cone. Inside the jar there is nothing besides the ashes of a cremated body. A broken bowl was found next to the jar.
Apart from the burial urns, the Sa Huynh people have also been found to have buried their dead in other manners.
The 'Sa Huynh - 100 Years of Discovery and Research' exhibition lets visitors learn something about the material and spiritual lives of Sa Huynh people. The discovery of the Sa Huynh culture has encouraged scientists to do more research to discover its secrets.