Many visitors who come to Chengdu for the first time would be surprised about how developed it is. Some people may know it is home to Giant Pandas, some heard about its delicious food, some are told about its tea houses, but these are far from the over-all Chengdu, the capital city of Southwestern China's Sichuan province. The opening-up to the outside world in recent years has made Chengdu a city that attracts more than half of the Fortune Global 500 companies, with 78 international air routes linking it to cities all over the world, and an express railway connecting it with the European countries.

Great development potential lies ahead as the city locates at the intersection of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Yangtze River Economic Zone, two of China's newest national strategies.

Experts say Chengdu is seizing the opportunity to regain its glory as the starting point of the South Silk Road and one of China's most important commercial and trade centers.

Wang Yi, curator of the Chengdu Museum, said Chengdu has never stopped exchanges with the outside world since ancient times.

"People in the Roman Empire used silk from Chengdu. Its lacquerware was also excavated from Korean tombs in the Han Dynasty (202 BC-AD 220). Chengdu's brocade was popular in Japan during the Tang Dynasty," said the 52-year-old, who has been an archaeologist for 31 years. Archaeologists visiting the Yin Ruins Museum in Anyang of Central China's Henan province have marveled at a jade disc on display at this site of the capital of the Shang Dynasty (16th century - 11th century BC), as it looks similar to those in the Jinsha Site Museum in Chengdu.

The museum was built upon a relic site discovered in 2001 on the city's outskirts. From the site, archaeologists have excavated more than 5,000 precious relics dating back to around 3,000 years ago.

"The disc in the Yin Ruins Museum might have been made in Chengdu and found its way to the capital of the Shang Dynasty. Or the discs in the Jinsha Site Museum were made in Anyang and transported to Chengdu," Wang said.

A cong jade object is also displayed in the Jinsha Site Museum. An important item for rituals in ancient times, the cong was typical of Liangzhu, a culture centered in Taihu Lake in East China's Zhejiang province about 5,300 to 4,200 years ago.

"People kept coming to Chengdu and locals kept traveling out in ancient times. Exchanges never ceased in spite of the high mountains," Wang said.

Chengdu has witnessed unprecedented changes since China's central government started the "Go West" policy of developing the western areas in 1999. It is marching toward the ranks of first-tier cities from its second-tier position.

The number of Fortune Global 500 companies that invest in the city and the international air routes rank first among the cities in Central and West China. Thirteen countries have also established consulates in the provincial capital."To many, Chengdu seems like an upstart because they do not know about its glorious past. It was a first-tier city in China when there was no New York or Shanghai," Wang said.

During the Han Dynasty, Chengdu, together with Luoyang, Handan, Linzi and Nanyang, was one of the top five Chinese cities outside the imperial capital. In the Tang Dynasty, Chengdu ranked second nationwide, next to Yangzhou, because of its prosperity.

In 1023, during the Song Dynasty (960-1279), the world's first paper money Jiaozi was issued in Chengdu. Paper money of the Great Britain's American colonies made its debut only in 1692 and that of France in 1716. Both regions were considered the first in the West to introduce paper money.

But Chengdu declined at the end of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) when Zhang Xianzhong, the leader of a farmers’ uprising, killed almost all the inhabitants in Sichuan and destroyed almost all of its buildings. The central government has also designated Chengdu as a historically and culturally important city, but it was previously known for historical buildings that dated back to only the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

"Thanks to the excavation of the Jinsha Ruins in 2001, visitors who admire a profusion of its priceless relics in the Jinsha Site Museum feel that Chengdu lives up to its name (as a historically and culturally famous city)," Wang said. "Together with the Baodun and Sanxingdui sites, the Jinsha Ruins with its history of more than 3,000 years proves that ours was a first-tier city 4,500 years ago," he said.

The Baodun Ruins feature a Neolithic culture (2,500 BC – 1,750 BC). Six settlements of the culture have been found in one district, two counties and two cities under the administration of Chengdu. The settlement walls were covered with pebbles, a feature unique to Baodun culture. Pottery from the culture shares some similarities with those of Sanxingdui.

Sanxingdui, located in Guanghan, 40 km from Chengdu, was excavated accidentally in 1929 when a farmer found a stone while digging a ditch in his fields.

Archaeologists have since found more than 10,000 relics dating back between 5,000 and 3,000 years.

The discoveries prove that Sanxingdui contains the ruins of an ancient city that was the political, economic and cultural center of the ancient Shu Kingdom. Shu is the ancient name for Sichuan.

The Sanxingdui ruins, located on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, help point to the diverse origins of Chinese civilization and dispel theories that the Yellow River was the sole starting point of the Chinese people. They believe those who created the Sanxingdui culture moved to Chengdu to create the Jinsha culture in the wake of Sanxingdui's decline as relics excavated in Jinsha bear a strong resemblance to those in Sanxingdui.

"The Jinsha ruins most likely became the political, economic and cultural center of the Shu Kingdom after the fall of Sanxingdui civilization," said Yu Weichao, former deputy chief of the China Society of Archaeology.