An archaeological perspective of the Western Zhou domain

Abstract

20 years ago I wrote a short article entitled: ‘The Archaeology of the Early Western Zhou culture and the Early Zhou enfeoffment’. That paper investigated the early Western Zhou enterprise of political enfeoffment in the Northeastern regions in light of archaeological ceramic assemblages (C.A. 1050-900 BCE). I found good overlap between the distribution of Western Zhou style ceramics and the location of known vassal states of the Zhou world, a find which consequently corroborated the narrative provided in the known historical texts. In the past two decades an astonishing amount of inscribed Western Zhou bronze vessels have been unearthed providing for superior evidence to study the dynasty's enfeoffment enterprise and, in turn, the dynasty's size and dominion. By discussing here this new data, particularly the evidence from the Western regions, my current paper can be seen as a continuation and supplement to the original article.