Bronze casting techniques of the Erlitou Culture period

Abstract

Abstract Erlitou is an important site of pre-Qin cultural remains at which the earliest bronze casting workshops in China known to date were discovered. Based on the observation and analyses of the bronzes, pottery molds and foundry ladles, this paper discusses the bronze casting techniques of the Erlitou Site. The most noticeable characteristic of the bronzes unearthed at Erlitou is that their walls are thin but even, showing that at the time of the Erlitou Culture, bronze casting techniques had reached a rather high level: rational mold division and precise mold positioning techniques had appeared; the mold designs of some bronzes with simple shapes had fallen into patterns that saw continued use throughout the Bronze Age; the mold designs of bronzes with complex shapes (especially juecups) were not stereotyped and unchanging; and defects occurring in the casting process were corrected with a burning-on technique which was the incipient form of the cast-joining technique, an extremely important feature of pottery mold casting. The material components of the pottery molds and their processing techniques; the pottery mold positioning technique; and the pouring cups and foundry ladles found at Erlitou prove that the Erlitou Culture was capable of casting small bronze vessels with thin and even walls. These technical achievements reflect the fact that in the early Bronze Age, sophisticated pottery mold casting techniques existed in China, laying a firm technical foundation for the high development of bronze casting techniques during the Bronze Age.