Crafting excellence: reconstructing the mould technology of Shang period bronze ritual vessels at Anyang, China

Bronze weapons are one of the two most important products of the Chinese Bronze Age. Both ritual vessels and weapons were utilized for the two most crucial affairs of the state during the Bronze Age in China. From 1937 up to the present day, period of almost sixty years, archaeologists have continuously been revealing more detailed picture of Yinxu bronze culture. In comparison with bronze ritual vessels, the bronze weapons of Bronze Age China remain relatively unexplored. On the basis of the archaeological excavations the Late Shang bronze weapons in this thesis have been studied from the points of view of the history of bronze art, sacrificial rituals and cultural relationships between Anyang and the peripheral areas. The Late Shang period was turning point in bronze weaponry. Clear changes occurred in their quantity, quality and regional distribution. The bronze weapons became common element among the tomb furnishings. This reflects parallels between the development of weapons and political and social changes. The transformation from the use of jade to the use of bronze for weapons, could reflect the formation or increase of certain class which required burial to include bronze weapons. For reasons of social or political status members of this class received degree of ritualized burial. At the same time, the high-ranking members of the military had their own ritual code for burial, producing situation where weapons and status were even more subtly differentiated. Bronze weapons were not widely and relatively densely distributed in China until the Late Shang period. There was an imbalance in the distribution of Late Shang bronze weapons and Anyang was one of the largest centres. The importance of the bronze ge in the burial system at Anyang was established. At the same time, the rudiments of regional characteristics are clearly seen in this period in regions outside Anyang and regional styles of the bronze weapon became obvious. The distribution of regional styles of bronze weapons reflects the very important cultural phenomenon that some regional characteristics are limited to single area. Other indigenous styles are not restricted to their area of origin, but are dispersed over wider regions, typically encompassing two or more areas creating a phenomenon where distinct cultural regions share selective stylistic characteristics. In contrast to those regional styles of bronze weapons which are limited in their range of distribution, the metropolitan style centered around Anyang was distributed over much larger area. A complex system of designs on the bronze weapons was formed and new phase in casting techniques was achieved through the changes of their social and political roles. There was an increase in the diversity of their types and forms. The various motifs, the inlay, openwork and mixing materials were used in the art of bronze weapons. The bronze weapons in Late Shang, as manifestations of artistic, political, and social phenomenon, found their place in the art history of bronzes.

The Yin and Shang period was an important stage in the development of Chinese civilization, the heyday of the Bronze Age. As an important symbol of social hierarchy in the Yin Shang Dynasty, bronze ritual vessels are a basis for studying the etiquette system and the social life history of the Shang Dynasty, and also studying the casting techniques of bronze vessels. The article studies the shape and modeling characteristics of bronze ware in the Yin Shang Dynasty, as well as its cultural and artistic images.

China's Bronze Age, beginning c . 2000 BCE, gave birth to the earliest states in East Asia and the technologies and institutions that made possible the mobilization of material and human resources on a large scale. The first state, Shang ( c . 1570–1045 BCE), developed political institutions and a ritual order that enabled it to impose its dominion over much of North China's Central Plain, the alluvial floodplain of the Yellow River that became the heartland of early Chinese civilization. From c . 1200 BCE the Shang rulers began to use writing to record the divinations essential to the royal ancestral cult and the conduct of their government. Shang rule was overthrown by the upstart Zhou dynasty in 1045 BCE. The Zhou ecumene, centered in the ancestral Zhou homeland of the Wei River valley in the west, encompassed the entire Central Plain as well. The Zhou retained many features of Shang culture, including its ritual practices, writing system, and bronze metallurgy. But the Zhou also introduced new conceptions of divine authority and political sovereignty and developed a more formalized bureaucratic government to extend the reach of royal power. If any civilization merits the appellation “Bronze Age” it is surely ancient China. Bronze ritual vessels occupied the central place in the political, social, and cultural order of the earliest Chinese states. The sheer quantity of surviving bronze artifacts from China's Bronze Age is without peer among ancient civilizations: more than 12,000 Zhou bronze ritual vessels exist today, and no doubt many yet remain undiscovered in tombs and caches. The scale of these artifacts also is enormous: one bronze cauldron from c . 1200 BCE weighs 875 kg., and archaeologists recovered more than 10 tons of bronze vessels from a single cache buried in the fifth century BCE. Beginning in the late Shang period, but especially with the onset of the Zhou dynasty, the ruling elite began to inscribe bronze vessels for commemorative purposes. These inscriptions primarily signified the purpose for casting the vessel and commemorated the honors the maker received from the king that brought glory to his lineage and his ancestors. Zhou bronze inscriptions – notably the “appointment inscriptions,” which record the bestowal of offices, rewards, and duties by the king – also contain valuable information about the organization of the Zhou state and the self-conception and cultural practices of its rulers.

Bronze Age Shang China is characterized by its large-scale production system and distinctive ritual world. Both are vividly materialized by a large number of bronze ritual vessels with added lead. Whilst a remarkable amount of research effort has been channeled into the trace elemental and lead isotopic analysis of these ritual vessels, and successfully revealed some important fingerprints such as highly radiogenic lead (HRL), there is as yet no consensus on the metal source(s) which supplied the entire bronze production during the Shang period. In addition to the traditional method to look for matching and mismatching between ores and objects, we propose that environmental archaeological studies can provide crucial clues to address some long-standing questions in archaeometallurgy. In the first part of the paper, we attempt to illustrate the potential and complexity of combining these two subjects together. The second part of the paper offers a case study by reviewing the debate on Yunnan as the source of HRL. Synthesis of various lines of evidence published by most recent studies on environmental archaeology, archaeometallurgy, field reports and radiocarbon dating suggests that this hypothesis appears much less likely than previously suspected.

在出土仿古祭器的元代墓葬中，河南洛陽的賽因赤答忽墓可說是到目前為止數量最多，類型最豐富的墓葬。對於該墓出土的仿銅陶祭器學界多直接歸因於《宣和博古圖》的影響。然而，該書為北宋徽宗所飭編的金石學鉅作，對於考訂古器物雖著力甚多，但很難想像地方的祭祀禮器是直接參考卷帙龐大的《博古圖》。加上墓葬出土的陶祭器與《博古圖》的繪圖之間仍存在一定距離，因此推測，在《博古圖》與地方祭器之間，應該有一個中間的轉介。經過史料的爬梳，朱熹根據《博古圖》所編的《紹熙州縣釋奠儀圖》一書，在祭器的組合與樣式上，均較《博古圖》更接近於考古出土的元代地方祭器。而且元代的儒者在鑄造地方官學祭器時，也屢屢徵引朱文公的禮圖，推測即《紹熙州縣釋奠儀圖》。可見《博古圖》一書，除了直接鏤版印行，成為金石古玩製作參考書籍；藉由禮圖的轉化，也間接對民間祭器的製作產生了影響。

One of the fundamental tasks of archæological research in regard to thedating of archaic Chinese bronzes is to determine which bronzes date in the Chou period and which are pre-Chou, i.e. of the Yin (Shang) period. In my work “Yin and Chou in Chinese Bronzes” (in Yin and Chou Researches, 1935, also in Bull. Mus. Far East Ant., 1936), I have tried to establish a real dating in regard to a great number of inscribed bronzes by aid of their inscriptions. I found three types of inscriptions which I concluded to be of pre-Chou time: those containing the so-called ya hing, those which had the three symbols traditionally (but very tentatively) interpreted as si tsï sun, and those which had the symbol traditionally transcribed as kü. In this way I obtained a considerable number of illustrated bronzes which I used as research material for determining the types of bronzes existing prior to the Chou era.

Studying the Private Sphere of the Ancient Chinese Nobility through the Inscriptions on Bronze Ritual Vessels

Change and Unity: Research on the qModularq Design Method of Decorative Patterns on Bronze Ritual Vessels

Abstract. Early Chinese elites were defined by their aristocratic control of land. That control came directly from the emperor and was documented on bronze ritual vessels, which were handed down from generation to generation. The land grant boundaries were defined using decorative symbols inscribed on bronze, and Western Zhou vessels containing these symbols were used to resolve land disputes. Methodical analysis comparing the inscriptions and symbols, combined with an understanding of early Chinese cartography and etymology, allows the bronze vessel land grants to be decoded.

After Gojoseon was established in 24BC, it sent Gochuga, a ranking official to Gojuk state to rule it as its(Gojoseon’s) vassal state in 21~17BC. Initially Gojuk was a small state, located in the lower basin of the Luan River, but with the passage of time its power expanded and its domain included not only the entire Luan River basin but also extended to Zhaoyang region in the Daling River. The chronology of Gojukguk’s establishment as a vassal state of Gojoseon and its location in the Luan River valley testify to the fact that Gojoseon was established at a very early period and it gradually expanded its power to the Liaoxi region.<BR> Gojuk state contained a three-tier status system. On the top of the hierarchy was gochuga, the ruling class that produced the royalty and the aristocracy followed by commoners and slavers.<BR> Agriculture, cattle-rearing and sericulture formed the backborn of Gojuk economy. Horse also occupied an important position in the lives of Gojuk people, and this explains why it developed an advanced horse-riding culture. This state was also known for its sophisticated bronze implements. Gojuk state produced bronze weapons as well as bronze ritual vessels. And as is evident from the tale of its princes, Baik Yi(伯夷) and SukJe(叔齊), it emphasized ancient morality. The state won such renown for its art and culture that ancient China imported and widely used it flutes.<BR> Gojuk conducted vibrant and brisk exchange with the Chinese state of Shang, and it is also worthy of note that Gojuk often served as an intermediary that facilitated exchanges between Gososeon and ancient China.<BR> Gojuk continued for approximately 1800 years, and collapsed in 3rd Century BC when General Jin Kai of Yan launched an attack on it.

I stand before you as your president with a good deal of diffidence and humility. Professor Kaplan has just kindly explained who I am to the many of you who may never have heard of me. And while he has had very generous things to say, it is evident to you that I am not a main line philosopher. This being so, I am the more deeply honored that you should have chosen to put me in this position, this year and this evening. A large part of my time is taken in teaching and analyzing the classical Chinese language, and (in recent years) deciphering ancient inscriptions on bronze ritual vessels and on pieces of bone and turtle shell that were used by court diviners. The methodology of working on this material has a real philosophical interest. But for a yet longer time I have been occupied with the history of Chinese philosophy over its whole range, and in particular Confucian moral philosophy. And it is questions that have engaged me in this area that have gotten me part way into what I would like to think is real philosophy. But of this you must be the judges. My title has the grammatical form of a question. But I will make a promise at the outset. I am not going to try to answer the question. Instead, I shall use it as a stalking horse for taking some shots at problems that interest me. In any case, rumors in the halls to the contrary, my title 'Two Roots or One? is, you can see, not likely to materialize in an address on some problem in the philosophy of mathematics.

I stand before you as your president with a good deal of diffidence and humility. Professor Kaplan has just kindly explained who I am to the many of you who may never have heard of me. And while he has had very generous things to say, it is evident to you that I am not a main line philosopher. This being so, I am the more deeply honored that you should have chosen to put me in this position, this year and this evening. A large part of my time is taken in teaching and analyzing the classical Chinese language, and (in recent years) deciphering ancient inscriptions on bronze ritual vessels and on pieces of bone and turtle shell that were used by court diviners. The methodology of working on this material has a real philosophical interest. But for a yet longer time I have been occupied with the history of Chinese philosophy over its whole range, and in particular Confucian moral philosophy. And it is questions that have engaged me in this area that have gotten me part way into what I would like to think is real philosophy. But of this you must be the judges. My title has the grammatical form of a question. But I will make a promise at the outset. I am not going to try to answer the question. Instead, I shall use it as a stalking horse for taking some shots at problems that interest me. In any case, rumors in the halls to the contrary, my title 'Two Roots or One? is, you can see, not likely to materialize in an address on some problem in the philosophy of mathematics.

THE archaic Chinese bronze, which is the subject of this article, is in the collection of Captain the Hon. E. G. Spencer-Churchill. It belongs to the class called chüeh, which, among the ritual wine vessels, has the smallest capacity. A Chinese tradition assigns the origin of the peculiar shape to the form of a bird's head, and some support for this view is derived from supposed pictograms which are accepted as having been used to write chüeh in archaic script. On the other hand, certain pottery vessels, found recently at Hsiao-t'un , in Honan, the site of a late Yin capital, suggest a more plausible explanation. The place is famous as one where the inscribed bones first came to light about 1899, and often afterwards it has been claimed as the source of many ancient objects offered for sale.

Calligraphy is the art of writing characters with a brush and ink. Yet, the word “calligraphy,” from the Greek kalligraphía (beautiful writing), is something of a mistranslation of the Chinese term shufa (書法), which means “model writing,” or writing that is good enough to serve as a model. Calligraphy has no referent in nature, so all writing is modeled on that of another. Traditional calligraphers were less interested in mere beauty than in the ability of the gesture and the line to create images of aesthetic power and movement and in the paramount issue of upon whose writing they were modeling theirs. The precise moment Chinese characters were born is unknown, but a fully developed system was in use by c. 1200 bce, as seen on scripts on the incised oracle bones (jiaguwen甲骨文) and inscriptions cast into ritual bronze vessels (guwen古文) of the Shang dynasty. Over the next millennium, five major script types evolved. The archaic scripts gave way to the “large” seal script (zhuan篆) of the Zhou dynasty and the “small” seal script of the Qin. In Qin the clerical script (li隸) came into being and flourished during the succeeding Han, whereas by the end of the 2nd century the modern script types of regular (kai楷 or zhen真), running (xing行), and cursive (cao草) all had developed. Seal and clerical were relegated to decorative and monumental functions until they were revived as antiquarian modes in later times. Although mythic names are associated with the creation of each script type, there were no signed works of calligraphy until the Han dynasty. Since that time, when it began to be seen as expressive of its writer’s personality and character, calligraphy has been accorded the supreme position among the arts. Calligraphers could practice their art purely for their own pleasure or self-expression, or their work could be done for payment or in exchange for goods and services. Calligraphy had a rich tradition until the 20th century, and after China’s turmoil ended in the late 1970s, the amateur scene burgeoned again. In the late 20th century, Chinese calligraphy made a place for itself in the international art world, particularly through the incorporation of nonsense characters in multimedia installations. Critical texts that assessed famous calligraphers appeared in the 4th century, and histories of calligraphy have been written continually from the 5th century to the early 21st century. Japanese scholars have produced excellent research in the 20th and early 21st centuries, and researchers in the West have been writing on calligraphy history since the 1970s.

Shang and Zhou period bronzes that exhibit a number of regional features are being discovered more and more frequently in southern China. Comparative studies of these bronzes are needed to establish their evolutionary sequences. The ritual bronzes from the large Shang tombs at Xin'gan, Jiangxi, are an example. Among the vessels from this tomb, the ding vessels account for more than half of the total. Comparison with their counterparts in the Zhengzhou Erligang phase and the Anyang Yin period shows that typologically the bronzes from Xin'gan distinctly differ from those in the Central Plains, as the main vessel type at Xin'gan is the ding, and in the Central Plains, the gu and jue wine vessels. The Xin'gan ding has a variety of forms, with the flat-legged ding constituting the major group, thus suggesting that this subtype might have developed first in the south. The Xin'gan ding often bears tiger-shaped decorations on its two handles, and these seem to be an indication of totemism among the local ethnic group. Chronologically, the Xin'gan ding roughly correspond to the late Zhengzhou Erligang period.