竹園溝鐃：中國青銅編鐘源起的一個關鍵環節－兼評《先秦樂鐘之研究》和Suspended Music: Chime-bells in the Culture of Bronze Age China

Abstract

Reviewing two monographs on Chinese bronze bells, by Lothar von Falkenhausen, and Chu Wen-wei and Lu Ch'i-chang, the author rethinks the typology of early Chinese bronze bells before the Middle Western Chou, and points out the significance of a single nao bell from the Chu-yuan-kou site, at Pao-chi. The birth of chime bells is regarded as a result of adopting imported objects in the local ritual system. Moreover, the author suggests that the transition from southern nao to late chime bells should be understood as an aspect of cultural exchanges between the Middle and Lower Yangtze River region and the Kuan-chung area during the Shang-Chou period. In other words, early bronze bells might suggest the source and process of the ritual change from the Shang to the Western Chou dynasties.