Technical Features
In every culture, bronze was the first alloyed metal to be used for every kind of article necessary for daily life like ploughshares, yokes, kettles, knifes, bracelets, earrings, chariot axles and so on. The melting point of unalloyed copper is a bit lower than that of bronze but it is not able to sustain hard requirements. Only alloying it with at least 5 percent of tin, the metal has the needed durability. In China the oldest bronze findings are 3200 years old. Culture
In the west of the Eurasian continent, bronze items were in most cases used for agriculture and warfare. In China, the greatest part of discovered and preserved bronze items was not forged to ploughs or swords but cast to sacrificial vessels. Even a great part of weapons had a sacrificial meaning like daggers and axes that symbolized the heavenly power of the ruler. The strong religious sense of bronze objects brought up a great number of vessel types and shapes which became so typically that they should be copied as archaic style receptacles with other materials like wood, jade, ivory or even gold until the 20th century. The first researches about Shang 商 and Zhou 周 vessels were made in Song times 宋 when every type got a scientific name. Until then, some types did not even have a fixed name or were alloted to different categories, like ding 鼎 and li 鬲. The different types were used for three purposes: as vessels containing millet wine, vessels containing food or vessels containing water. Some vessels with their long feet made it possible to cook the food inside, making a fire of charcoal under the vessel. Some types were standing in a charcoal basin, especially wine containers. The ritual books of old China minutely describe who was allowed to use what kinds of sacrificial vessels and how much. The king of Zhou was favoured to use 9 dings and 8 gui 簋 vessels, a duke (zhuhou 諸侯: gong 公) was allowed to use 7 dings and 6 guis, a baron (daifu 大夫) could use 5 dings and 3 guis, a nobleman (shi 士) was allowed to use 3 dings and 2 guis. We can see that the vessel types were composed to sets including the most important types for offering in a sacrifice, often using the vessel types of ding, gui, dou 豆, hu 壺, pan 盤 and yi 匜 or he 盉. The cultural significance of the bronze vessels is also evident through the abundance of Chinese characters used for these types. The character dou 豆 , in later Chinese meaning "bean" or "pea" originally meant a sometimes covered round one-footed vessel type. The character feng 豊 today is only used phonetically, but it depicts a vessel, that is filled with precious jade stones, later reshaped to the character feng 豐, today meaning "rich, abundant". Decoration and Inscriptions
Already the earliest types show the typical Taotie pattern 饕餮 that is said to depict a voracious monster or dragon. The newer types of Taotie pattern make it more understandable as a forerunner of the more slim and friendly dragons (panchi 蟠螭) of chinese pictorial art. Other typical characteristics of the bronze vessels are the two button-like attachments on the rim of the vessels (zhu 柱), the nipple-nail pattern (ruding 乳錠) and the three legs. The first inscriptions of the bronze vessels are clan insignia (zuhui 族徽) or simply names of persons. From the Western Zhou time on, bronze vessels bear inscriptions of enfeoffment, memorials or instructions. See a translated example of the Mao Gong Ding 毛公鼎 kettle.
The dates of the vessel types below are always assigning the time of the appearance of this vessel type. Some objects, especially in Zhou times and from the southern region in the Yangtse valley, are sometimes difficult to assign to a certain type.
|
