Bronze Age

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Stepping into a museum, large or small, locating in east or west countries, as long as it exhibits ancient Asian artworks, one can hardly not find bronzes placed in the most prominent spot, shone by a beam of cold white light. Bronze Age is not as lackluster or icy-cold as this dark metallic alloy shown to us ostensibly; instead, it was full of creativity and innovation. It is amazing but not surprising that ancient Chinese are considered one of the most intelligent group of human-being, produced such remarkable amount of artifacts to either use in their daily life as necessities or decorations, or sacrifice their ancestors, or record important events. This paper will provide a specific description of two bronze vessels respectively from Shang and Zhou dynasties, giving interpretations of their production process and their roles in ritual performance.
The first vessel I chose, named “Zhui” gui, is from West Zhou dynasty, which was probably cast around 900 to 850 B.C.E. Basically, this vessels consists of two distinct parts -- an oblate bowl with two handles symmetrically by the side and a huge square base at the bottom. Starting from the bowl, it’s decorated organized but not delicately. The ornaments can be mainly divided into three parts. The top and bottom patterns are almost the same, looking like a band with plenty of coiling-type clouds, which each two of them reverses both upside down and mirror-symmetrically, except for a raised head of an antelope-like animal lying in the middle of the upper band, having its long horns curling inward. The middle part is more complex. One can easily identify two raised prominent eyes of a taotie, a motif commonly found on Chinese ritual bronze, symmetrically lie on each side of the central...

... middle of paper ...

...ed to serving wines in a ritual occasion.
It’s necessary to mention that there are a few patterns, such as spiral-cloud shape, or animals, such as taotie, frequently appear on a large proportion of bronzes excavated from Shang and Zhou dynasties. The fact is, however, even though most of the bronzes have same decorations, upon detail comparison, discrepancy is everywhere: taoties on the two vessels are generally the same but completely dissimilar in detail. Am I fascinated by this incredible property of bronze vessel from ancient China since it represented ancient Chinese’s pursue of creativity and uniqueness. The decoration and technique system created during Bronze Age may not as accomplished as the other inventions like four great inventions created in later China; it’s the essence of culture at that time and embodiment of the intelligence of ancient Chinese.

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