The bronze wares of Shang and Zhou dynasties, known as the "national heavyweight", relied on more than weight
2021-12-20
In the past six months, Shang and Zhou bronzes have attracted much attention. After the Shanghai Museum held the "prosperous Millennium - special exhibition of bronze Ding donated by Shanghai Museum" and the National Museum of China held the "ceremony and Wanfang - special exhibition of Shang and Zhou bronze Ding", which made the big Yu Ding collected by the national Expo and the big Ke Ding collected by the Shanghai Expo jointly appear and attracted widespread attention, at present, the Shanghai Museum is holding the "Han Huai Legend - the essence of og Bronze Ware Exhibition". These exhibitions focus on the most distinctive bronze culture of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. The bronze wares of Shang and Zhou dynasties are known as "the most important weapon of the country". Many of them do have amazing volumes, such as Zilong tripod (103 cm high, 80 cm in diameter and 230 kg in weight), Dayu tripod (101.9 cm high, 77.8 cm in diameter and 153.5 kg in weight) and Dake tripod (93.1 cm high, 56 cm in diameter and 201.5 kg in weight), but they float on the surface after all. The "weight" of Shang and Zhou bronzes lies in the extremely rich and thick historical accumulation, which essentially reflects its important characteristics as a national treasure. What can best reflect the intrinsic value of Shang and Zhou bronzes is the rich literature information contained in the inscriptions In fact, a single Mao GONGDING is enough to dispel the myth about the "weight" of heavy weapons. It is now stored in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, China. It is called the "three treasures at home" together with the big Yu Ding and the big Ke Ding. However, compared with the Yu Ding and the Ke Er Ding, the Mao Gong Ding "weighs only" 34.7 kg, 53.8 cm high and 47 cm in diameter, which is one digit less in weight than the first two. However, from another perspective, Mao GONGDING occupies the most of the three tripods, that is, the number of words. According to statistics, the inscriptions engraved on the inner wall of the three tripods are 497 (Mao GONGDING), 291 (Dayu tripod) and 290 (Dake tripod) (quoted from the development history of Chinese bronzes by Du naisong). Mao Gong's Ding inscriptions are not only the highest among all Shang and Zhou bronze tripods, but also the largest among all known bronzes in China. According to Du naisong, the number of inscriptions on Mao GONGDING "can be equivalent to one in the book of history". Although the Yu and Ke tripods can not occupy the second place in the bronze ware (the Sanshi plate stored in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, China has the second largest number of words), they can follow Mao GONGDING in two or three (because the small Yu tripod engraved with more than 400 words and the four hundred cross tripod engraved with the time of King Kang of Zhou have all disappeared in the late Qing Dynasty, and only the rubbings of the inscriptions exist). In addition to the number of inscriptions, the contents recorded in these inscriptions also reflect their extraordinary weight. According to the casting time of the original ware, the Dayu tripod was the earliest, which was the ware of King Kang of Zhou Dynasty. It records King Kang's instructions and rewards to the noble cups. King Kang first praised King Wen and King Wu, then summarized the experience and lessons of the fall of the Shang Dynasty, and warned Yu to learn from them and not indulge in drinking for fun. The content of this part of the inscription is just consistent with the handed down documents such as Shangshu Jiugao, which has high historical value. Secondly, Yu was granted the power to take charge of military and civil affairs, and assisted the king of Zhou to manage the world. Finally, he was given wine, life clothes, cars and horses, etc., which represented the authority, as well as 1726 slaves of all kinds, including thirteen leaders of the Yi people and thousands of Yi people. The age of Dake Ding is the second, which is the time instrument of King Xiao of Zhou. It tells the story of aristocrat Ke inheriting the official position of his ancestor Hua Fu, and being granted the position of "Baker" by the king of Zhou, so as to obtain a lot of land population. King Xiao first praised yangke's ancestors for serving King Gong, so he promoted him as a king's minister and was responsible for conveying the king's orders. Then he reiterated the appointment of shanfuk and recorded in detail the rewards to him, including dresses, land, slaves and so on. Finally, Ke kowtowed and knelt down to thank him and cast a tripod in memory of his former ancestor Hua Fu. Mao GONGDING, one of the three tripods, is the latest one. It is the weapon of King xuanwang of Zhou Dynasty. It recorded that King Xuan of Zhou was the ZTE Zhou office, changed all kinds of bad policies and adverse situations in the late Western Zhou Dynasty, and ordered the important minister Mao Gong to supervise the issuance and implementation of various decrees. It is hoped that with the help of Mao Gong's loyalty, the country will be free from decline. Finally, in order to show his respect for Lord Mao, King Xuan also gave him very rich rewards, including all kinds of treasures and valuable chariots and horses. In order to thank the king of Zhou, Duke Mao specially cast a ding to record it. The time span of the three tripod inscriptions belongs to the early, middle and late stages of the Western Zhou Dynasty, from which we can even form some superficial understanding of the historical process of the Western Zhou Dynasty. The documents left in the Shang and Zhou dynasties in ancient times are very limited. Except for a few handed down (or early unearthed) documents such as Shangshu, Yizhou book and Zhushu chronicle, there are only sporadic records scattered in hundreds of works. Then, the gold literature engraved on the bronze wares of the Shang and Zhou dynasties naturally shoulders the important task of comprehensively outlining the original appearance of the society of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. This is the fundamental reason why the bronze wares of the Shang and Zhou dynasties are the important weapons of the country. The inscriptions on bronzes, as first-hand documents, can indeed help us restore the historical events of the Western Zhou Dynasty in addition to the limited handed down documents of the Pre-Qin Dynasty, and confirm each other with the handed down documents. As Li Xueqin said in bronze and ancient history, "In the reign of King Wu, he Zunshu wrote about the battle of herding the wild... He Zunshu built the Western Zhou Dynasty... In the reign of King Li, many friends and tripods wrote about the war against him;... In addition, such as the land transfer recorded by Wei Heng, Wei Ding and San Shi pan, the merchant trade recorded by Lu Fangyi and Xi jiapan, and the legal proceedings recorded by Chen Ding and Xun Juan, these are just a few examples of important bronzes in the Western Zhou Dynasty, which are important for the study of the history and culture of that time You should have seen it. " Then, it is obvious that what can best reflect the inherent value of these Chinese Shang and Zhou bronzes is the rich literature information contained in the inscriptions and the sense of historical witness embodied by their unique volume and shape. The "material civilization" embodied in bronzes gives us a chance to see the aesthetic purport of ancient times Shang and Zhou bronzes themselves also exude artistic value that can not be ignored. When it comes to the artistic aesthetics of Shang and Zhou bronzes, Confucius has the most say. In the Analects of Confucius · eight Yi, he expressed his praise for the culture of the Zhou people: "Zhou is supervised by the second generation. It's gloomy and literary! I follow Zhou." Part of the "Wen" here refers to the etiquette system, and the other part is the "material civilization" embodied by these bronzes. It is these "cultural relics" that not only make it possible for us to collage ancient silhouettes, but also give us the opportunity to see the aesthetic purport of ancient times. Of course, from the law of historical development, the "literature and things" of the Zhou Dynasty advocated by Confucius actually developed gradually from the previous "second generation". The peak of bronze civilization in the Western Zhou Dynasty was inseparable from the accumulation of predecessors' technology and culture. In order to sort out the inheritance relationship, we can discuss it from three aspects: bronze inscriptions, shape and decoration. First of all, in the bronze inscriptions of the middle and late Western Zhou Dynasty, there were cases with more than 400 words, such as Xiaoyu Ding (more than 400 words when King Mu of the Zhou Dynasty was used), Zhen Ding (434 words when King Gong of the Zhou Dynasty was used), Mao Gong Ding (497 words when King Xuan of the Zhou Dynasty was used), but this was not done in a day. As Confucius said, the increasing trend of the number of bronze inscriptions in the Western Zhou Dynasty can also be traced back to the Shang Dynasty. The custom of Oracle Bone divination and blessing was inherent in the Shang Dynasty, but from the perspective of the bronze artifacts left at the end of the Shang Dynasty, there are not only examples of inscribing the family emblem like the "Zilong Ding" displayed in the national Expo, but also examples of inscribing the "long chapter" of several crosses. For example, Yu xizun, a young minister of the Shang Dynasty in the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, USA, has an inscription of 27 words, and Xiaoyou, Gai and Qiming in the white crane Art Museum in Kobe, Japan, have a total of 47 words. In addition, there are 39 words of Youming for two sacrifices, 42 words of Youming for four sacrifices and 27 words of Youming for six sacrifices in the Palace Museum. Although the bronze inscriptions of the late Shang Dynasty usually focus on the sacrificial event itself and do not carry out further, they can be regarded as the forerunner of the bronze inscriptions of the Western perimeter. Zhou people inherited this tradition and brought the gorgeous and rich style of inscriptions into full play to a new height. Secondly, in terms of shape, the bronzes of the Zhou Dynasty inherited the Shang Dynasty, but the new combination changes reflected the differences in ideas among the people of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. The bronze wares of the Shang Dynasty showed a trend of increasing gradually according to the three periods of Erlitou, Erligang and Yin Ruins. The bronze wares seen in Yin Ruins basically appeared in Erligang period, including cooking utensils Ding, Gu, GUI, Gu, you and other wine utensils, water containers, weapons and tools, which had a great impact on later generations. In the Yin Ruins period, in addition to the emergence of new wine vessels such as Fang Yi, among other artifacts, the tire wall of round tripod and Fang tripod became thicker. Zilong tripod and stepmother Wuding tripod collected by Guobo are the representatives. The Western Zhou Dynasty inherited the types of implements in the late Shang Dynasty. While the number increased, the types changed. Specifically, from the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, cooking utensils and eating utensils were mainly tripods, pans, pans and pans, especially tripods and pans appeared more frequently as fixed ritual utensils. This is also the reason why these two types of utensils are commonly used as inscription carriers. In the Shang Dynasty, the popular beans became less and less, but a new type of bamboo appeared, and the bell appeared as a musical instrument. In addition, in terms of wine vessels, the types of utensils such as Gu, Jue, Zun and you remained basically unchanged in the Zhou Dynasty, but the number has been greatly reduced compared with the Shang Dynasty. The reason is probably as stated in Shangshu Jiugao, "there is no Yi wine; Yue Shu country: drinking only worship, virtue will not be drunk". In order to avoid repeating the mistakes of the aristocracy's drinking and Famine Policy at the end of the Shang Dynasty, the king of Zhou not only issued a document to emphasize the prohibition of alcohol, but also repeatedly mentioned it in the inscriptions of big Yu tripod and other instruments, which left a deep impression. Moreover, with the development from the mid western Zhou Dynasty to the late Western Zhou Dynasty, the once popular wine vessels such as Gu, Jue, Jiao, Jia, Zun, you and Fang Yi gradually faded out of the historical stage. Only the pot remained in the large wine vessels, which made future generations have unlimited nostalgia for the scene of the late Shang Dynasty. Third, from the perspective of decoration, there is also an inheritance relationship between Shang and Zhou dynasties. The main decorative patterns such as Taotie pattern, Kui pattern and bird pattern, which were widely popular in the Shang Dynasty, basically continued to the early Western Zhou Dynasty (only in terms of details, the leaf edges on utensils such as Ding and you were higher and more significant than before), which made it difficult to distinguish between the two. Fortunately, most of the time, the inscriptions in the bronze wares of the Zhou Dynasty usually played a role in dating. However, there are similarities and differences between the two, and changes are also taking place quietly. The bronze feet of the Western Zhou Dynasty gradually changed the strong style of column feet and flat feet in the Shang Dynasty, and developed in the direction of imitating the hoof feet of animals. Compared with the previous generation, the belly depth of tripod, cuvette, cuvette and other containers has also become shallower, and the vessel wall has become thinner, which is not as thick as before. From the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the changes in decoration became more significant. First of all, the decoration has changed from complex to simple, and the animal images with distinctive characteristics such as gluttonous patterns have been weakened. One reason may be that the makers of the Zhou Dynasty began to become unfamiliar with the vivid and concrete birds, animals and animals of the previous generation. In the process of pursuing ritualization, they became similar in spirit rather than in form. Secondly, based on the same principle, the fine thunder patterns and other ground patterns used for decoration were also omitted, which were basically not used in later times. The changes here have a causal relationship with the emergence of a large number of inscriptions, because complex ground patterns may have an impact on the inscriptions. Third, the simple and repeated patterns of the Western Zhou Dynasty, such as the stolen song pattern and the double ring pattern, were found in a large number of bronzes in the middle and late Western Zhou Dynasty
Edit：Yuanqi Tang Responsible editor：Xiao Yu
Source：
Special statement: if the pictures and texts reproduced or quoted on this site infringe your legitimate rights and interests, please contact this site, and this site will correct and delete them in time. For copyright issues and website cooperation, please contact through outlook new era email：lwxsd@liaowanghn.com
Recommended Reading Change it 
Home
