Page 170 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

linked to patron identity are visible in the designs.
In any event, after satisfying all stipulated require-
ments, artisans making molds had at most a limited
ability to make objects look as they saw fit.
Yet, in spite of all of these presumed strictures,
works of considerable novelty emerged from the
foundries, whether on the initiative of the foundry
or the patron. The two owl-shaped wine containers
inscribed "Fu Hao" are key examples — at once
aesthetic objects and useful containers for holding
alcoholic spirits. Other sculptural vessels in bronze
are known, including smaller but otherwise similar
1
birds. The most telling comparison, however, is to
an owl carved in white marble from Tomb 1001 at
Xibeigang. Given that this tomb may have been the
burial of King Wu Ding, Fu Hao's mate, the many
similarities in design would seem to relate to one
period and narrow social circle.
2
The Fu Hao owl stands on two plump, drum-
stick legs; a downturned fan of tail feathers forms
the vessel's third "leg." The body of the owl is an
elongated oval that rises to a round neck. The owl's
beak and face are cast as one piece with the neck,
while the rear part of the head forms a removable
lid with miniature bird and dragon as knobs. The
4» strap handle at the back is aligned opposite the
spout
beak at front, which forms the
of the vessel.
Bronze owl-shaped zun vessel A pair of hornlike appendages (actually curved
serpents with bottle horns) stands perpendicular
l l/4
3
Height 46.3 (% )> wei ght 16.7 (36 A) to the axis of beak and handle. An owl thus takes
Late Shang Yinxu Period II (c. 1200 BCE)
shape from various details woven into the fabric of
From Xiaotun Locus North, at Yinxu, Anyang,
the body. The marble owl from Tomb 1001 is similar
Henan Province
in many ways, although its details are necessarily
The Institute of Archaeology, CASS, Beijing informed by the properties of stone rather than
those of metal. For example, the standing horns
The artisans of Shang bronze foundries had a grasp of the bronze owl become flattened horns on the
of metallurgy that was probably informed by tradi- marble bird, while the open space between the legs
tional attitudes and practices learned from their and tail of the Fu Hao vessel is adumbrated by the
elders, but bronze production was commanded by grooves cut into the base of the stone. RT
an elite whose ritual needs, and ritual specialists,
dictated many salient characteristics of the objects. 1 Bagley 1987, 406 - 411, reviews many related examples.
2 Excavated in 1976 (M 5:785); reported: Zhongguo 1980,
Whether individual patrons dictated specific re- 56-59.
quirements as well is probably impossible to deter-
mine: even with many hundreds of excavated
objects from the Yinxu sites, few if any patterns

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