Page 177 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

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Bronze yue axe The large axe is associated in traditional texts with
the granting of military authority, as when a lord
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Height 39.5 (15 Viz), maximum width 37.3 (i4 /s),
3
weight 9 (19 / 4) was invested with the power to wage a campaign,
Late Shang Yinxu Period II (c. 1200 BCE) but it was also evidently used for the punishment of
decapitation; several graphic attestations
to the
From Xiaotun Locus North, at Yinxu, Anyang, practice appear in oracle-bone and bronze inscrip-
Henan Province
tions. Transmitted texts tell us that the last Shang
The Institute of Archaeology, CASS, Beijing king, the evil Zhou Xin, was beheaded with a "yel-
low yue" by the victorious founder of the new dy-
Large, flat axes (yue) appear in bronze in the Early nasty, Wu Wang. Many scholars believe that the
Shang, although they have precursors in hardstone logograph for "king" (wang) originated in a picto-
that date much earlier. While not as common as the graphic representation of such large axes; such an
ge dagger-axe and mao spear-point, more than three etymology suggests that flat axes may have served as
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dozen examples of bronze yue are known. Only a royal insignia.
few are classified as "largeyue," including four ex- The shape of this example is characteristic of
amples from Fu Hao's tomb, of which this is one. 2 its type: the wide tang is flanked by a pair of slots

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