Page 178 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

for binding the axe to the shaft; the blade itself is 1 Yang and Yang 1986,128 -138.
broad and ends in a curved cutting edge. The deco- 2 Excavated in 1976 (M 5:799); reported: Zhongguo 1980,
105.
ration, however, is unusual: a diminutive human 3 Chang 1983, 61 - 78, and Allan 1991,124 -170.
head flanked by a pair of animals, usually identified
as tigers. The meaning of this iconography is uncer-
tain and much debated: a number of parallels exist,
both on objects from Anyang (including the enor-
mous Si Mu Wu fangding) and others more widely
3
dispersed. Most speculation identifies the head
as that of a "shaman," flanked by his "familiars" —
animals who aid him in his tasks; few examples of
these juxtaposed motifs are known, however,
and they seem a rickety foundation for any broad
theory for the interpretation of Shang iconography
generally. The mate to this axe features an alto-
gether different decoration — an animal mask with
bottle horns, flanked on either side by flattened
bodies. This said, it is worth remembering that the
two examples of the human face-and-tiger motif
from Anyang are both linked directly through in-
scriptions on the objects to consorts of Wu Ding.
One must wonder whether the motif relates to the
status or identity of these consorts. RT

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