Page 196 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

ten vessels were wine containers (hu, you, lei, pou), a distinctive order of decoration: a plain central
a large serving ladle, and two food vessels (a pan panel bordered by bands of bosses and crossed
or gui and a dou). Conspicuously absent are the below the rim by a register of mask motifs with
most common types of northern Bronze Age vessels: paired eyes. The cylindrical legs are topped by relief
gu goblets andjue andjia tripods. It may be that the ram heads placed diagonally to the corners of the
rites in which these vessels were used emphasized body. The loop handles are hollow and surmounted
the preparation and service of meat and grain offer- by profile tigers aligned with the short sides of
ings; individual consumption of wine (the purpose the vessel. Both the relief of the ram heads and
of gu and jue) — at least using bronze vessels — the tigers set this example apart from northern
was apparently not part of the ritual. fangding, and, together with the slightly different
The single large fangding ] was among the bronze proportions of the body and of legs to body,
vessels removed from the site by peasants before suggest this fangding may postdate Erligang Phase
proper excavation was initiated. It originally stood examples (c. 1600-1400 BCE) from the North
northwest of the supposed coffin area, at what may China macroregion.
have been the foot of the coffin. It is the largest As with specimens from the north, the vessel
of sixfangding in the assemblage; one measuring was cast in stages, with the base cast onto the legs,
13 centimeters in height is best regarded as a mini- the walls cast into the base, and the tigers cast
ature. Large fangding had previously been found in onto the handles. RT
the north as paired vessels, including several sets
at Zhengzhou and a pair in the tomb of Fu Hao. i Recovered in 1989 (XDM:8); reported: Jiangxi 1997, 32.
Like most northern examples, this vessel carries

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