Page 239 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

78

Lu Fu Yi bronze gu vessel
Height 25.2 (io) T diam. at mouth 13.2 (5'A)
Early Western Zhou Period, late eleventh - early
tenth century BCE
From Zhuangbai, Fufeng, Shaanxi Province

Zhou Yuan Administrative Office of Cultural Relics,
Fufeng, Shaanxi Province

Notable for its long, narrow neck and the elegant
smoothness of its upper body, this gu } is decorated
only at its base, with a wide ribbonlike band sand-
wiched between two narrower bands ofyunwen
(cloud pattern). Its shape dates it to the end of
the Early Western Zhou period — the first half of
the tenth century BCE — but the calligraphy of
its simple inscription (which reads "Father Yi of the
Lti [lineage]") suggests an earlier date. Whatever
its absolute date, this gu and four others that the
excavators have grouped with it are doubtless the
latest examples of this vessel type from Hoard i. 2
The gu, traditionally classified as a wine vessel,
was one of the standard vessel types of the Shang
period. Although it continued to be used through
the Early Western Zhou period, it became rare after
the beginning of the Middle Western Zhou period
(roughly the reign of King Mu [r. c. 956-918 BCE]).
The disappearance of this specific vessel type may
well prefigure the apparent abandonment of almost
all wine vessels in the "ritual reform" of the Middle
Western Zhou period. This reform saw a dramatic
change in the composition of sets of vessels used
in rituals: food vessels, especially ding and gui, often
in multiples, came to dominate ritual assemblages.
The Xing vessels of Hoard i are representative of
the composition of such a set after the reform: two
xu, four \\u, eight gui, three jue, five //, and at least
four different sets of zhong.
The family name in the inscription, Lti, is iden-
tified with a hoard of thirty-seven vessels discovered
in 1975 in Dongjia, Qishan, Shaanxi province —
about 3 kilometers northwest of Zhuangbai. Al-
though the character is written differently on the
Dongjia vessels, the appearance of this vessel in
the Wei family hoard may reflect marriages between

238 BRONZE AGE CHINA