Page 247 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

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Bronze fangding vessel
Height 17.8 (7)
Middle Western Zhou Period, c. late tenth -
early ninth century BCE
From Zhuangbai, Fufeng, Shaanxi Province

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

1
This ding vessel is certainly the most eccentric
of all the bronze vessels found in Hoard i. The
cauldron itself is oblong in shape, roughly similar
to several cauldrons from the reigns of Kings Mu
(r. c. 956-918 BCE) and Gong (r. c. 917-900 BCE),
such as the Dong fangding jia, recovered from a
Middle Western Zhou period tomb at Zhuangbai,
and the Fifteenth-year Jue Cao ding. The climbing
that show them to have been commissioned by the dragons at the corners turn their heads (crowned
grandson of a minister who served King Gong, by two prominent bottle-horns) away from the
putting their date of manufacture about the time of vessel. The creatures at the corners of the square
King Xiao (r. c. 8727-866 BCE). Although relatively base extend into the vessel's legs; they are chimeri-
rare on Western Zhou bronze vessels, the wave cal beasts, with "eyes resembling those of a monkey,
pattern proved to be very influential in later bronze a beak like that of an eagle, curling horns like those
ornamentation, especially during the Spring and of a ram, and a neck like that of a deer." The hol-
2
S
Autumn period (770-476 BCE). Its distinctive pat-
low, square base would have held combustible
tern of continuous lines marked a shift away from materials to cook or warm the contents of the caul-
designs symmetrically arranged along a vertical axis dron above it; at either end are windows that serve
(where two pieces of a mold joined) toward the sort a utilitarian function as well as a decorative one
of flowing design that encircles later Chinese by providing air for the fire within. The most strik-
bronze vessels. ES
ing feature of the ding, however, is the "gatekeeper"
figure, which serves as a latch to close the two doors
1 For this bell see Shaanxi 1980, 2: no. 54; the bell inscrip-
tion is translated in Falkenhausen i993b, 41-43. at the front of the base. He is portrayed naked, in
2 For the date of the Shisannian Xing hu, see Shaughnessy a kneeling position, with his left foot amputated.
1991, 255 n. 70.
3 For the date of the Xing xu, see Shaughnessy 1991, Two other known bronze vessels from the West-
261 n. 81. ern Zhou period also feature images of a gatekeeper
4 Excavated in 1976 (32); reported: Shaanxi I978b. with an amputated foot or leg. One, in the Palace
5 See Rawson 1990, part 1:91: "The wave pattern, with its
insistent impression of movement created by the continu- Museum in Beijing, resembles the vessel featured
ous line, and broad areas of texture created by concave or here, but the gatekeeper (whose left leg is ampu-
relief bands, had an impact such as none of the earlier tated at the knee) is portrayed standing, supporting
designs had achieved." 3
himself with a cane in his left hand. The other
gatekeeper vessel, a model of a cart (perhaps a
toy) discovered in 1989 in Wenxi county (Shanxi
province), is even more fanciful than the Zhuangbai
ding: the gatekeeper clings to one side, while four
birds and a monkey perch on the roof of the cart,

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