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Jinhou Pi bronze gui vessel vessels. The inscriptions may have been placed
inside the vessels so that the ancestors would read
Height 384 (15 Vs)
Late Western Zhou Period, ninth century BCE them as they consumed the contents. In addition
From Tianma-Qucun (Beizhao, Quwo), to the dedications seen here, some bronzes contain
longer inscriptions that memorialize the honors
Shanxi Province
accorded the owners of the vessels. Such achieve-
Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, ments may have been recorded in these inscrip-
Taiyuan tions precisely because the living lords wished to
inform their ancestors of these honors, which pre-
Following the changes in ritual during the ninth sumably raised the status of the living and might
century, lords of the Late Western Zhou period raise the ranking of the ancestors as well. 3
acquired sets of ritual food basins (gui) that com- Inscriptions such as those on this vessel and,
prised an even number of vessels, often fitted with much later, on seals (cat. 138) are among the many
1
lids (as in this example). This gui with its substan- elements of daily life that were carried into the
tial square base, S-shaped profile, and two handles, realms of the ancestors and spirits. By the Han
is a typical example. (Less common during the period, the afterlife had come to be viewed as
Early Western Zhou period, the squared base of including a large bureaucracy that required the
the gui became a standard feature in the ninth to paraphernalia of officialdom, including seals and
eighth centuries.) The handles bear large animal records, to authenticate the positions of the dead
heads with rounded horns or ears, and a flange and to receive similarly important information
contains a trunklike extension. Abstract angular across the boundary of death. That view of the
S-shaped motifs fill two borders on the body and afterlife was altogether different from that of classi-
two on the lid, the handle of which is composed of cal Greece and Rome, which prized individualism in
an everted ring. Other semi-abstract designs form the afterlife as it did on earth, and it was also far
borders around undecorated panels within each of removed from that of the early Christians, whose
the four sides of the base. The bronze has a gray- Kingdom of God had much in common with the
green sheen, with traces of bright green and red- court of a small European state of the day. JR
dish corrosion.
One of a pair surviving from a group of four, 1 Excavated in 1992 (M 8:30); reported: Beijing 1994.
this basin is inscribed inside the body and lid dedi- 2 3 See Xu 1996^ especially table 2.
discussion of Western Zhou period bronze
For a full
cating the bronze by an individual titled Jinhou, or inscriptions, see Shaughnessy 1991. For a critique of this
Marquis of Jin, for ritual offerings to his ancestor. view, see Falkenhausen 19933.
Jinhou is not the occupant of the tomb, however.
The character for the name of the lord has been
transcribed in several different ways by various
scholars, however, and these identifications remain
controversial. 2
While many Shang period bronzes were in-
scribed, often with the characters of the owner's
names, the form of the inscription on this vessel
is typical of the Zhou period. It is likely that these
inscriptions were intended to be read by both the
living and the dead, for it was expected that the
ancestors would be drawn to the feast by the aroma
of the food and wine prepared for them in these

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