Page 67 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

FIG. i. Bird-fish-axe design Yancun gang and those incised on the Dawenkou
on the urn. After Yan 1981, vessels. 4
79' fig-1-
The Yancun and Dawenkou images bear a strik-
ing similarity to some of the earliest inscriptions
on bronze vessels, which date to the period of the
first-generation rulers at Anyang, around 1300 BCE.
Several of these bronze vessels recovered from the
large royal tomb M i at Wuguancun at Anyang carry
an inscription consisting of a central graph, equiva-
lent to the modern character for dan, flanked on
either side by two back-to-back human figures in
profile, which make up the character bei, or "north."
These two combined graphs are followed by an-
other, depicting a hafted bronze halberd, with the
modern reading ge. On the evidence of the oracle-
2
name of a clan associated with it. The axe likely bone texts, the first part of the inscription is read
served as an honorific attribute, indicating rank or Bei Dan, or Northern Dan. Although Bei Dan itself
status. Taken together, the axe and heron may have is only rarely mentioned in the oracle-bone texts,
identified the vessel's owner, or the person for Western Dan, Eastern Dan, and Southern Dan
whom it was made. occur with some frequency. 5 The identification of
The images painted on the Yancun vessel ap- the first element in the Wuguancun inscriptions
pear to be related to the pictographs occasionally as the name of a place (or a clan) lends credence to
incised on vessels of approximately the same date the interpretation of the Yancun and Dawenkou
associated with the Dawenkou culture of Shandong images as place names. The hafted axes and adzes
province (compare cat. 23). On vessels from two on the Yancun and Dawenkou vessels, like the
high-status Dawenkou burials at the Juxian site of hafted halberd on the Wuguancun bronzes, would
Dazhujia (M 17, M 26), and from other burials at the seem to function as honorifics. The importance of
nearby site of Lingyanghe, there occur two sorts of the heron and the axe on the Yancun vessel thus
graphs. The first type shows a circle above a cres- resides not only in the naturalistic rendition of the
centlike shape, which may also be combined with images, but in the evidence they provide for a nas-
a third element, which is either flat or rounded at cent stage in the history of graphic notation in
the bottom and rises to three or five symmetrical China. 6
peaks at the top. Based on their similarities to The vessel, of a reddish buff ware, was finished
characters in the Shang oracle-bone texts, these on a slow wheel and then coated with a thin white
elements are generally read as "moon," "fire," and slip before it was painted. Six hook-shaped lugs
"mountain," respectively, and they are generally below the rim, two of which have been broken off,
regarded to make up a place name. The second enabled a lid to be tied in place. LF-H
category, which may occur singly or in association
with the first type, is made up of graphs that repre-
sent ritual implements, including hafted axes and
hafted adzes, and others that appear to be scep-
3
ters. Archaeological evidence of cultural transmis-
sion between Yancun in Henan and the Dawenkou
sites in Shantong is sufficient to suggest an actual
link between the kind of images painted on the

66 LATE P R E H I S T O R I C CHIN A