Page 41 - Deydier VOL.2 Meiyintang Collection of Chinese Bronses

At the beginning of the Shang dynasty, during the Erligang period, ding are the classics, the meanings of words, etc. produced by scholars between the
very thinly cast and have a deep, rounded body, two small vertical handles, Qin and the early Western Han dynasties) as ‘entirely spherical’, it was the
and either hollow cylindrical legs or, extremely rarely, flattened legs. antiquarians of the Song dynasty who began using the term dui exclusively to
refer to such spherical vessels.
During the Yinxu period, the vessel’s body grows more rounded to become a
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complete round bowl shape, its vertical handles become thicker, and its legs First appearing towards the end of the 6 century bc., this type of vessel
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become cylindrical and full-bodied. In exceptional cases, the ding’s legs are disappears towards the middle of the 4 century bc.
flat in the shape of simple blades or shaped like stylized dragons or birds, or,
extremely rarely, like tigers. The animals on such legs are always shown in
profile. Fangding 方鼎
This important and quite common cooking vessel is, as its
During the Zhou dynasty, the ding is the most popular bronze name indicates, a variation of the ding. This rectangular
vessel and becomes more massive and less deep; its vertical vessel with two vertical handles fixed on the rim is supported
handles are now fixed on the sides of its body and not on by four legs, usually cylindrical, but, in some rare cases,
the rim as in earlier periods. During the Spring and Autumn blade-shaped.
and Warring States periods, ding sometimes have covers
decorated with small animals or birds in the round, handles Known in pottery as early as the Erlitou culture period,
fixed on the walls of the body, and sometimes curved legs the fangding appears cast in bronze for the first time at
looking like stylized animals. the beginning of the Shang dynasty during the Erligang
period. Its casting is already extremely sophisticated with
thin walls and hollow cylindrical legs and hollow vertical
Dou 豆 handles. Sometimes the fangding of the period can be of an
This hemispherical cup supported by a high flared foot, was extremely large size, like the two fangding excavated in 1974
used to hold and display food offerings during ritual banquets. in Zhengzhou city, Henan province, one of which is 1 meter high, 61 cm wide
The vessel’s cover, when turned upside-down, serves as a and 62.5 cm long and weighs 86.4 kg, while the second is 87 cm high, 61 cm
second food receptacle with its own legs. wide and weighs 62.25 kg.

Known in pottery since the Longshan culture (龍山文化) During the Yinxu period small morphological changes appear in the fangding;
(3 - 2,000 bc.) in the Neolithic Period and discovered in white its legs and handles are no longer hollow, but are now full-bodied. The vessel
pottery at the Yinxu period Shang dynasty archeological sites is more heavily cast with thicker walls and more powerful legs. Sometimes
in modern-day Anyang, the dou seems to have first appeared fangding may be of a huge size. The largest Shang fangding known, excavated
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in bronze only around the 9 century bc. from one of the sites at modern-day Anyang is the Si Mu Wu (司母戊)
fangding, dating from the reign of the Shang King Wen Ding (商王文丁). It
This bronze vessel was most popular during the Spring and Autumn and has a height of 133 cm and weighs 875 kg and was cast as a memorial to
Warring States periods of the Eastern Zhou dynasty. king Wen Ding’s mother. The most spectacular fangding in design is the He
Da (禾大) fangding found in 1959 at Ningxiang, Hunan province. This very
unique vessel, from the late Shang dynasty, and of quite medium size, being
Dui 敦 38.5 cm high and 29.8 cm long, is decorated on each of its four sides with a
This round vessel which is surmounted by a cover or top large human mask, the rarest motif in the corpus of Shang bronze designs.
section of the same shape and often the same size, and which
was most probably used both to hold and to serve food, has at The shape of the fangding undergoes no major changes during the Western
various times been called either a gui, dui or zhan. Zhou dynasty, but sometimes flanges appear on the vessel’s body and legs;
at other times the legs are thinner and higher. The major changes are in the
Although the dui is already described in the Erya (爾雅) vessel’s decoration which follows the typical motifs used in this later period.
(‘Literary Exposition’, a compilation of commentaries on Fangding disappear during the Western Zhou dynasty.

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