Page 119 - Deydier UNDERSTANDING CHINESE ARCHAIC BRONZES

faces appearing in the decorative motifs of bronze vessels. However,
the suitability of using the word taotie 饕餮 to describe the ogre masks
found on the décor of many ancient bronzes has been the subject of
much discussion and debate in recent years, with some archeologists
and scholars preferring to use the term shoumian 獸面 (beast face) and
others calling this mask 動物面 dongwu mian (animal face) and still
others preferring to use the term “animal mask”. However the term
taotie 饕餮 has been used for such a long period of time and by so many
scholars that there is no really suitable alternative.

Pre-Bronze Age Origins of the Taotie 饕餮

Strange motifs quite similar to the taotie 饕餮 can be seen on neolithic
Liangzhu culture 良渚文化 (circa 3400 – 2250 B.C.) cong 琮 and yue
axe 鉞 jades from the Yangtze River Delta 長江下游, with its centre in
present-day Hangzhou 杭州 in Zhejiang 浙江 province. Like the taotie
饕餮 found on Xia 夏 and later bronzes, these motifs most often have
two eyes, a nose and a hint of a mouth, and vary in shape and make-up
from the simple to the very complex.

In the Xia 夏 dynasty cultural strata at Erlitou 二里頭 dating from the
18 to 17 /16 centuries B.C., archeologists found bronze plaques
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entirely set with a turquoise decorative pattern featuring two large,
bulging, oval eyes, possibly an early form in the development of the
taotie 饕餮 mask (See photo on page 117).
During the Erligang 二里崗 period (circa 17 /16 – 14 centuries B.C.)
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at the beginning of the Shang 商 dynasty, a primitive version of the
taotie 饕餮 appeared on bronze vessels, first simply as a pair of large
eyes, and then gradually as a mask.
During the Anyang 安陽 period, usually known as the Yinxu period 殷
墟 (14 – 12 /11 centuries B.C.), of the Shang 商 dynasty, the taotie
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饕餮 often appears as a particular animal, such as a buffalo or a deer
(as on the two fangding 方鼎 or square ding excavated from tomb
HPKM 1004 at Anyang 安陽 in 1934), or other horned animal, a tiger,
a mythological beast, and sometimes even as a human face (as on
the He Da fang ding 禾大方鼎 excavated in Ningxiang 寧鄉, Hunan

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Bronze plaque inlaid with turquoises, Xia dynasty, Erlitou culture (circa 19 – 17 /16 centuries
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B.C.), length: 14.7 cm – Meiyintang Collection n° 1.
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