Page 122 - Deydier UNDERSTANDING CHINESE ARCHAIC BRONZES

The Various Forms of the Dragon on Bronze Vessels

In jiagu wen 甲骨文, or oracle bone writing, the earliest known form of
Chinese writing, the dragon is depicted with a long, rising, snake-like
body with a large triangular or rectangular whiskered head topped by a
high mushroom-like horned headdress.

On bronze vessels, the dragon is most generally depicted as a stylized
long-bodied creature shown in profile, in which case it is called a kui 夔
dragon. We have seen above that the taotie 饕餮 motif on many Shang
and Zhou bronze ritual vessels is formed of a pair of such interfacing
kui 夔 dragons (See page 113). When used as a minor decorative
element on bronze vessels, the dragon also appears in a number of
other stylized forms, as a snake-like creature with either a bird’s head
and beak or sometimes with a long tail and a bird’s high crest or even
with an elephant’s trunk.

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Dragon motif, detail of the pan, Shang dynasty, Yinxu period (circa 14 - 12 /11 centuries B.C.)
Meiyintang Collection n° 180
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