Page 123 - Deydier UNDERSTANDING CHINESE ARCHAIC BRONZES
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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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