Page 130 - Deydier UNDERSTANDING CHINESE ARCHAIC BRONZES

The Snake Motif 蛇紋
The snake is another frequently seen decorative motif on bronze vessels
from the Shang 商 and later dynasties.
Able to live both in the water and on land, hibernating in winter in
colder climates and changing its skin in spring, the snake was for the
ancient Chinese a symbol of transformation and re-birth and was linked
to the world of spirits and the deceased, as well as to that of the living.
In oracle bone inscriptions, jiaguwen 甲骨文, the snake appears
among the group of pictograms relating either to illness or to death
by sacrifice. Even in modern Chinese fortune-telling, the snake enjoys
a mixed reputation, sometimes regarded as auspicious and, at other
times, as quite inauspicious. Whereas seeing a snake in a dream is
usually considered a bad omen foretelling imminent disaster, for a
merchant, the same dream is considered a good omen foretelling the
dreamer’s imminent accumulation of great wealth!
128
The Elephant Motif 象紋
Oracle bone inscriptions, jiaguwen 甲骨文 excavated at the Shang
Royal Tombs at Yinxu 殷墟 (Anyang 安陽), tell us that during the Shang
th
th
商 dynasty (circa 17 /16 – 12 /11 centuries B.C.) and especially
th
th
during the Yinxu 殷墟 period, wild elephants were not only hunted
and captured by kings and nobles, but were also domesticated and
bred for various uses. This is not surprising since other information
gathered from oracle bone inscriptions, jiaguwen 甲骨文, indicates
that temperatures in northern China were much milder during the
Shang 商 dynasty, and thus much more suitable for elephants than in
the present age.
rd
The Lushi Chunqiu Annals 呂氏春秋 written in the 3 century B.C. by
Lu Buwei 呂不偉, the Counsellor-in-Chief of the Kingdom of Qin 秦
and his myriad retainers, also record that the Shang 商, during their
many and frequent battles with the ‘Eastern Barbarians’ 東夷, put into
service a cavalry of elephants, which struck terror into the hearts of the
Shang’s enemies.
More recently, in the 1930s and 40s, while carrying out excavation
work at the Shang Royal Tombs in Yinxu 殷墟 (Anyang 安陽) in Henan
河南 province, archaeologists found the remains of elephants in the
sacrificial pits, while in the burial chambers of members of the royal
family, they found items of ivory jewellery and elephant tusks. In
1978 still other archaeologists working at another sacrificial pit in the
same area unearthed the remains of a small domesticated elephant
with a bronze bell tied round its neck, adding credibility to the claims
of ancient records such as the Lushi Chunqiu Annals 呂氏春秋 that
elephants were common in northern areas of China during the Xia 夏,
Shang 商 and Zhou 周 periods.
In 1959 a late Shang 商代後期 nao 鐃 bell with its upper band cast with
standing elephant motifs was discovered farther south at Ningxiang 寧
鄉 in Hunan 湖南 province (See photo on page 94). Then again in 1983
in a nearby area of Ningxiang 寧鄉, another large late Shang dynasty 商
代後期 nao 鐃 bell was discovered. Interestingly, this one is decorated
at the centre of its top band on each of its two sides with a magnificent
pair of confronting elephants touching their raised trunks together as
if in salutation, seeming to suggest that the animals had been trained
in captivity.
129