Page 169 - Deydier UNDERSTANDING CHINESE ARCHAIC BRONZES

possible reason was that during the Tang 唐, many of the sites chosen ritual bronze vessels.
for new tombs were located in areas where ancient cemeteries had
previously been made and these were often inadvertently disturbed ■ The Shuowen jiezi 說文解字, a dictionary cum encyclopedia
and their contents brought to light. written by Xu Shen 許慎 (died 146 B.C.) in the Han 漢 dynasty,
features descriptions of shapes and types of ritual vessels and
During the late Qing 清 dynasty (1644 – 1911 A.D.), the building of the explanations of their uses. This extremely important book, with its
railway lines also led to the accidental unearthing of quite a number wealth of valuable information, is even today considered to be the
of tombs and caches containing ancient bronze vessels. But perhaps foundation upon which all subsequent studies of ancient Chinese
the most important discovery from the point of view of ancient bronze bronze vessels is based.
vessels, their inscriptions, etc. was made during the reign of Guangxu 光
th
th
緒 (1875 – 1909 A.D.) in the late 19 century when a massive mudslide During the 5 century, the poet, statesman and historian Shen Yue 沈
led to the discovery of the Shang 商 royal tombs, in Xiaotun 小屯 near 約 ( 441 – 513 A.D.) in the Furui Zhi 符瑞誌 (The Book of Auspicious
present-day Anyang 安陽 in Henan 河南 province. This was followed Omens), included later in the Songshu 宋書 (Annals of the Kingdom
in the early 20 century by fifteen scientific excavations organized of Song [420 – 479 A.D.] / Song Kingdom of the post-Han, pre-Tang
th
by the Academia Sinica 國立中央研究院 from 1928 until 1937, when period) mentioned fifteen discoveries, in which a total of forty-one
all archaeological work on the sites was interrupted by the Japanese ancient bronze ritual vessels were unearthed.
invasion.

2. Song 宋 studies
1. Earliest systematic studies on ancient bronze vessels
It was, however, during the Song 宋 dynasty (960 – 1279 A.D.), when
th
th
In ancient texts from as early as the Zhou 周 dynasty (circa 12 /11 interest in collecting and studying ancient objects and inscriptions
centuries – 256 B.C.), such as the Zhouli 周禮 (The Rites of the Zhou) reached its zenith, that Chinese antiquarians carried out the first
the Yili 儀禮 (The Book of Rites and Ceremonies) and the Liji 禮記 systematic scientific studies of ancient Chinese bronzes. After
(Classic of Rites of the Zhou), we can find references to ritual bronze initially making a complete inventory of all the ancient bronze vessels
vessels and detailed descriptions of their uses. discovered up to that time, several Song 宋 dynasty scholars compiled
treatises which included drawings, descriptions, measurements, etc. of
During the Han 漢 dynasty (circa 206 B.C. – 24 A.D.), the Shuowen each known vessel as well as its inscription, if there was one, together
jiezi 說文解字 and the Erya 爾雅 both included numerous references with an interpretion of the inscription. Perhaps ever more importantly,
to bronze ritual vessels. they scoured the ancient Chinese classics and historical annals in an
attempt to correctly name and classify the vessels according to their
■ The Erya 爾雅, which is China’s earliest-known dictionary cum original use.
encyclopedia, was most probably compiled in the 3 century B.C.,
rd
from the end of the Qin 秦 dynasty (circa 221 – 206 B.C.) to the Among the thirty or so surviving books written during the Song 宋
beginning of the Western Han. The Erya 爾雅 is divided into dynasty on the subject of ancient bronze ritual vessels and their
nineteen sections, the first of which discusses synonyms, while the inscriptions, the most important are:
second deals with words grouped together by the closeness of their
meanings and the third section concerns terms grouped together ■ the Xian Qin Guqi Tu 先秦古器圖, which was probably the first
by theme; the Erya’s 爾雅 sixth section discusses daily utensils, book to publish drawings of ancient ritual vessels. It was written by
food, clothing, etc. and contains a plethora of references to ancient the Northern Song 北宋 academician Liu Chang 劉敞 (1019 – 1068

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