A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE DING BRONZE VESSELS FROM XIN’GAN
BY
ZHANG CHANGSHOU (Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)
Abstract Shang and Zhou period bronzes that exhibit a number of regional features are being discovered more and more frequently in southern China. Comparative studies of these bronzes are needed to establish their evolutionary sequences. The ritual bronzes from the large Shang tombs at Xin’gan, Jiangxi, are an example. Among the vessels from this tomb, the ding vessels account for more than half of the total. Comparison with their counterparts in the Zhengzhou Erligang phase and the Anyang Yin period shows that typologically the bronzes from Xin’gan distinctly differ from those in the Central Plains, as the main vessel type at Xin’gan is the ding, and in the Central Plains, the gu and jue wine vessels. The Xin’gan ding has a variety of forms, with the at-legged ding constituting the major group, thus suggesting that this subtype might have developed rst in the south. The Xin’gan ding often bears tiger-shaped decorations on its two handles, and these seem to be an indication of totemism among the local ethnic group. Chronologically, the Xin’gan ding roughly correspond to the late Zhengzhou Erligang period.
In 1989, a large tomb was found at Xin’gan in Dayangzhou , Jiangxi Province. The incredible richness of the objects contained in this tomb, which dates to the Shang period, is forcing a re-evaluation of the relationship between the bronze culture of the Central Plains and southern China. In all, this tomb contained 356 pieces of pottery, 150 jades, over 400 bronze tools and weapons, and 50 bronze vessels. 1 The bronze vessel types include ding , li , yan , gui , dou , you , lei , hu , pou , and zan (Jiangxi Sheng Wenwu Kaogu Yanjiu- suo and Jiangxi Sheng Xin’gan Xian Bowuguan 1991). The thirty ding vessels from the tomb, comprising 60% of the total number of bronze vessels found, indicate that ding vessels were of great signicance in the
1 Several articles have appeared on the Xin’gan Shang tomb in the Western litera- ture (see Bagley 1993 and 1999: 171-175). A monograph excavation report for the Xin’gan Shang tomb has been published since the submission of the manuscript for this article (Jiangxi Sheng Bowuguan et al. 1997). © Brill, Leiden 2000 JEAA 2, 1–2 252 ZHANG changshou
Xin’gan bronze assemblage, and this probably can be seen as repre- sentative of the southern bronze tradition during the Shang period. The various kinds of ding tripod and tetrapod vessels from Xin’gan, such as fangding (rectangular tetrapod), round ding, and at-legged ding, are also found in burials and caches in the Central Plains region during the same time period. A comparison of ding vessels from Xin’gan and the Central Plains region should help us to determine the date of the Xin’gan nds and to understand the typical features of the south- ern bronzes.
The Xin’gan fangding vessels
There are six fangding from the Xin’gan tomb. The most impressive is the large ding (catalogued as 008) with a tiger appended on each of its two handles (Figure 1: 1). It bears close resemblance to the several large fangding found at Zhengzhou , Henan Province, as has been pointed out by many scholars. The vessel has a deep body and at bottom, and the rim is approximately square in shape; each of its two handles has a groove on the outside and a tiger on the top. The four cylindrical legs are hollow. The body of the vessel is decorated with a U-shaped register containing rows of protruding nipple designs, and a band of animal- mask motifs is found beneath the rim of the vessel. Horned-animal- mask motifs in high relief are placed on the upper portion of the legs. The length of the rim is 58 cm, the width 49.3 cm, and the vessel height is 97 cm. This vessel (008) is dated to the late Erligang phase by the Jiangxi archaeologist Peng Shifan and his colleagues (1991), and dated to the transition between the Upper Erligang and the Early Yinxu phases by Zhan Kaixun (1992). Similar fangding vessels have been found in Zhengzhou: two from the site of Zhangzhai (Henan Sheng Bowuguan 1975), and another two from the cache unearthed at the Huizu Food Factory in Zhengzhou (Figure 2: 2, 3) (Henan Sheng Wenwu Yanjiusuo and Zhengzhou Shi Bowuguan 1983). These vessels share some similarities, such as size, the perpendicular walls of the body, and their ratios of length to width. They also have similar decorative designs on the bodies of the vessels, such as the raised nipple patterns and the band of animal-mask motifs beneath the rim. The band of animal-masks on each interrupts the nipple pattern that runs vertically along the sides of the vessel. The animal-mask motifs are usually executed in single thread relief, with a complete animal mask set in the middle of the decorated panel, anked by two split animal masks. The two split masks at the end of the panel are then joined by