CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

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Bronze owl-shaped zun vessel
Height 46.3 ( l % l/4 )> wei ght 16.7 (36 3 A)
Late Shang Yinxu Period II (c. 1200 BCE)
From Xiaotun Locus North, at Yinxu, Anyang,
Henan Province
The Institute of Archaeology, CASS, Beijing
The artisans of Shang bronze foundries had a grasp
of metallurgy that was probably informed by traditional
attitudes and practices learned from their
elders, but bronze production was commanded by
an elite whose ritual needs, and ritual specialists,
dictated many salient characteristics of the objects.
Whether individual patrons dictated specific requirements
as well is probably impossible to determine:
even with many hundreds of excavated
objects from the Yinxu sites, few if any patterns
linked to patron identity are visible in the designs.
In any event, after satisfying all stipulated requirements,
artisans making molds had at most a limited
ability to make objects look as they saw fit.
Yet, in spite of all of these presumed strictures,
works of considerable novelty emerged from the
foundries, whether on the initiative of the foundry
or the patron. The two owl-shaped wine containers
inscribed "Fu Hao" are key examples — at once
aesthetic objects and useful containers for holding
alcoholic spirits. Other sculptural vessels in bronze
are known, including smaller but otherwise similar
birds. 1 The most telling comparison, however, is to
an owl carved in white marble from Tomb 1001 at
Xibeigang. Given that this tomb may have been the
burial of King Wu Ding, Fu Hao's mate, the many
similarities in design would seem to relate to one
period and narrow social circle.
The Fu Hao owl 2 stands on two plump, drumstick
legs; a downturned fan of tail feathers forms
the vessel's third "leg." The body of the owl is an
elongated oval that rises to a round neck. The owl's
beak and face are cast as one piece with the neck,
while the rear part of the head forms a removable
lid with miniature bird and dragon as knobs. The
strap handle at the back is aligned opposite the
beak at front, which forms the spout of the vessel.
A pair of hornlike appendages (actually curved
serpents with bottle horns) stands perpendicular
to the axis of beak and handle. An owl thus takes
shape from various details woven into the fabric of
the body. The marble owl from Tomb 1001 is similar
in many ways, although its details are necessarily
informed by the properties of stone rather than
those of metal. For example, the standing horns
of the bronze owl become flattened horns on the
marble bird, while the open space between the legs
and tail of the Fu Hao vessel is adumbrated by the
grooves cut into the base of the stone. RT
1 Bagley 1987, 406 - 411, reviews many related examples.
2 Excavated in 1976 (M 5:785); reported: Zhongguo 1980,
56-59.
169 | TOMB 5 AT XIAOTUN