CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

49
Bronze animal-shaped gong vessel
Height 22 (8 5 / 8 ), weight 3.35 (/Ys)
Late Shang Yinxu Period II (c. 1200 BCE)
From Xiaotun Locus North, at Yinxu, Anyang,
Henan Province
The Institute of Archaeology, CASS, Beijing
New types of vessels and variants associated with
wine consumption proliferated in Anyang bronze
production. Older types derived from ceramic
prototypes, such as lei, pou, hu, and you, were made
in bronze in considerable numbers and also modified
to yield variants with different body shapes.
Among the new types without ceramic prototypes
are the gong or guang service vessel type shown
here and the fangyi, a square-section wine storage
vessel with a lid resembling a miniature hipped
roof. Anyang assemblages customarily include large
numbers of vessels dedicated to wine offerings; the
Fu Hao tomb contained an abundance of storage
vessels, warming vessels, and serving and drinking
vessels. The purported fondness of Late Shang kings
for alcoholic spirits became a stinging point of
criticism in the propaganda of the Western
Zhou Book of Documents. 1
This vessel 2 offered a convenient way of pouring
spirits into drinking goblets or warming cups (gu
I/O | BRONZE ACE CHINA