CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

51
Bronze jue vessel
Height 37.3 (i4 5 /s), weight 4.4 (9 5 / 8 )
Late Shang Yinxu Period II (c. 1200 BCE)
From Xiaotun Locus North, at Yinxu, Anyang,
Henan Province
flanges that mark the waist band and the underside
of the spout. The animal head on the strap handle
and the masks at the waist are in fairly high relief;
most of the other decoration is less readable. RT
i Excavated in 1976 (M 5:1579); reported: Zhongguo 1980, 85.
The Institute of Archaeology, CASS, Beijing
From the heyday of the Erlitou type site until some
time in the Western Zhou period, the jue pouring
vessel was one of the most common types of bronze
ritual vessels. About a dozen small, thinly cast, and
plain jue have been recovered to date at Erlitou;
at Early Shang sites, jue are commonly found paired
with gu wine goblets. This pairing is typical of all
stages in the Anyang occupation, when hundreds
of examples from period burials are documented.
The paired jue and gu constitute the "lowest common
denominator" among Shang bronze vessels
and ritual sets.
Tomb 5 held forty jue altogether, but this example
1 and its mate stand apart by virtue of their size
and thick casting. This is an exceptionally large jue
— at almost 38 centimeters, nearly twice as tall as
other examples from the tomb, which range from 20
to 26 centimeters. The complement of jue in Tomb 5
corresponds to four sets of vessels, each component
inscribed with a different clan-sign that indicates
its origin. The Fu Hao jue comprise the large pair
represented by the exhibited example, and ten
others of smaller size and different shape. Three
other lineages (Si Tu Mu, Ya Qi, and Shu Quan)
are represented by three sets of nine jue each,
paired of course with gu goblets (eleven, ten, and
ten, respectively). The sets of goblets and pouring
vessels were probably gifts or offerings made to
Fu Hao at the funeral; they may even have been
used for drinking or libations at the grave during
the rites, a custom known as early as the prehistoric
Dawenkou and Longshan cultures (fourth-third
millennium BCE) of Shandong.
Its three flared legs and trough spout and tail
extending well beyond the vessel body, this jue is
nonetheless a stable and solid vessel. The evident
thickness of the vessel walls is matched by thick
175 | TOMB 5 AT XIAOTUN