CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

single head — or, alternatively, a spliced depiction
of both sides of a single dragon.
The original name for animal-shaped vessels
is unknown; 4 it may be that there was no uniform
name, and that, during rituals, each vessel was used
for the same function as the standard vessel on
which it was based. If so, this vessel may have been
used as a you. Like many Western Zhou you, in fact,
the vessel was paired with a slightly smaller vessel
of identical shape. LVF
1 Excavated in 1984 (M 163:33); published: Zhongguo Fengxi
1986, pi. i; Rawson 1990, part 2:709-710, fig. 119.3; Zhongguo
1993,182.
2 Hayashi 1986,128-129.
3 Hayashi 1984, 2:280-285.
4 Since the eleventh century CE, convention has subsumed
all animal-shaped vessels under the term zun, now sometimes
amended to xizun to differentiate them from trumpet-mouthed
zun vessels.
of these elements have parallels elsewhere in the
Western Zhou bestiary, 2 but the specific combination
is unique.
The staid demeanor of this composite creature
is enlivened by a crest of four handles shaped as
rambunctious animals: a long-tailed bird and three
different kinds of dragons. Dynamic tension is
introduced as well by the surface ornament, which
accentuates the object's animal features. The animal's
breast, belly, and hindquarters are adorned
with symmetrical pairs of S-shaped dragons that,
when viewed frontally, can be read as animal masks.
This motif frequently appears on ritual bronzes;
its deployment on the belly, with a prominent birdshaped
flange as its central axis, accentuates the
derivation of that portion of the object from a
standard vessel type.
As is typical for Middle Western Zhou bronzes,
the main elements of the decoration are executed
as wide, flat, empty bands with jagged outlines that
barely emerge from their background of thin spirals.
A Middle Western Zhou date is also suggested
by the specific resemblance of the vessel's cover to
Middle Western Zhou you covers. 3 The cover's surface
features two sinuous dragons merging into a
235 | BRONZES FROM FENG HAO AND ENVIRONS