CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

BRONZES FROM
HOARD 1 AT
ZHUANGBAI,
FUFENG, SHAANXI
PROVINCE
Zhuangbai, a hamlet situated approximately 100 kilometers west of the city of Xi'an, between
the Wei River (25 kilometers to the south) and the Qi Shan mountains (25 kilometers to the
north), was recognized as an important archaeological site in December 1976, when farmers
clearing a field turned up an ancient bronze vessel; subsequent excavation revealed a pit containing
103 bronze vessels dating to the Western Zhou period (c. 1100-771 BCE) — the so-called
Hoard i. Zhuangbai lies in the Zhou Yuan — the Plain of Zhou — the ancestral homeland of the
Zhou people prior to the establishment of their dynasty in the middle of the eleventh century
BCE. Even after the political capital had been moved to the vicinity of present-day Xi'an, many
important Zhou families continued to maintain households in the Zhou Yuan.
Although the plain covers a small area (approximately 10 square kilometers), it has yielded
more Western Zhou bronze vessels than any single locality in China. In the iSoos, when archaeological
finds in China began to become systematically reported, several important Western
Zhou bronze vessels were discovered within the plain's perimeter in the two counties — Qishan
and Fufeng — whose border bisects the Zhou Yuan: the Mao Gong ding, found in the 18408 in
Jingdang (Qishan) and now in the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan;
the Da Yu ding, discovered at around the same time in Licun (Qishan) and now in The National
Museum of Chinese History, Beijing; and the Da Ke ding, discovered in 1890 in Renjia (Fufeng)
and now in the Shanghai Museum. In the 19705, the Zhou Yuan was the focus of a concerted
archaeological investigation, with important discoveries of other hoards made at Dongjia
(thirty-seven vessels, found in 1975, belonging to the Lti lineage); Hejia (two vessels of the San
lineage, discovered in 1973, complementing another hoard of eleven San vessels that had been
unearthed about 2 kilometers to the east in Shaochen in 1960); Qiangjia (seven vessels, belonging
to the Guoji lineage, discovered in 1974); as well as the tomb of Bo Dong at Zhuangbai
(fourteen important vessels found in 1975) — about one hundred meters from where Hoard i
was discovered a year later.
Tombs usually contain ritual implements that either belonged to the deceased during his
lifetime or were made expressly for his burial. By contrast, hoards are groups of objects secreted
in haste to preserve them from marauders and often contain the accumulated heirlooms of a
family. The Zhou Yuan hoards indicate that the old families of the Zhou Yuan owned bronze
ritual vessels and other treasures produced over the course of several generations. By the early
eighth century BCE, however, the Zhou dynasty was coming to an end; it is likely that most
of the hoards of the Zhou Yuan date from about the year 771 BCE, when the region of the Zhou
capital — including the Zhou Yuan — was finally overrun by the invading Quan Rong and the
families were forced to flee.
The 103 bronzes of Hoard i derive from at least five generations of the Wei, a family related
to the ruling house of the previous Shang dynasty. The lengthy inscription on the most
famous of the hoard's bronzes, the Shi Qiang pan (cat. 81), recounts how the High Ancestor
of the Wei family presented himself to King Wu of Zhou after the Zhou defeat of the Shang
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