CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

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these two neighboring families; other inscribed
vessels discovered in the Zhou Yuan provide considerable
evidence of intermarriage among many
of the families that resided there. 3 ES
1 Excavated in 1976 (6); reported: Shaanxi 1978,17, fig. 34.
2 Shaanxi 1980, 2: nos. 7-10.
3 For a discussion of these intermarriages, see Shaughnessy
1998.
Zhe bronze jia vessel
Height 34.1 (13 3 A), diam. at mouth 18.6 (/Vs)
Early Western Zhou Period, second quarter of the
tenth century BCE
From Zhuangbai, Fufeng, Shaanxi Province
Zhou Yuan Administrative Office of Cultural Relics,
Fufeng, Shaanxi Province
This/i'0 1 is one of four vessels commissioned by
Zhe, a scribe of the Zhou court, titled Zuoce —
"Maker of Strips" (court records were written on
bamboo or wooden strips at the time). The Zhe
jia bears a simple inscription: "Zhe makes for Father
Yi this treasured offertory vessel. [Clan-sign]." Zhe's
other vessels — a gong, a fangyi, and a zun — are
inscribed with a longer text (identical on all three)
that commemorates an award from the Zhou king:
It was the fifth month; the king was at An.
On wuzi [day 25], [the king] commanded
Maker of Strips Zhe to grant the land of
Wang to the Lord of Xiang; awarded metal
and awarded retainers, [he] extols the king's
beneficence. It is the king's nineteenth
year. [He] herewith makes for Father Yi
this offertory; may he eternally treasure it.
[Clan-sign]
The "Father Yi" (Fu Yi) to whom the vessels are
dedicated is almost certainly the Ancestor Yi
(Yi Zu) named in the Shi Qiang pan inscription
(see cat. Si). The genealogy traced in the pan inscription
also shows that Qiang, who was active
at the court of King Gong (r. c. 917-900 BCE),
was almost certainly Zhe's grandson; Zhe can
thus be reasonably placed about fifty years prior
to Gong's reign — roughly to that of King Zhao
(r. c. 976 -957 BCE).
The Zhe vessels have provided decisive new
evidence for dating Western Zhou bronze vessels.
One of the Zhe vessels, the Zhe fangyi, is strikingly
similar to a vessel in the Freer Gallery of Art, Washington,
the Ling fangyi. A lengthy inscription on
the Ling fangyi mentions the duke of Zhou (Zhou
Gong), known to have served as regent for seven
239 BRONZES FROM ZHUANCBAI