CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

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Bronze huoding tripod, pair of lifting hooks,
and ladle
a. ding: height 57 (22 Vs), diam. 57.4 (22 5 A)
b. hooks: length 24.5 (9%)
c. ladle: length 158.5 (62 3 / 8 )
Warring States Period (c. 433 BCE)
From Leigudun, Suixian, Hubei Province
Hubei Provincial Museum, Wuhan
From the Shang period forward, ding tripods constituted
the core of the ritual vessel set. The tomb
of Marquis Yi yielded twenty ding, numerically the
largest category of ritual vessels found in the tomb
and the most complete recovered group of such
vessels. This example 1 is one of the two largest in
the tomb. In the ritual texts, large ding were termed
huo, defined as vessels for boiling meat and fish. 2
Ox bones found within the vessel and soot still
visible on the base indicate that it had been used
for that purpose — probably during the funerary
ritual itself. The ding was found with a woven bamboo
lid, largely disintegrated; such lids were probably
in use from early times but have rarely left
traces in the archaeological record.
Hinged lifting hooks were found hooked onto
the rim of the two large ding — either directly beneath
the handle or next to it. According to the
Han dictionary Shuo wen jie zi, such hooks (termed
yu) were used to lift the ding onto the fire. Similar
hooks have been found in a number of tombs, but it
is rare that their function is so clearly indicated by
their placement. 3 The long ladle (bi) was discovered
lying across this vessel and the second large ding; it
was probably used to transfer their contents to flatbottomed
tripods (called sheng ding), which were
placed next to the two large ding. 4
Seams still visible on the body of the ding show
that it was cast in a four-section mold. The legs
and handles were cast in two-section molds and
inserted into apertures cut into the molds for the
body; they were locked into place when molten
bronze was poured to form the body. This precasting
of the legs represents an advance compared
with Shang and Western Zhou foundry methods,
which usually cast legs in the same pour as the
278 CHU AND OTHER CULTURES