CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

94
Bronze dou vessel inlaid with turquoise
Height 26.4 (io 3 A in), diam. at mouth 20.6 (SVs)
Warring States Period (c. 433 BCE)
From Leigudun, Suixian, Hubei Province
Hubei Provincial Museum, Wuhan
Bowl-shaped forms with a domed lid on a tall stem
are conventionally termed dou, while flatter, dishshaped
forms lacking a lid are termed bian or/u.
In the Zhou li (Rites of Zhou) the dou is defined as
a container for sauces, while the bian is a container
for dried meats. 1 In the Yi' li (Book of ceremonial)
they are often listed following one another, indicating
that they performed related functions. 2 This is
confirmed by the placement in the tomb of the
dou 3 next to two bian.
Although the ritual texts indicate that stemmed
vessels were indispensable components of a complete
ritual repertoire of forms, they were only
intermittently fashionable in bronze, and it was
in ceramic, wood, or basketry that they were more
popular. Bronze forms often show a dependence
on ceramic, wood, or basketry models. Flat, dishlike
forms became fashionable during the Late Western
Zhou period, but grew rarer and eventually disappeared
in the course of the Early Eastern Zhou
period. A more rounded form with a domed lid,
imitative of ceramic examples, began to appear during
the sixth century in the north and was popular
throughout the fifth century. In the Chu sphere,
on the other hand, bronze stemmed vessels are
rare in the sixth and fifth centuries BCE. 4 None was
found in the Xiasi tombs, and only three — this dou
and two bian — were present in Marquis Yi's tomb.
By contrast, twenty-three lacquered dou were found
in the tomb, and it is in this material, rather than
bronze, that the dou form is usually found in the
282 CHU AND OTHER CULTURES