Wang Hui

 

In the inscription of the “Qi Marquis In Qi” dui (semi-global vessel with a semi-global cover) made by the Qi State prince Weiwang in his early reign, he calls definitely his ancestor that founded the Tian Qi regime “Emperor” in accodance with the institution for the overlord in the middle Warring States period. In the pre-dynastic Zhou culture, the ethnic insignia “Tian Yuan 天鼋” on bronzes is identical just with the name of the emperor “Xuan Yuan 轩辕.” On the chime stone unearthed from the No. 1 large tomb in the Qin Duke graveyard, there is the inscription “Gao Yang’s spirit lives with us 高阳有灵,” which means that Qin Duke Jinggong, in his seeking hegemony, resorted to the spirit of his ancestor Gao Yang, i.e. Zhuan Xu 颛顼. The Shang Dynasty founder Di Ku 帝喾 is named “Nao夔,” a character identical with “喾” in vowel but different in consonant as Shang and Zhou oracle-bone inscriptions indicate, which resulted from the differentiation of a compound consonant of remote antiquity. Another name of Di Ku is “Gao Xin Shi  高辛氏,” which, according to oracle-bone inscriptions, refers to a pre-dynastic Shang period clan named after one of the Heavenly Stems. Moreover, recently unearthed Chu inscribed-slips of the Warring States period provide data on Yao’s and Shun’s (尧, 舜) family backgrounds, careers, posterities, early dwelling places and later movements, and Yao’s abdication in favor of Shun.

 

 

 

 

Wu Xiaoping

 

A lot of bronze pots have been unearthed from Han period vestiges. They cover a vast territory and have great value in typological research. In the light of their difference in shape and use, the present paper divides them into six classes, i.e. round, swing-handled, flat-sided, garlic-head, square-bodied and long-necked, then subdivides these into types and subtypes, and makes a study of their periodization.

The study suggests that the evolution of the Han bronze pot went through roughly four stages. At the first stage, i.e. in the early Western Han period, the types of bronze pots coming from the late Warring States period were re-grouped, their cultural elements became more complex, and their distribution was characterized by rather strong regionalism. The second stage corresponded to the mid Western Han, when bronze pots in the Han style began to be formed on the basis of the Qin, Jin and Chu cultures, and products with ethnic features occurred rarely. At the third stage, i.e.    from the late Western Han to the early Eastern Han, the Han bronze pot finally established its own characteristic features, and all classes of bronze pots were greatly changed in comparison with early vessels. The mid and late Eastern Han was the typical developmental stage of the Han bronze pot, when the vessel featured a long body and the rich flavor of folk life. The evolution of the Han bronze pot was closely connected with the then social background, especially with the change of the government’s policy of bronze casting. During the early Western Han, the government implemented an open policy in this respect, which led to the typological complexity of bronze pots and the multiplicity of their cultural elements. From the mid Western Han to the early Eastern Han, the Han Dynasty adopted the policy of strictly forbidding the folk production of bronzes and developing government-monopolized bronze casting, which resulted in the uniformity of products and the disappearance of regional differences. In the mid and late Eastern Han, as the policy of opening bronze casting was re-followed, the government withdrew from the production of bronze pots and other utensils of daily use, private workshops became the main body, and the flavor of folk life was again displayed and strengthened in the character of bronze pots.

 

 

 

 

Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology

and

Bengbu Municipal Museum, Anhui Province

 

The Shuangdun site lies on a terrace to the north of Shuangdun Village in Bengbu City, with the central part occupying an area of about 12,000 sq m. It was discovered in 1985 and excavated thrice from then to 1992. Within the revealed area of 375 sq m, archaeologists brought to light quantities of pottery shards, broken vessels, stone implements, bone and shell artifacts, and animal bones, and discovered more than 600 incised signs on pottery objects.

The site goes back to 7000 BP. Rich in content, unique in cultural aspect, with an assemblage of objects differing from those of other cultures and displaying its typical character, the cultural complex represented by the site can be named “Shuangdun culture.” The pottery is all hand-made; most of it is reddish-brown ware of clay mixed with shell powder and red-slipped brown-bodied one of clay mixed with charcoal dust; and charcoal-mixed black ware and mica-mixed gray one occur in a small amount. The surface is mainly plain, and occasionally with incised, poked or fingernail patterns. In type there are the characteristic jar- or bowl-shaped fu cauldron with a flat base and four handles, disc-bottomed bowl with a low or false ring-foot, bowl with a flared low stem, jar with bird-head- or ox-nose-shaped loops, zun steamer with a grid, and phallus-shaped stand. The rest of unearthed cultural relics include pottery and stone implements and bone, antler and shell artifacts. In short, the Shuangdun assemblage of objects provided a scale for archaeological studies of the mid Neolithic Huaihe River valley, made up a gap in the sequence of archaeological cultures within this area, and has important value to the establishment of a chronological frame and a cultural pedigree of the Neolithic Huaihe region.

The incised signs from Shuangdun are large in number, early in date, rich in content, and complex in structure. They occur largely within the bowl ring-foot. The pictographic types include pig-, fish-, deer-, silkworm-, cocoon-, silk-, plant-, leaf-vein- and petal-shaped; and the geographic ones, numeral-shaped, triangular, square-frame-shaped, circular, crisscross, semi-frame-shaped, arched, hooky and forked. In structure there are single-bodied, double-bodied and compound marks. These pictographic and associative recording signs are of great importance to researching into historical events in the Shuangdun Culture period, as well as to studying the origin of Chinese writing and the formation and evolution of Chinese characters.

 

 

 

 

Guo Wu

 

The bronze/iron fu cauldron is a large-sized cooking vessel North China nomads invented in the early 1st millennium BC under the influence of the Shang-Zhou bronze culture. It was used also as a sacrificial vessel in shaman ceremonies. In historical studies, it plays the role of a piece of material evidence on ancient western-eastern cultural exchanges and migrations of northern steppe tribes.

The unearthed bronze/iron fu can be assigned to two major chronological groups respectively. The present paper deals with the second, later phase group. An analysis is made to investigate the pedigree of the collected specimens by using the archaeological typological method. In the light of the features of the vessel base, this group can be classified into four types, i.e. Type G with a perforated ring-foot, Type H with a perforation-less ring-foot, Type I without ring-foot, and Type J with three broad legs, each of which can be further divided into several subtypes. In periodization, these fu underwent three developmental stages: (1) In the 2^nd to 1^st centuries BC, bronze/iron fu evolved mainly in the East Asian steppes. (2) From AD 1^st to late 5^th century, two groups of fu developed in different directions: Type H towards Europe, reflecting the migration of Xiongnu Tribes; and Type G, I and J in China and the Korean Peninsula, mirroring activities of the Xianbei Tribes and the influence of these vessels among other ethnic groups. (3) In AD 5^th to 8^th centuries, bronze/iron fu were used principally in Tuva and other steppes in high latitudes.

The research results indicate that a part (mainly upper social strata) of the Huns in western Eurasia must have been the posterity of Xiongnu tribesmen migrating westwards from northern Xinjiang in the middle of AD 2^nd century, who developed perforation-less ring-foot bronze fu with bridge-like loops in the shape of large mushroom through innovation and amalgamation, and brought this type of bronze vessel into the hinterland of Europe.