Han Xue and Huo Hongwei
On October 19, 2021, the "Academic Seminar on Bronze Ding and Ancient Chinese Etiquette" jointly organized by the National Museum of China and the Shanghai Museum was held at the National Museum of China (hereinafter referred to as the "National Museum"). This conference is the second time that the National Museum has held bronze research as the main line after successfully holding the "Ancient Chinese Bronze Research Forum" last year, and the theme discussion held by the National Museum of China "Lihe Wanfang - Shang Zhou Bronze Ding Special Exhibition" is of great significance.
Ding Pengbo, deputy director of the National Museum of China, attended the seminar and delivered an opening speech, Huo Hongwei, vice president of the National Museum Research Institute, presided over the meeting, and 15 guests, including Zhu Fenghan and Li Zhi, made on-site reports. Scholars from the National Museum of China, Shanghai Museum, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Peking University, Wuhan University, Shanxi University and other research institutions, museums and universities conducted in-depth exchanges on the theme of bronze ding and ancient Chinese etiquette.
Group photo of the guests of the "Bronze Ding and Ancient Chinese Etiquette Academic Seminar" (Zhang Jun photo)
The role of bronze ding in the ancient Chinese ritual system
On the morning of October 19, the first seminar focused on the topic of "The Role of Bronze Ding in ancient Chinese etiquette". The meeting was presided over by Su Honor, a researcher at the Institute of Natural Science History of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and reported on Zhu Fenghan, professor of the Department of History of Peking University, Li Zero, professor of the Department of Chinese of Peking University, Zhang Changping, professor of the School of History of Wuhan University, Ding Zhongming, deputy research librarian of the Shanghai Museum, Zhai Shengli, deputy research librarian of the National Museum, and Lei Xingshan, vice president and professor of Capital Normal University.
Zhu Fenghan said in the report entitled "From Kang Ding and Ren Ding to "Buy"" that the Western Zhou bronzes collected by Guobo in recent years appeared with the verb "buy" that had never been seen before, and it was clearly recorded that the "bee" was used to "buy" items, confirming that "cat" already had a monetary function at that time. In conjunction with other inscriptions that use and reward the "pals", he also made a preliminary discussion of the value of the "quince" as currency in the Western Zhou Dynasty and its conversion relationship with the unit of measurement of copper, the "寽".
Guobo Tibetan Western Zhou bronze Ren Ding and inscription Tuoben (courtesy of Zhai Shengli)
The title of Li Zero's report is "Speaking Nai". He pointed out that in the past, Yu Weichao and Gao Ming published the "Zhou Dynasty Ding System", which divided the tomb Ding into three categories: Ding Ding, Sheng Ding, and Shame Ding, which had a great influence in the archaeological community, in fact, this classification has a lot of room for discussion. Taking the Jingyu Ding and other instruments as an example, he argued that the largest Ding in Chu Ding was actually called 鑐鼎, which may be related to the words 臑, 腝, 胹 and other words. The zigzag on the top is from the need, the need is thus. Rather, it is the word of the mother of the day, which is the word of the mother of the metaphor, and the ancient sounds are similar. Doubt is the word for the righteousness of the Great Ding.
Zhang Changping's report was titled "The Role of Bronze Ding in ancient Chinese etiquette." He proposed that the use of Ding to divide social classes and achieve the purpose of maintaining political power was the significance of the construction of the Ritual System of the Xia and Shang Dynasties. Under this system, the ding is the embodiment of the ceremonial system, and at the same time often becomes a symbol of political power. Stories such as the size of the triumph are all metaphors for the country and the community. The record of the Xia Zhu Jiuding in the heirloom literature may not be true, because the emergence of ceremonial instruments, the status of bronze ceremonial vessels, and even the formation of the ceremonial instrument system with Ding as the core have undergone a long historical process. In the late Neolithic period, ritual vessels of different materials such as pottery and jade appeared in different regions, expressing different connotations such as wealth and divine power. Equivalent to the Erlitou cultural period of the late Xia Dynasty, bronze containers including Ding were mass-produced, and since then, bronze has become a stable material for the highest level of ceremonial vessels. In the late Erligang culture, bronze production technology was greatly improved, and the number and categories of bronze ceremonial vessels increased greatly. During this period, the total number of bronzes, the number of sets of yaojue, and the volume of ding reflected the height of aristocratic status and rank, and bronze ceremonial vessels began to become a measure of social class. The late Yinxu culture to the early Western Zhou Dynasty was the heyday of bronze production, and the types, quantities, and decorations of bronzes reached a new height, which was obviously a result of the society's pursuit of bronzes. In addition to continuing the combination of yaojue and the decoration of the animal face pattern in the previous period, the complexity of the combination of ceremonial vessels and the complicated trend of decoration at this stage have increased significantly. At the same time, the status of Ding in ceremonial vessels further increased. Not only is the combination of Ding and Gui more and more valued, but among the high-ranking nobles, the super-sized Da Ding is also used. In addition to Simu PengFangding, Zilong Ding, Da Lu Ding and other Big Ding appeared. By the early Western Zhou Dynasty, bronze ceremonial vessels, especially bronze dings, reached a very high number in some princely tombs, and pairs or even 4 groups of square dings and multiple round dings appeared frequently, opening up the way of using the vessels. From the middle and late Western Zhou Dynasty to the early Spring and Autumn Period, the bronze ceremonial vessel system was formed and matured. As scholars have pointed out, the combination of dings of different sizes and guises of the same size constitute different instrumental bodies in different quantities and volumes, plus pairs of moles, beans, pots, as well as bristles, urns, plates, and mounds, forming a system dominated by eating utensils, supplemented by wine vessels and water vessels. This system increases or decreases in the use of instruments according to the level of nobility, and in the use of instruments at the level of princes, chimes and woven outs are also used. In this system, different utensils of the same type have the same shape and decoration, and even the decoration of utensils of different types is the same or similar. In ritual activities, ceremonial vessels are perceived in sets rather than individual forms, so ritualism is greatly enhanced. Dingshu customized aristocratic status in a numerical sequence, a hierarchical method not only adopted by its later dynasties, but also continued by contemporary society. Scholars believe that the late Western Zhou Dynasty began to enter the late Bronze Age in China, which also marked the decline of bronze production. On the one hand, bronze ornamentation tends to specify the scale of use with numbers such as 9, 7, and 5 dings, which is essentially a constraint and control of the number of uses. On the other hand, the shape, decoration and even production technology of ceremonial utensils tend to be simplified and stylized, reflecting the decline in the importance of the aristocratic class to bronze production. One possible background to this situation is the failure of king Zhao's southern expedition of King Zhou Zhao, and the bronze resources of the Zhou Dynasty were greatly limited, and this restriction did not improve until the late Western Zhou Dynasty. Since then, although ceremonial instruments have become more and more formal, the ceremonial instrument system and the tradition of expressing social order through materialization have had a profound impact on the Chinese society that followed.
Ding Zhongming made a report entitled "Discussion on Shangbozang Hunyuan Sanding and Related Technologies". Although the three pieces he discussed belong to the hunyuan vessel of the late Spring and Autumn Period, each has its own characteristics, belonging to the Jin style, the Yan style and the northern grassland style. Through the observation of the surface morphology of the three pieces and the detection and analysis of X-CT technology, the production process of the three pieces was carefully shared. He proposed some new phenomena: 1. The crab pattern ding supports the mud core in the foot with a gasket, in order to facilitate the setting of the gasket, the junction between the foot and the abdomen is specially designed as a plane (the large Keding of Shangbo is also this kind of planar structure), which helps the in-depth understanding of the blind core technology; 2. The inlaid turquoise wrong red copper dragon pattern Ding body is a binary model, combined with the phenomenon of uneven thickness, different shades, and arbitrary tilt of the wrong red copper ornament, it is believed that the groove of the wrong red copper is formed by the mud strip heap molding method 3. Northern grassland style ring ear Ding foot casting, casting interface for straight wall (the current accessory casting interface is mainly based on the mouth), for the firm casting of Ding foot, the wall thickness of the bottom is more than twice as thick as the ding abdomen, showing the characteristics of rough and bold. In addition, he also combined the test results of other related artifacts and the tao fan information excavated by Houma to propose the production process of the three pieces of Ding, which not only inherits the production technology of Shang Zhou bronze, but also reflects the personalization of the production technology. The results of the study are helpful to understand the diversity of The Hunyuan Bronze Culture, as well as the political and cultural exchanges and integration between countries.
Zhai Shengli pointed out in the report entitled "Some Thoughts on the Shang zhou ding system" that the bronze ding was the most core and longest used bronze ceremonial vessel type in the Shang Zhou period, and the ding system was linked to the secular life and ritual system and even the belief space of the ancient society of the Shang zhou, and carried a rich cultural connotation. Functionally, the bronze ding inherits many uses of pottery in cooking, serving food and other aspects since the Neolithic age; at the same time, because it is widely used in ceremonial activities such as sacrifice, feasting, dowry, marriage and funeral, the bronze ding is given a strong ceremonial color, which is combined with the hierarchy of the time and shows a strong political color. Previously, the discussion of the Ding system in the academic circles focused on the Lieding system in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, and the documents and excavated materials provided relatively rich details for people to understand the role of bronze Ding in ceremonial and hierarchical society, but also caused many problems to be solved. In addition, regarding the system of using ding in the Shang Dynasty and the Western Zhou Dynasty, it still needs to be further discussed due to the lack of literature and the insignificant characteristics of the excavated materials. He pointed out that combing the typical materials related to bronze Ding in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, and analyzing the content related to the form, name, function and combination of Ding, we can understand the dynamic changes of the Ding system, and then better understand the functional attributes of Bronze Ding in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties and its ceremonial cultural attributes.
Lei Xingshan exchanged views with the participating scholars under the title of "The Tomb of the Former Chicken in the Zhou Dynasty and the Hypothesis of the Ding System in the Early Western Zhou Dynasty". He believes that the instrument system of bronze ware in the Shang Dynasty is the "set number system", and the instrument system of bronze ding in the middle and late Western Zhou Dynasty is the "piece number system", and takes the bronze ding number excavated from the tomb of Changzikou, the tomb of Zeng Hou and the tomb of Jin Hou as an example, and puts forward the hypothesis that the early bronze ding ware of the Western Zhou Dynasty was implemented as a "parallel system of sets and pieces". The Zhouyuan site of Xiji Tomb dates from the early and mid-Western Zhou Dynasties, and 7 bronze Ding pieces were excavated. After the identification and classification of Dingshi, it was found that Dingshi had phenomena such as "one Ding and many animals" and "one Ding and one animal". Taking the classification of Dingshi as the main criterion, he believes that the tomb bronze Ding can be divided into two sets, which belongs to the "three Dings and Two Gui", which further shows that the "parallel system of sets and pieces" of the early Western Zhou Dynasty bronze Ding is likely to be established.
The reports of the above six scholars, closely related to the theme of the seminar "Bronze Ding and ancient Chinese ritual system", discussed from different angles such as the study of inscription interpretation, the classification and function of bronze ding, ding and ritual system, bronze production technology and Shang Zhou ding system, etc., providing a variety of research ideas and academic perspectives for ancient bronze research.
Bronze ware study in the collection of the National Museum of China
On the afternoon of October 19, Zhang Changping presided over the second speech on the topic of "Research on Bronze Ware in the Collection of the National Museum of China". Su Honor, researcher of the Institute of Natural Science History of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Huo Hongwei, librarian of the National Museum of Sciences, Feng Feng, Su Qiang, and postdoctoral fellow Han Xue, associate research librarians, shared the latest research results of the bronze collection with the guests.
Su Honor, with the title of "Late Shang Album-like Bronze Shrew Exploration - Bronze Technology Identification and Forgery Exploration Example", compared and analyzed the album-like bronze shrew collected by the National Museum with another pair of shrews, especially with the help of X-ray imaging analysis, identified the inscription, clarified the casting process of the album-like bronze shrew, and believed that it had a number of technical factors in the southern style bronze ware of the Shang Dynasty, which should come from the hands of the southern Qianyin Ruins casters, the origin of the process is clear, it is indeed not a forgery, which provides a considerable example of technological discontinuation. In addition, he also discussed the Zhongyuan shrew and the bronze shrew.
Huo Hongwei made a report on "The Age of the Ding-shaped Bronze Mirror in the National Museum of China and Related Issues". The Guobo collection has a ding-shaped double dragon Dan furnace pattern copper mirror, which used to be generally dated as the Song Dynasty. Combined with the data of the Ding-shaped mirror excavated from the Southern Song Dynasty Tomb found in the southern region of China, he judged that the casting date of the Ding-shaped Double Dragon Dan Furnace Mirror of the Guobo Collection was about the late Southern Song Dynasty. The main body of the mirror is decorated between two rising dragons, and a three-legged alchemy furnace stands. According to the archaeological data collected so far, such ornaments on bronze mirrors were popular in the middle and late Southern Song Dynasty until the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, and their nature should be related to Taoism. In addition to the Ding-shaped mirror, the type of special-shaped mirror of the Southern Song Dynasty of the Guobo Tibet also includes bell-shaped, shield-shaped, etc., and the Ding-style shape of the alchemy furnace in the mirror back ornament is eye-catching, which not only shows that the aesthetic tendency of the Song Dynasty retro-style has been perfectly reflected in the above-mentioned Southern Song Dynasty copper mirror ornamentation, but also shows that the bronze Ding-shaped system since the pre-Qin Dynasty has had a profound impact on future generations.
Feng Feng's report was entitled "Several Problems in the History of the Early Circulation of Lu Ding". He pointed out that the story of Lu Ding before returning to Pan Zuyin was more complicated, and there were several issues that needed to be clarified: Song Jinjian should have become a Lu Ding collector after Zhou Gengsheng, not before him, and the theory that Song had won Ding twice was not credible; Yuan Baoheng had obtained Lu Ding after Song Jinjian's death and then sold it to Pan Zuyin, Zuo Zongtang played an important role in this process, and his claim that he had been a Lu Ding collector was untrue; the time when Lu Ding was sent to the capital Pan Mansion was in late November of the thirteenth year of Tongzhi, and the year of the Common Era was in early January 1875.
Da Lu Ding Zi Long Ding and Da Ke Ding in the GuoBo "Li He Wan Fang" exhibition (Huo Hongwei photography)
Su Qiang's report is entitled "Research on the Bronze Wine Vessel of the Partridge Shaped In the Collection of the National Museum of China". Guobo has two parts of the partridge bronze wine vessel, one of which is one of the two partridges excavated in 1976 in Anyang, Henan, Yin Ruins Xiaotun M5 (Women's Good Tomb), number M5: 785, the era belongs to the second stage of the second phase of the Yin Ruins Bronze Ware, which is about equivalent to the second phase of the Yin Ruins culture. At present, the same type of zun of the Shang Dynasty that is currently found in the bibliography is mostly a hereditary product and is scattered in the United States and other places, so this zun can provide a basis for the periodization of such artifacts. The second is the double crane excavated in 1953 in Dasikong Village, Anyang, Henan Province, number M239:1. He combed through the same type of 3 in the Shang Dynasty and proposed that its era should belong to the second to third phases of the YinXu culture. From the perspective of popular areas, these two types of partridge-shaped wine vessels are mainly unearthed in Henan, Hunan, Hubei, Shanxi and other places. Judging from the inscriptions, there are more than 10 clans involved, such as "beast", "zheng", "ya", "ya", "car" and so on. This type of wine vessel may be derived from the partridge-shaped pottery that has appeared in the Qi family culture period, and its use may be to hold different wines that have been filtered and used exclusively for sacrifice. Such utensils are in the shape of standing owls, known as owl-shaped wine vessels. Combined with the literature and the notes of his predecessors, he proposed that the owl was a smaller finch, which did not match the shape of such a vessel. Combining the partridge in the oracle bones of Yin Xu and the "partridge, with a cat-like head and a night flight" mentioned by Wang Niansun Shu in the Guangya Shi Bird, he proposed that such artifacts should be called partridge-shaped wine vessels.
The title of Han Xue's report was "Re-exploration of the Clan Problems Seen in the Collection of the National Museum of China". The Guobo collection contains an early Spring and Autumn Scroll Plate, which was excavated from the Shangcunling Yuguo Cemetery in the 1950s. Researchers have always had different interpretations of the connotation of the word "曡" in the inscription, and the related issues have yet to be examined. Through the analysis of the use cases of the Word and the word in the Two Weeks of Jinwen, she believes that this character is used in the pan inscription as the name of the Guoshi, that is, the "曡" in the character book, which is pronounced "Yi", and it is hoped that it can be implemented in the Yiyang area of Henan. From the perspective of ancient texts, combined with the historical materials, two-week bronze inscriptions and archaeological materials, she proposed new explanations for the national geography and other issues involved in the bronze collection, and provided support for deepening the study of bronzes in the collection.
Scene of "Bronze Ding and Ancient Chinese Etiquette Academic Seminar" (Zhang Jun Photo)
Bronze and Bronze Culture Studies
The third seminar was held on the topic of "Bronze and Bronze Culture Research", and Zhai Shengli, deputy research librarian of the National Museum and curator of the "Lihe Wanfang - Shangzhou Bronze Ding Special Exhibition", presided over the speech. Professor Chen Xiaosan of Shanxi University, Chang Huaiying, associate researcher of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Han Wei, dean and associate professor of the Department of History of Peking University, and Tian Wei, deputy research librarian of the National Museum, respectively put forward their own new insights.
Chen Xiaosan pointed out in his report "Several Problems on Eastern Zhou Engraved Bronzes" that thin-walled engraved bronzes are a very special category of bronzes in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty, and in the past, the academic community has reached a lot of consensus on the production process, ornamental style and regional characteristics of engraved bronzes. Scholars generally believe that thin-walled engravings appeared in the late Spring and Autumn period. In recent years, earlier engraved bronzes have been found in Shanxi and Shandong, showing that the time of the appearance of such artifacts can be advanced. The process directly related to the thin-walled engraved bronze is the forging technology and the engraving process, and by examining the two processes, it can be known that the time of the appearance of such artifacts is still possible in advance. Although the time of the appearance of engraved bronze is still possible in advance, it is mainly popular from the late Spring and Autumn period to the Warring States period. He tried to answer why these two techniques existed for a long time, but it was not until the late Spring and Autumn period that engraved bronzes appeared in large numbers. The ornamentation of the bulk engraved bronze is located on the inner wall of the utensil, which is also related to the processing and production process of the engraved bronze in addition to aesthetic and visual factors.
Chang Huaiying gave a report entitled "Several "Limited Innovation" Phenomena of Bronze Ware in the Early Zhou Dynasty". He pointed out that the Shang Zhou Ding Revolution, the change of the geopolitical management model and the transformation of the ruling class and the population, produced great changes in the use of material relics and their systems. As far as the use and production of bronzes are concerned, there are some types, ornaments and combinations that suddenly appear, and the popular time is very short, and the scope of popularity is also very limited. However, some new instrument types, ornaments and combinations continued to develop, influencing the development path of Western Zhou bronzes. This innovative change in the shape, decoration and combination of bronze ware has manifested itself differently in different groups of people such as the Zhou princes with the surname Ji, the princes with the surname of Non-Ji, the nobles of emerging military merit or the lords of Caiyi and the remnants of Yin, and some are only popular in some groups, regions and even clans of certain classes. This phenomenon implies that the types, ornaments and combinations of new bronzes chosen by people of different ethnic groups and classes are different, reflecting the hierarchical order and identity distinction and identity of the early Zhou Dynasty. From the perspective of production, the possibility of customized or limited production is not excluded. Beginning in the early and middle period of the Western Zhou Dynasty, the appearance of bronze objects converged, indicating that the task of integrating traditions, reshaping the ritual system, and building a new order of the Zhou royal family was basically completed. In the literature, this phenomenon is attributed to the "Zhou Metric System of Ritual Music", but in the performance of archaeological materials, the era may not be consistent. He called this phenomenon or process "limited innovation" and focused on the archaeological discoveries of the early Western Zhou Dynasty.
Han Wei discussed the issue of family affiliation and identity of the early spring and autumn noble cemeteries in Yuanqu North white goose in Shanxi, with the title of "The Eastward Migration of the Northern White Goose Cemetery of the Northern White Goose of The Yuanqu And the Western Zhou Dynasty". Many bronzes excavated from the Northern White Goose Cemetery have found inscriptions such as "Taibao 匽仲", "匽太子", "匽姬", etc., which most scholars believe are related to the Yan (匽) kingdom and the Taibao Zhaogong family with the surname Ji, and the owner of the cemetery is the descendant of the Zhao gong who was enfeoffed in Guanzhong, and moved east with king Ping to the vicinity of Chengzhou in the early Spring and Autumn Period. Han Wei pointed out that most of the tombs in the North White Goose Cemetery have waist pit martyrs, and one tomb has martyrs, and the burial customs are similar to those of the Yin remnants but completely different from the Yanguo surnamed Ji. Based on the fact that a number of bronze inscriptions of the Kui clan unearthed from the Northern White Goose were embellished with the character "Hua" in the nature of the clan emblem, he believed that its clan genus was the same as the Hua family to which the father and son of Shanfu Ke and Shanfu Liang belonged in the late Western Zhou Dynasty, and should be descendants of the Hua family (or at least one branch of their descendants) who moved east with King Ping, and had nothing to do with the Zhao Gong family of the Ji surname and the Northern Yan State. There is inscription evidence to support that the Hua family should be the surname of Jiao, so he believes that the Northern White Goose Clan is the documented surname of NanYan. The inscription unearthed from the Northern White Goose indicates that the Kui and Yu clans had an intermarriage relationship, which provides new evidence for understanding the political structure of the Zhou Dynasty and the adjustment of family networks after the fall of the Western Zhou Dynasty.
Tian Wei pointed out in his report "Exploration of Shuyu Fiefdoms- From Yao Gonggui's Sayings to Go" that in the past, when scholars mentioned the Tang lands fiefs that Shuyu had fiefs, they were mostly equated with the first fiefdoms of the Jin Dynasty. However, judging from the discoveries of the Gonggui inscriptions in the collection of the National Museum and the tomb of the Marquis of Jin, the first fiefdom of the Jin Dynasty was Jin, and the site of The Land is located at the site of Tianma-Qucun between present-day Quwo and Yicheng. Jin did not come from Tang to change its name, Tang di is elsewhere, and the two should not be confused. Analysis of early historical documents and previous scholars' research shows that the Tang Dynasty should have both the Tao Temple culture, the Erlitou culture, the Yin Ruins culture, and the archaeological cultural remains of the early Western Zhou Dynasty. In addition, there should also be the Nine Emperors of the Huai surname who were enthroned by Shu Yu. Based on the above conditions, the screening of relevant areas can greatly narrow the possible scope of Tangdi and provide a pointing reference for the future search for The Fiefdom of Shuyu through archaeological work.
After a day of intense and enthusiastic academic discussions, Huo Hongwei, vice president of the National Expo Research Institute, summarized the meeting. He pointed out that the "Bronze Ding and Ancient Chinese Ritual System Academic Seminar", that is, the "Second Ancient Chinese Bronze Research Forum" held by the National Expo. Among the 15 papers read at the meeting, 8 were related to Ding, more than half of the total number of papers, which not only highlighted the discussion theme of "Ding and Li", but also took into account other research topics, basically achieved the goal of "basing on the frontier and leading by integration" actively advocated by Mr. Zhu Fenghan, concentrated on the latest achievements in the field of ancient bronze research in China, and deepened the academic exchanges between scholars of national polytechnics and experts outside the museum. It not only excavated the bronze resources in the collection of the National Museum, promoted the research of ancient bronzes, and provided solid academic support for the Exhibition of the National Museum, but also presented a bronze gift to the series of activities commemorating the centenary of the birth of modern Chinese archaeology.
Editor-in-Charge: Zhong Yuan
Proofreader: Ding Xiao