in the great valley of the Huang Ho, the Yellow River. Among the many Shang sites excavated, the most important is in Honan Province at the ancient site of Anyang, the Shang capital from about 1300 B.C. to about 1000 B.C. Known in Chinese history as Yin, this site had been a famous source of ancient relics for centuries but was not scientifically excavated until the twentieth century. The National Research Institute of History and Philology, under Li Chi, undertook extensive archaeological investigations from 1928 to 1937. The most important among the many sites explored in more recent years has been Cheng-chou. This is believed to have been the site of the earlier Shang capital, Ao.
When compared to the prehistoric civilization which had flourished during the previous one thousand years, marked innovations suggest that this dynasty fostered a fundamentally new society and culture. Outstanding features were the creation of a system of writing comprising some three thousand pictograph-based characters and forming the basis for modern Chinese script; the rise of large towns surrounded by thick walls of pounded earth; new developments in ceramics; advanced stone-carving; innovations such as chariots, chamber burials, and ritual sacrifice; and the emergence of a highly developed bronze culture in which vessels, weapons, and tools were made of metal rather than stone, clay, or wood. At the same time, the persistence of older cultures in isolated enclaves and in the border regions, the survival of the grey pottery, the continued use of Yang Shao and Lung-shan shapes for vessels, and of oracle bones and jade ritual artifacts all suggest a large measure of continuity between the prehistoric culture and that of Shang China.
Here again Western influence may have prevailed, since no truly primitive stages of writing or metalworking have been discovered in China. Both arts had evolved to a high level in Asia Minor some fifteen hundred years earlier. Max Loehr has suggested the northern regions as the connecting passage through which the metal culture was transmitted, but Chinese scholars, such as K. C. Chang, believe these developments to have been indigenous in origin. Recent excavations have brought to light some pre-Anyang stages of the Chinese bronze culture. Although plainer and more crude than later works, these early objects are too advanced to represent a beginning phase (Plate 2). The origin of Chinese metal culture still remains obscure.
The finest Shang bronze works are masterpieces in the area of metal-work and axe the most remarkable among the various art works produced by the Shang people. Cast from molds, perhaps at times by the lost-wax process, and consisting of eight or nine parts copper to one part tin, with small quantities of other metals, these bronzes show a technical mastery which testifies to the high skill of the Shang metalworkers.
The bronze vessels served a twofold purpose: as funeral gifts to be placed in the graves of kings or nobles and as containers for food or wine in the ritual of sacrifice to ancestors or deities. They were often embellished with inscriptions, usually short but sometimes running to several hundred characters. These inscriptions sometimes commemorated a particular occasion—for example: "On the day Kuei-tzu the King bestowed upon Hsiao Ch'en Yi ten ropes of cowry shell. So [he] dedicates to [his] Mother Kuei this sacred vessel.... On this occasion of the holidays for the King's sixth Grand Sacrifice, in the fourth month . . . The Yi family of the Ya nobility." But simple dedicatory inscriptions were more common, such as: "The Yi family dedicates this vessel to its Mother, Hsin, [who came from] the Chi family of the Ya nobility."
Chinese scholars through the centuries have studied these inscriptions. A dependable chronology of Shang and Chou bronzes, based upon these studies, has been compiled in modern times by the eminent Swedish sinologist Bernard Karlgren.
Sacrificial vessels were fashioned in many shapes. Several shapes derived from Lung-shan ceramic forms. The prototypes of other shapes may have been the wooden or bamboo vessels mentioned in the Book of Songs as being used for offerings. Offerings were beverages such as wine or water and foods such as meat or grain. These were offered as ritual sacrifice to the spirits of the dead and to deities representing the forces of nature. Among early peoples, the belief that the universe was inhabited by such spirits was widespread. When properly placated by offerings, such spirits might be well disposed ; otherwise, they were certain to prove malevolent. Even in modern China, this custom is followed by all except the most sophisticated. Until deposed in 1912, the Manchu emperor of China performed the sacred rituals each year, using the ancient ceremonial vessels.
Connoting far more than mere utility, these ritual vessels were major expressions of both religion and aesthetics. Architecture, sculpture, painting, or drawing may each convey central cultural concepts. In Shang China, it was the product of the metalworker which embodied the highest ideals as well as the aesthetic concepts of the Chinese people. The magnificent design and complex symbolism displayed by the kuang-shaped wine vessel in the Cincinnati Art Museum (Plate 3) are typical of these ritual bronzes. The kuang, largest of the ritual vessels, resembles a sauce boat and was used to make offerings of black-millet wine. The most impressive feature of this bronze is the rich decoration covering every inch of the surface. The ornate patterns include symbols of magical purport.
The major symbolic motif appearing on this vessel, and many others, is the tiger. This motif is repeated four times, as a tiger mask on each side of the vessel and in more plastic form at the front and back of the cover. Rather than a naturalistic animal, this is a magical creature. In the representations at front and rear, potency is increased by phallic horns having incised symbols for thunder and rain. The tiger masks upon the body are extremely stylized—composed of four separate features. A fang, an eye, an eyebrow, and an ear are placed one directly above another in a vertical arrangement. The hook-shaped fangs, prominent even in cases where other parts of a composite mask are derived from birds or horned animals, identify the tiger mask.
In later times the Chinese called these masks t'ao t'ieh, meaning glutton, and thought they were placed on these vessels to warn the user against gluttony. This proves only that, by the third century B.C., the forgotten magical symbolism had been replaced by a rationalistic concept.
Actually, the tiger had been a magical symbol since neolithic times. One of the prehistoric sites has yielded a tiger amulet. Its purpose was surely to protect the wearer from evil influences for, even today, Chinese children wear tiger caps to ward off evil spirits. Throughout Chinese history the tiger has been revered as an auspicious and sacred animal, associated with earth and mountains. He was considered the chief animal of the terrestial realm, just as the dragon was conceived of as the ruler of the sky. The west was called the "tigrine quarter" in a Chou inscription. In the art of the Han period, the tiger always symbolized the west when the four directions were represented by animals. Since, in the imperial palace, the earth deity's altar was located on the west side, it would appear that the tiger represented the earth deity, upon whom the fertility of the fields depended.
Birds are a second motif on the Cincinnati kuang, one appearing in back on the handle and one in front directly below the tiger's chin. They are portrayed by eyes, wings, claws, and projecting beaks. Probably they represent sun and light, in contrast to earth and darkness associated with the tiger and the western direction, in which the sun sets. An archaic pictograph consists of a bird with a radiant sun for its head. In later art the sun bird, usually called the phoenix in the West, is associated with the direction south. Known in China as the fêng, the phoenix became the emblem of the empress and decorated the headdresses of the Chinese household goddesses. In Shang times birds were a favorite motif on bronzes and, being unquestionably symbolical, were portrayed in the hope of achieving magical results.
The third motif on the Cincinnati kuang is the dragon, which appears in various forms throughout the pattern. Appearing on practically all of these ancient bronzes, this seemingly imaginary beast may well represent a subconscious memory of the giant flying lizards in the age of reptiles. Remains of these were found in Sinkiang only a few years ago. In China the dragon is an auspicious animal still worshiped today and associated with the sky, thunder, clouds, rain, and fertility. He is also associated with the royal ancestors. According to legend, two of the early emperors were sons of dragons and the legendary emperor Yao is said to have been born of the union of a dragon and a woman. The altar of the
