Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes From The Arthur M Sackler Collections

The supreme art form of ancient China was the bronze ritual vessel. Kings and nobles offered food and drink to their ancestors in spectacular cast bronze containers which served to advertise the owner's wealth and power no less than his piety. Many of the bronzes eventually found their way into the tombs of their owners, where they lay undisturbed for centuries or millennia until accidental discovery or the archaeologist's spade brought them once more to light. The vast collection of Chinese bronzes formed by the late Dr. Arthur M. Sackler ranges over the entire Bronze Age. The bronzes of the Eastern Zhou period, 8th to 3rd century BC, are the subject of this third and concluding volume of the comprehensive catalogue of the collection. In a thorough and up-to-date introduction, Dr. Jenny So, Assistant Curator of Ancient Chinese Art at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, gives a detailed account of the history of Eastern Zhou bronzes. Particularly valuable is Dr. So's systematic use of the latest archaeological discoveries to trace regional and chronological developments and to study the political context in which bronzes were made and used. An especially valuable supplement to the volume is a major study of bronze bells coauthored by an archaeologist and an acoustical physicist, Professor Lothar von Falkenhausen of UCLA and Professor Thomas D. Rossing of Northern Illinois University. The Sackler Collection includes twenty-one bells, which were employed in the same offering rituals as the bronze vessels. Ninety color plates provide full documentation of the Sackler bronzes and over 560 black-and-white comparative illustrations help to set them in the context providedby archaeological research. Scholarly appendices report elemental composition data on the bronze alloys, lead-isotope ratios, and thermoluminescence dating tests of clay core material.

Volume I of Ancient Chinese Bronzes.The bronze ritual vessel, the defining artifact of early Chinese civilization, is the subject of this monumental study of Shang ritual bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections. A comprehensive introduction, the most thorough treatment of Shang bronzes in any language, lays the foundation for 104 catalogue entries, many of which explore in greater detail specific problems in casting technology, epigraphy, vessel typology, and provincial bronze styles. Color plates of all the Sackler bronzes are supplemented by rubbings, details, and more than 500 comparative illustrations.

Nicely produced catalog for an exhibition at the Denver Art Museum. Features 43 ceramic and bronze jars, bowls, cups, and flasks, and traces the progression of Chinese design and decoration from its beginnings at the hands of Neolithic potters up to the creation of funerary wares by Han and Tang cra

This set is the second installation in a three-volume catalog of the Sackler collection of ancient Chinese bronzes at Harvard University, undertaken by some of the premier scholars in the field. Robert W. Bagley's Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections (Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1987) and Jenny F. So's forthcoming Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections complete the set. Rawson's contribution starts with Volume IIA, a survey of Western Zhou (c.1050-771 B.C.) bronze types, with more emphasis on dating of shapes and designs than on the use or meaning of the vessels. A wealth of appendixes include information on archaeological sites, inscriptions, and detailed laboratory analyses of bronze samples. Volume lib is the catalog itself, with a full-page color photograph of each vessel followed by a detailed description and comparisons with relevant pieces from other collections. Although probably not of much interest to the general public, this work gathers a tremendous amount of information for specialists and researchers.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, hundreds of thousands of documents of all sorts have been unearthed in China, opening whole new fields of study and transforming our modern understanding of ancient China. While these discoveries have necessarily taken place in China, Western scholars have also contributed to the study of these documents throughout this entire period. This book provides a comprehensive survey of the contributions of these Western scholars to the field of Chinese paleography, and especially to study of oracle-bone inscriptions, bronze and stone inscriptions, and manuscripts written on bamboo and silk. Each of these topics is provided with a comprehensive narrative history of studies by Western scholars, as well as an exhaustive bibliography and biographies of important scholars in the field. It is also supplied with a list of Chinese translations of these studies, as well as a complete index of authors and their works. Whether the reader is interested in the history of ancient China, ancient Chinese paleographic documents, or just in the history of the study of China as it has developed in the West, this book provides one of the most complete accounts available to date.

The book shows how the kings of the Western Zhou period used ritual to create and hold onto their power.