Chinese Bronze Civilization with Containers as the Core
At the end of the 3rd millennium BC, China entered the Bronze Age, and the Chinese bronze civilization was roughly divided into three subregions: the North, Central Plains and the South, with the Great Wall and Qinling Huaihe River as the boundary. Among them, the northern region is located along the Great Wall in the eastern part of the Eurasian grassland and its surrounding areas. Its bronze ware mainly consists of tools, weapons, and decorations, and there is no essential difference in the types and casting techniques of bronze ware compared to the central and western regions of the Eurasian grassland. It is an important component of the bronze civilization of the Eurasian grassland. The bronze civilization of the Central Plains revolved around containers, as well as common musical instruments, weapons, tools, and chariots and horses. The southern region entered the Bronze Age after being influenced by the bronze civilization of the Central Plains, and the later it entered the Bronze Age, the more southeast and southwest it went. From a macro perspective, the categories of southern bronze ware are basically the same as those in the Central Plains region, with slight differences in details such as the combination, shape, decoration, and burial situation of the bronze ware. It belongs to the secondary type of the Central Plains bronze civilization.
Looking at the development process of Chinese bronze civilization, represented by the Central Plains bronze civilization in the past 2000 years, it can be found that the characteristic of container as the core has never changed, only some changes have occurred in details. For example, in terms of vessels, from the Xia Dynasty to the early Western Zhou Dynasty, bronze vessels were mainly made of wine vessels such as jue, jia, gu, zun, you, lei, jiu, and kettle, forming a jue and gu system that marked identity levels. Legendary animal patterns such as animal face patterns, Kui dragon patterns, and phoenix bird patterns were popular, with rare character images; From the middle of the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Warring States period, bronze containers were mainly made up of Ding, Li, Gui, Fu, Dun, Dou and other food utensils, forming a well ordered system of Ding and Gui and Bianzhong. Abstract decorative patterns such as stealing song patterns, scale patterns, ring patterns, coiled dragon patterns, coiled cobra patterns were popular, and people were occasionally seen.
A complete set of bronze instruments is also an important feature of China's bronze civilization. The main types of instruments include the cymbal, bell, Bo, Zheng, bell, and percussion instrument. Common weapons include Ge, Yue, Jian, Spear, and Arrow, while tools mainly include Axe, Knife, Chisel, Zao, and Needle. Common chariot and horse tools include: 軎, Luan Ling, Bi, Title, Economy, and Danglu. In addition, another prominent feature of China's bronze civilization is the numerous inscriptions on bronze vessels, especially those with many long inscriptions, which is significantly different from the Eastern Mediterranean bronze civilization and the Eurasian grassland bronze civilization.
Chinese bronze containers are mainly cast using the composite mold casting method (a combination of mud based inner molds and outer molds), which is greatly different from the Eastern Mediterranean bronze civilization and the Eurasian grassland bronze civilization. The casting difficulty is greater, but it is also more expressive, and the cast bronze ware is also more exquisite. Simple solid tools such as bronze weapons, tools, and decorations often use a simple dual mold casting method. In short, well-developed containers, complete sets of musical instruments, numerous inscriptions, block casting, and orderly distribution are important features of China's bronze civilization.
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