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Issues in Western Zhou Studies: A Review Article

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2015

Lothar von Falkenhausen
Lothar von Falkenhausen*
Affiliation:
Department of History of Art , University of California, Los Angeles Los Angeles, CA 90024
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Early China , Volume 18 , 1993 , pp. 139 - 226
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Copyright © Society for the Study of Early China 1993

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References

* Professor David N. Keightley deserves special thanks for serving as an editor for this review and for his many insightful suggestions. The writer would also like to express his gratitude to Professors Paul L-M Serruys, Li Ling, and P. J. Ivanhoe for their comments on the manuscript.

1. Creel, Herrlee G., The Origins of Statecraft in China , vol.1: The Western Chou Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970)Google Scholar; Hsū, Cho-yun and Linduff, Kathryn M., Western Chou Civilization (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

2. The only significant exception is Léon Vandermeersch's magnum opus, Wangdao ou La voie royale: Recherches sur l'esprit des institutions de la Chine ancienne (Paris: École Française d'Extrême-Orient, vol. 1: 1977 Google Scholar, vol. II: 1980), notable, among other things, for synthesizing and commenting on much of the Japanese scholarship in Shang and Zhou studies. Unfortunately, this important book is not included in the bibliography of either of the two books under review.

3. It may surprise some readers that Bronzes should be the first bronze catalogue published in the West to specialize exclusively on Western Zhou pieces; yet this seems to be the case.

4. Bagley, Robert W., Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

5. Keightley, David N., Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978)Google Scholar. For an explicit acknowledgment, see Sources: xvii.

6. A random check of the index reveals occasional inaccuracies as to the page numbers indicated, but these inaccuracies are compensated by the index's unusually thorough coverage of the text.

7. Yin Zhou jinwen jicheng (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1986–)Google Scholar. Volumes 1–11 and 17, out of a projected eighteen volumes, had been published by June, 1993.

8. I must point out one confusing mistake in Table 10 (p. 144), where the ruler-line indicating the thirty days of a month (which might have been rendered in a different typeface) is labelled as the “first month.” In fact, the enumeration of days of interest to the discussion only starts in the middle of the second month; the first month is not covered by the listing of days in this table.

9. These ideas have been previously presented in part in Chapter 3 of Falkenhausen, “Ritual Music in Bronze Age China” (Ph. D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1988)Google Scholar, which I have freely pillaged for this article. I have also incorporated parts of an unpublished paper of mine, “Principles of Jinwett Analysis” (manuscript 1986, revised 1989).

10. This is true with one exception: after taking a rubbing, traditional antiquarians often deliberately scratched out characters from the originals so as to enhance the value of their rubbing. One can only pray that this annoying habit is no longer being perpetrated.

11. See Vandermeersch, Wangdao, vol. II, 487.

12. The only original Western Zhou writings besides bronze inscriptions that have come to us are a small number of inscribed oracle bones, the vast majority of which were excavated at Fengchu , Qishan (Shaanxi). See Yuxin, Wang , Xi-Zhou jiagu tanlun (Beijing: Shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1984)Google Scholar; Quanfang, Chen , Zhouyuan yu Thou wenhua (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin, 1988)Google Scholar; Xitai, Xu , Zhouyuan jiaguwen zongshu (Xi'an: San Qin, ca. 1987)Google Scholar.

13. The spatial and architectural setting of ritual artifacts in Bronze Age China is compellingly described in Hung, Wu, “From Temple to Tomb: Ancient Chinese Art and Religion in Transition,” Early China 13 (1988), 83–86 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 An important resource for locating photographs of unprovenienced inscribed bronzes is Minao, Hayashi , Sandai kikkin bunzon kiei sansho mokuroku , second amplified edition (Taipei: Xuesheng shuju, 1971)Google Scholar (Sources cites the 1967 first edition, which was, incidentally, published in Kyōto: Dai'an, not Tōkyō). The problem of separating inscriptions from depictions is not limited to Chinese studies; for a similar complaint in an ancient Mesopotamian context, see Winter, Irene J., “Legitimation of Authority through Image and Legend: Seals Belonging to Officials in the Administrative Bureaucracy of the Ur State,” in Gibson, McGuire and Biggs, Robert D., eds., The Organization of Power: Aspects of Bureaucracy in the Ancient Near East , 2nd ed. (Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1991 Google Scholar; Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, no. 46), 61–62, n. 14.

15. See Tambiah, Stanley J., “A Performative Approach to Ritual,” in Culture, Thought, and Social Action (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 123–166.

16. This has been stressed by Chang, K.C. in Art, Myth, and Ritual, The Path to Political Authority in Ancient China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983)Google Scholar and elsewhere. Hayashi's efforts (in In Shū jidai seidōki monyō-no kenkyū [Tōkyō: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1986 Google Scholar; In Shū seidōki sōran , part II], and elsewhere) to illuminate the details of the possible iconic meanings of Shang and Zhou bronzes are particularly outstanding.

17. Western Zhou bells were mostly inscribed only on the recto side; but the two known inscribed royal bells, the Hu -yongzhong and the Wusi Hu -yongzhong (see below), constitute important exceptions. Compare Kane, Virginia C., “Aspects of Western Zhou Appointment Inscriptions: The Charge, the Gifts, and the Response,” Early China 8 (1982–83), 16 Google Scholar.

18. Shijing, Ode 209 “Chuci” ; Shisanjing zhushu (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1981)Google Scholar, vol. 1,467–470 (13–2.199–202); translation after Karlgren, Bernhard, The Book of Odes (Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 1950), 161–163 Google Scholar (I have slightly modified the translation in the passages quoted below). In general, the Shijing is to be preferred over the latter-day ritual compendia as a source for reconstructing Zhou customs; I suspect that Ode 209 was a principal source used – and elaborated upon – by the compilers of the ritual compendia (cf. Broman, Sven, “Studies on the Chou Li ” [ Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 33 (1961), 1–88])Google Scholar.

19. The common description of spirits as “ascending and descending” (zhi jiang ) alludes to the spirits’ move from the ancestral realm in Heaven into a human vessel on earth. On the shi , see Carr, Michael, “Personation of the Dead in Ancient China,” Computational Analysis of Asian & African Languages 24 (1985), 1–107 Google Scholar.

20. Turner, Victor, The Ritual Process (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1969), 96–97 Google Scholar.

21. K.C. Chang, Art, Myth, and Ritual, 45–55; Mengjia, Chen , “Shangdai de shenhua yu wushu ,” Yanjing xuebao 20 (1936), 485–576 Google Scholar.

22 Kaogu 1986.1, 22–27, 11Google Scholar.

23. Yoshinori, Matsui , “Sōhin-yori: Seijin Jinnei-shō” , Sen'oku Hakkokan kiyō 1 (1984), 50–64 Google Scholar.

24. Zhongshu, Xu, “Jinwen guci shili” , Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo jikan 6.1 (1936), 1–44 Google Scholar. This seminal article is not included in the bibliography to Sources.

25. Shisanjing zhushu vol. 1, 1417 (21.189).

26. Liji “Jitong” , in a passage quoted in Sources (p. 176), perhaps unduly Confucianizes the matter in seeing the formulation of inscriptions as an expression of “filial piety.” Further on in the same text, it is suggested that one can learn something about the character of a person from the formulation of inscriptions he has donated, suggesting that some people in the time when the Liji was written did read bronze inscriptions; what seems to be the text of a genuine Western Zhou inscription is quoted further below in the “Jitong” chapter. Of course, by the first century b.c., all the Zhou archives had already been destroyed. In any case, the Liji, far from suggesting that the inscriptions were viable historical documents, explicitly denies this in the paragraph immediately following the passage quoted by Shaughnessy; see Shisanjing zhushu vol. 2, 1606–1607 (49.378–379)Google Scholar.

27. See the preceding footnote for references. Unlike many other puns in Han texts, this one may have some etymological legitimacy.

28. See also Sangren, P. Steven, History and Magical Power in a Chinese Community (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1987)Google Scholar, 63, on naming as a concern in present-day religious practice in Taiwan.

29. Such markers are generally thought to identify a clan or lineage rather than an individual; additional characters specifying an individual donor or ancestor may be attached to them. Coherent texts as encountered in Western Zhou occur only on an extremely small number of Shang bronzes dating to the very end of the dynasty (for a comprehensive treatment of these inscriptions, including an index, see Kiyoshi, Akatsuka , Chūgoku kodai-no shūkyō-to bunka [Tōkyō: Kadokawa, 1977], 611–864)Google Scholar.

30. Where a subject is present on an inscription of this type, moreover, this is often not a name referring to an individual, but an indeterminate expression; e.g., a term like bo indicating the donor's seniority (see below for more discussion of names).

31. Shaanxi chutu Shang Zhou qingtongqi , vol. 2 (Beijing: Wenwu, 1980), 142–150 Google Scholar.

32. The very few exceptions to the notion of a tripartite structure in bronze inscriptions – instances in which the text follows a more complex pattern, resulting from an expansion of the tripartite scheme – all date to Eastern Zhou times and need not concern us here; they are discussed in Falkenhausen, “Ritual Music,” 657–661.

33. In Late Western Zhou bell inscriptions, for instance, we can observe a bimodal correlation between inscriptions with less than ca. 45 characters (average: 23 character spaces), which do not have “announcements of merit,” and those containing more than 45 characters (average: 94 character spaces), which do (Falkenhausen, “Ritual Music,” Table 14).

34. Shisanjing zhushu , vol. 2, 1825–1826 Google Scholar (16.123–124). In commenting on this passage, the author speculates (Sources, p. 76) that “had Chong'er commemorated this command by casting a ritual vessel, he certainly would have concluded it with such a dedication [to a deceased ancestor].” Actually, the near-absence of ancestral dedications in Eastern Zhou inscriptions makes this quite improbable (see Xu Zhongshu, “Jinwen guci shili,” 43; Falkenhausen, “Ritual Music,” 654, 677–678 and Table 21). If Chong'er had lived in Western Zhou times, the matter might have been different.

35. A number of Western Zhou inscriptions actually give the date at the end of the text (see Geng, Rong , Shang Zhou yiqi tongkao [Beijing: Harvard-Yenching Institute, 1941]Google Scholar, vol. 1, 30; Vandermeersch, Wangdao, vol. I, 23). This is usually considered a Shang custom (exemplified in Sources by the Late Shang Zai -ding inscription, translated on p. 90 n. 31), but, as shown by the royally-commissioned Hu-gui inscription (Sources, pp. 171–172), it prevailed until at least Li Wang's time at the Zhou court (some of whose archivists are known to have come from Shang) and elsewhere.

36. Such an audience ritual is described in Yili “Jinli” (Yi li zhengyi [Sibu beiyao ed.], 20.5b–22a). Some minor differences vis-à-vis the Western Zhou process may be due to the presumably later date of that text.

37. The text breaks off here (it would have continued on other bells of the set, which have not been preserved). Cf. Shaanxi chutu Shang Zhou qingtongqi , vol. 4 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1984), 161–167 Google Scholar. Translated by Virginia Kane, “Aspects of Western Zhou Appointment Inscriptions,” 20, mod. et augm. auct. (Pinyin inserted).

38. If we may believe the Liji “Liqi” (Shisanjing zhushu, 1442, 24.214) and “Mingtangwei” (Shisanjing zhushu, 1487–1492, 31.259–264) the material tokens of power were magnificently displayed during ancestral celebrations.

39 Kane, “Aspects of Western Zhou Appointment Inscriptions,” 20. The most exhaustive work on this subject is Ranwei, Huang [Wong Yin-wai] , Yin Zhou qingtongqi shangci mingwen yanjiu (Hong Kong: Longmen, 1978)Google Scholar.

40. Wenbo 1987.2,17–25 Google Scholar.

41. Shaanxi chutu Shang Zhou qingtongqi , vol. 3(Beijing: Wenwu, 1980), 110–111 Google Scholar.

42. In the Shi Qiang-pan, phrases 1–34 (as numbered by Shaughnessy) are an extremely extended “announcement of merit” in the subjective mode; the “statement of dedication” is in phrase 35, and phrases 36–37 (where the inscription almost runs out of space on the vessel) constitute the concluding guci. In spite of being one of the longest bronze inscriptions on record, the document features no date and place notation, no gift list, and only a very faint notice of a royal mandate invested on Qiang.

43. See Tsien, Tsuen-Hsuin, Written on Bamboo and Silk (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), 3 Google Scholar; Shirakawa Shizuka , “Shaku shi” , in Shirakawa, , Kōkotsubungaku ronshū , vol. 1 (Kyōto: Hōyū Shoten, 1955), 1–66 Google Scholar. Vandermeersch (Wangdao, vol. II, 473–488), traces the evolution of the written medium in ancient China from its sacred origins as magical cyphers into a way of transcribing literary discourse. In this scheme, the Western Zhou bronze inscriptions (as well as their ossified Eastern Zhou descendants) occupy an intermediate position. According to Vandermeersch, the earliest “chiffres magiques” may have been designed to transcribe the trance utterances of shaman-kings. A shift occurred at the end of Shang and especially in early Zhou from preoccupation with the spirits towards an emphasis on the formalities of ritual, possibly leading to the fixation of the spirits’ messages into formulaic guci.

44. See Schipper, Kristofer, “The Written Memorial in Taoist Ceremonies,” in Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society , ed. Wolf, Arthur P. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), 309–324 Google Scholar; Strickmann, Michel, “Therapeutische Rituale und das Problem des Bösen im frühen Taoismus,” in Religion und Philosophie in Ostasien: Festschrift für Hans Steininger zum 65. Geburtstag , ed. Naundorf, Gert et al. (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1985), 185–200 Google Scholar; John Lagerwey, “The Oral and the Written in Chinese and Western Religion,” in Religion und Philosophie in Ostasien, 301–322.

45. Shirakawa, in “Shaku shi,” has interpreted the graph shi as depicting a primitive ritual practice in which inscribed slips of wood were offered to the spirits in a basket-container. This interpretation is followed by Vandermeersch (Wangdao, vol. II, 473–475) and Harper, Donald (“A Chinese Demonography of the Third Century B.C.,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 45.2 [1985], 472–474)Google Scholar.

46. Given such an order of composition, the following statement (in Sources, p. 75) would seem doubtful: “Since there is now little doubt that the ‘Maogong ding’ is an authentic vessel and inscription, it would seem rather that it and other similar bronze inscriptions in fact inspired the composer of the ‘Wenhou zhi ming”’ (a document in the Shangshu similar in its language to that of the bronze inscriptions). It is much more likely that the “Wen Hou zhi ming” was, all along, a document written on perishable material; documents of this kind may have served as a basis for transcribing a bronze inscription, but not the other way around.

47. For example, the Sannian Xing and the Shisannian Xing -hu (Shaanxi chutu Shang Zhou qingtongqi, vol. 2, nos. 31 and 29).

48. Shaughnessy mentions another instance of intertextuality, the Huan -you and -zun inscriptions (pp. 174–175), and summarizes Matsumaru Michio's argument (first published in 1977 and presented in definitive form in Sei-Shū seidōki-to sono kokka , ed. Matsumaru, [Tōkyō: Tōkyō Daigaku Shuppansha, 1980], 2–184)Google Scholar that the zun inscription was drafted in consciously incomplete imitation of the you.

49. See Falkenhausen, “Ritual Music,” 978–983. I adhere to the currently accepted numbering of the bells as used in Shaanxi chutu Shang Zhou qingtongqi vol. 2. The Second and Fourth Xtng-yongzhong are the larger and the smaller members, respectively, of a set that was originally composed of eight bells.

50. Zhouli “Qiu guan: Siyue”; Yirang, Sun , Zhouli zhengyi 68 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1987), vol. 11, 2847 Google Scholar.

51. Zhouli zhengyi 68, vol. 11, 2847–2848.

52. Zuo zhuan, Zhao 6 and 29 (Shisanjing zhushu, vol. 2, 2043 [43.341] and 2124–2125 [53.422–423]).

53. Vandermeersch, Wangdao, vol. II, 447–448.

54. Shirakawa, , Kinbun tsûshaku (Kōbe: Hakutsuru Bijutsukan, 1962–84 Google Scholar; Hakutsuru Bijutsukanshi ), vol. 24, 191–205. For a translation, see Vandermeersch, Wangdao, vol. II, 238–240.

55. Shirakawa, Kinbun tsūshaku, vol. 23, 113–138.

56. Shirakawa, Kinbun tsūshaku, vol. 18, 260–276.

57. Houma mengshu (Beijing: Wenwu, 1978)Google Scholar.

58. Shuihudi Qin-mu zhujian (Beijing: Wenwu, 1990)Google Scholar.

59. One example for such a phenomenon is the Li -gui inscription (translated and extensively discussed in Sources, pp. 89–105), which fails to specify any sort of connection between the announcement, by Wu Wang, of victory on day 1 (jiazi ) and the bestowal of gifts on Li on day 8 (xinwei ); although this text may have been composed on the basis of an actual investiture record, it seems almost certain that there is a sizable ellipsis between the two events.

60. Zhongshu, Xu (ed.), Yin Zhou jinwen jilu (Chengdu: Sichuan Renmin, 1984), 316–317 Google Scholar.

61. On the role of the narrative in historical writing, see White, Hayden V., The Content and the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987)Google Scholar. For more general considerations on the relationship between ideas and their textual expression, see Nussbaum, Martha C., The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986)Google Scholar, 122–135 and passim.

62. My understanding of xiaozi renders unnecessary the interpretation of wei in a strongly adversative sense, as implied by its otherwise unproblematic emendation (Sources, p. 171) to sui . The interpretation of wei xiaozi has a long prehistory in various Shangshu commentaries that I do not wish to get into here. Suffice it to say that historicized readings of what is actually formulaic ritual language have been propounded at least since Sima Qian's time.

63. Xu Zhongshu, “Jinwen guci shili,” 43.

64. Hayashi, , “In – Shunjūki kinbun-no shoshiki-to jūyūgoku-no jidaiteki hensen” Tōkyō gakuhō 55 (1983), 1–101 Google Scholar; and In Shū jidai seidōki-no kenkyū , 2 vols. (Tōkyō: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1984 Google Scholar; i.e., in Shū seidōki sōran, part I), 297–307.

65. Nivison, David S., “The Dates of Western Chou,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 43.2 (1983), 483–580 Google Scholar.

66. Hanyi, Xia (Shaughnessy, Edward L.), “Ci-ding mingwen yu Xi-Zhou wanqi niandai-kao” , Dalu zazhi 80.4 (1990), 16–24 Google Scholar.

67. It seems to me, however, that the essentials of the chronology proposed in that appendix would stand even if the dual-calendar thesis were renounced.

68. So far, to my knowledge, only Asahara Tatsuro (“Sei-Shū kinbun-to reki” , Tōhō gakuhō 58 [1986], 71–120)Google Scholarhas acknowledged Nivison's thesis, assessing it skeptically (pp. 87–88 et passim). In a less systematic way, the possibility that there could have been several first years to a reign has also been enounced by Shirakawa (for the Gonghe period, see Kinbun tsūshaku, vol. 45,342–344), and by Youqi, He , “Xi-Zhou de niandai wenti” Jiang Han luntan 1983.8 Google Scholar (not seen; mentioned by Asahara, ibid.). While Asahara's important article is included in the bibliography of Sources, it is nowhere specifically referred to.

69. Peiyu, Zhang , Zhongguo xian-Qin shi libiao (Jinan: Qi-lu, 1982)Google Scholar.

70. Asahara, “Sei-Shū kinbun-to reki,” 76.

71. Calculating with seven rather than eight days per lunar phase leaves two days per long lunar month for the days of the full moon (ming ) and new moon (shun ), respectively, which (in a very small number of inscriptions) are noted apart from the lunar phases.

72. See Nivison, “The Dates of Western Chou,” 547–56.

73. That such a preference may have started to make itself felt as early as Western Zhou times may be indicated by the fact that this date is seen, for instance, on the Late Western Shi X -gui inscription, translated in part in Sources, p. 272. The prevalence of dinghai, in particular, is graphically illustrated by Shirakawa's tabulation in Kinbun tsūshaku, vol. 56, 316–317.

74. For this reason, one need not, on the other hand, immediately throw up one's hand in despair should the inscribèd dates of certain vessels prove impossible to integrate into an otherwise plausible sequence. Pace Sarah Allan's review of Sources (in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , 55.3 [1992], 585–587 Google Scholar), the royal Zhou chronology proposed in Shaughnessy's Appendix 3 is by no means invalidated by the mere existence of a single inscription (that of the Xian -gui) giving a date apparently irreconcilable with any reign consistent with its stylistic attributes.

75. Asahara, “Sei-Shū kinbun-to reki,” 92–99. The reader may find it easier to understand this article after reading the more detailed explanation of the “Differential's” calculation in Asahara, , “Gessō sōtai fukusa-to Shunjū chōreki” , Koshi shunjū 5 (1988), 68–101 Google Scholar. I have summarized the latter article in English in Early China 14 (1989), 224–226 Google Scholar.

76. Logically, it is questionable whether the examples in this last category have a legitimate place among the “Standards,” their dating being precisely the result of the kind of analysis the list of “Standards” is supposed to enable or facilitate. Moreover, why these examples were selected over hundreds of equally meritorious instances datable by the same criterion remains unexplained.

77. Another, recently discovered bell commissioned by Li Wang, now called the Wusi Hu-yongzhong so as to distinguish it from the Hu-yongzhong in Taibei, is mentioned elsewhere in Sources (p. 170), but is for some reason not included in the “Periodization Standards” of Table 4.

78. The procedure in Eastern Zhou times is described variously in the commentaries on the Chunqiu chronicle, e.g. at Zuo Zhuan Xiang 13 ( Shisanjing zhushu, vol. 2, 1954–1955, 32.252–253 Google Scholar), where the Chu grandee Zi Nang decides on the post-humous name of Gong Wang of Chu (r. 590–560 B.C.). I plan to take up this topic in a future article.

79. The exact conventions governing the use of such epithets with respect to living kings in Zhou documents await further study. I am not aware of any inscription that could exemplify their use with certainty; I merely wish to point out the theoretical admissibility of reading certain inscriptions in this way.

80. Table 4 mistakenly asserts that kings Wu and Cheng are posthumously referred to in the Da Yu -ding (“Standards,” no. 10); while these two kings appear in the inscription of the Xiao Yu -ding (“Standards,” no. 11) – the epithet Wu of Wu Wang in this inscription, now illegible, is supplied by Shirakawa (Kinbun tsūshaku, vol. 12, 703–704) – the text of the Da Yu-ding inscription mentions kings Wen and Wu. Other minor mistakes in Table 4: the Da Ke -ding (“Standards,” no. 29) is discussed by Shirakawa in vol. 28 (not 26), and the Xi Jia -pan (“Standards,” no. 34) in vol. 32 (not 33) of Kinbun tsūshaku.

81. The example of the Da Yu-ding and the Xiao Yu-ding, mentioned in the previous footnote, shows that this need not always have been the case: made on behalf of the same donor, their inscriptions nevertheless mention different sets of kings.

82. See Dongling, Sheng , “Xi-Zhou tongqi mingwenzhong de renming ji qi dui duandai de yiyi” , Wenshi 17 (1983), 27–64 Google Scholar (especially pp. 40–42).

83. The possibility of constructing such tight, family-centered sequences of bronzes should be of particular interest to art historical study, for one would expect the same family to have patronized the same workshop over several generations. Stylistic changes within such a controlled sample will thus take on a very special meaning.

84. Xueqin, Li, “Xi-Zhou zhongqi qingtongqi de zhongyao biaochi – Zhouyuan Zhuangbai, Qijia liangchu qingtongqi jiaocang de zonghe yanjiu” , Zhongguo lishi bowuguan guankan 1 (1979), 29–36 Google Scholar.

85. Li Xueqin (“Xi-Zhou zhongqi qingtongqi de zhongyao biaochi”) has discussed the inscriptions pertaining to the youngest Guo (Guoji ) lineage, and Fenghan, Zhu , in a recent book ( Shang Zhou jiazu xingtai yanjiu [Tianjin: Tianjin Guji, 1990], 361–380)Google Scholar, provides further examples. For an extensive, though somewhat immature treatment of the Nangong lineage, see Falkenhausen, “Ritual Music,” 1000–1039.

86. I suspect that these forty-three Xing vessels are meant to include, besides two others that I cannot identify, the five Wei Bo -li (Shaanxi chutu Shang Zhou qingtongqi, vol. 2, nos. 44–48); but the inscriptions on these vessels do not mention their donor's personal name, only recording his lineage and seniority position as Elder of Wei (Wei Bo). While it is true that Xing, on several other inscribed bronzes (the Wei Bo Xing -gui and the two Wei Bo Xing-bi, Shaanxi chutu Shang Zhou qingtongqi, vol. 2, nos. 51–53) is named as Wei Bo Xing, “Wei Bo” alone could have referred to any Wei lineage head (more on this problem below). Thus, while I agree that the stylistic characteristics of the Wei Bo-li would make it appear possible that they were made during Xing's generation, this cannot, on methodological grounds, be assumed. Besides the thirty-six vessels from Zhuangbai with inscriptions mentioning him by name, Xing may have been, as well, the donor of some of the uninscribed vessels from the hoard, most of which are stylistically close to the Xing vessels.

87. I have pointed out elsewhere (“Ritual Music,” 990–991) that, in the ruling house of the state of Song (descendants of the Shang royal family and possibly close relatives of the Wei lineage), a shift from fraternal to lineal succession apparently occurred in the third generation after the founding of Western Zhou.

88. See n. 86, above.

89. Falkenhausen, “The Date of the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform: Some Epigraphic Inferences Involving Genealogical Terminology,” manuscript, 1992.

90. Shaughnessy, in his comments on the Shi Qiang-pan inscriptions in Sources, Appendix 1, does not take a stance on this issue, though he commendably avoids identifying the expression “Wei shi liezu ” (rendered as “the Wei scribes and valorous ancestors”) as one separate ancestor in the sequence.

91. Wang Yinzhi, “Chunqiu ming, zi jiegu ,” in Jingyi shuweti , juan 22–23.

92. One major conundrum in Western Zhou anthroponymy is the fact that these terms could apparently refer to the seniority of individuals within their generation, as well as – perhaps more rarely – to branch lineages within a larger network of interrelated lineages. So far, in many contexts one cannot be certain which of the two meanings is intended. The discussion of the seniority indicators in Sources (p. 169, n. 19), where my own preliminary remarks on the subject are quoted, is confusing.

93. Vandermeersch, Wangdao, vol. 1,153–94.

94. Sheng Dongling, “Xi-Zhou tongqi mingwenzhong de renming ji qi dui duandai de yiyi” (see n. 82 above).

95. Zhenfeng, Wu, Jinwen renming huibian (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1987)Google Scholar.

96 Shiji , “Zhou benji” (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1959), 141 Google Scholar.

97. Contrary to what seems to be implied in Table 4, Kang Hou's personal name, Feng , nowhere appears in the inscription. The gui should properly be named after its actual donor, Yao Situ Yi[?] .

98. Wu Zhenfeng (Jinwen renming huibiarr: 340) lists three Early Western Zhou vessels mentioning this name; there are surely other examples. The fact that the personal name of Wu Gong of Wei was He (see Shi Ji “Wei Shijia,” Zhonghua ed.: 1591) led the Song antiquarians to identify him as the Bo Hefu mentioned in the Shi X-gui inscription. As to the possibility that several persons may have had the cognomen Hefu, Shirakawa, in his comments on the Xing Ren Ning-yongzhong (Kinbun tsūshaku, vol. 31:776–784) expresses some doubt that the Hefu mentioned in that inscription is necessarily the same individual as the Bo Hefu/Shi Hefu mentioned in the Shi X-gui and several other inscriptions (discussed ibid.: 740–775). In all likelihood, the Hefu in the Xing Ren Ning-yongzhong was a member of a Xing , and not the Gong, lineage; though a variety of hypotheses – none very convincing – have been proposed that could confirm his identification with the individual in the Shi X-gui. Shirakawa characteristically leaves the question open. It should be noted, moreover, that, even though Sources (p. 272 n. 95) refers to Shirakawa's extensive quotations from previous scholarship as its principal source for the identification of Bo Hefu with Gong Bo He, Shirakawa himself repeatedly expresses his outright disagreement with such an identification.

99. Zuo zhuan, Xi 5 ( Shisanjing zhushu vol. 2, 1795 Google Scholar, 12.93).

100. See Vandermeersch, Wangdao, vol. 1, 185–188.

101. A later Guo Zhong lineage head (whose title and cognomen are given as Guo Gong Linfu ), is mentioned in Zuo zhuan Huan 8–10 ( Shisanjing zhushu , vol. 2, 1754–1755, 7.52–53 Google Scholar).

102. Preliminary notice in Zhongguo wenwubao , Januaiy 6, 1991. I saw some of these finds in May, 1991.

103. A similar problem is seen in Appendix 2 with respect to Wang Jiang , the “royal wife from the Jiang clan” – a Zhou queen mentioned in the Ling-gui inscription. Shaughnessy's references to other individuals of the same designation in other bronze inscriptions datable to the Kang/Zhao period (pp. 208–209) cannot, as a matter of principle, prove that the Wang Jiang in the Ling-gui was the same individual. They can only show that, if the gui is indeed from the Kang/Zhao period, there is other evidence that a queen of the Jiang clan was active during this period. But this – as Shaughnessy himself points out – was probably the case in every generation of the royal lineage, given the custom of hereditary intermarriage among exogamous clans.

104. From “interrelated inscribed groups,” Rawson (Bronzes, p. 145) distinguishes “contemporaneous inscribed groups,” which, following Hayashi, she defines as groups of vessels mentioning both donors and ancestor bearing identical names. Both varieties of inscribed groups only establish the relative dates of bronzes with respect to one another, but, as Rawson points out, the chronological range of vessels in “contemporaneous” ones is shorter than in the case of “interrelated inscribed groups.”

105. Hayashi, , “In Sei-Shū kan-no seidōyōki-no hennen” , Tōhō gakuhō 50 (1978), 1–55 Google Scholar; and In Shū jidai seidōki-nokentyū, 179–192.

106. It should be noted that in Hayashi's corpus, not all bronzes datable to one of the main periods can yet be dated so specifically as to determine their subperiod. Progress may, however, be made through further research.

107. For the time being, see my “Ritual Music,” 661–675.

108. Shirakawa's kundoku readings, for instance, can only help one understand the grammar, not the semantics, of the inscriptions; for kundoku only arranges the words in the order as it would be in (pre-modern) Japanese, affixing the appropriate endings and particles. As it is not necessary to actually translate the meaning of the individual characters, difficult points can be elegantly glossed over; only occasionally does Shirakawa indicate his understanding of a character by means of furigana . Translations into modern Chinese suffer from the same problem: a difficult character can simply be copied without indicating either meaning or pronunciation. Western scholars, in such instances, will have to take a stance, and when that is impossible, use “X”s or question marks.

109. See, e.g., Creel, Origins of Chinese Statecraft, and Hsu and Linduff, Western Chou Civilization.

110. Shaughnessy's chief source of transcriptions is Shirakawa, Kinbun tsūshaku.

111. A number of texts have been translated in full by Dobson, in Early Archaic Chinese (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962)Google ScholarPubMed. The Ph.D. dissertation by Doty, Darrell Paul, “The Bronze Inscriptions of Ch'i: An Interpretation” (University of Washington, 1982 Google Scholar), with translations largely based on Shirakawa, sets an admirable standard for Eastern Zhou inscriptions. Noel Barnard has also translated inscriptions in several published articles (see bibliography in Sources, p. 293). French translations of a number of Western Zhou epigraphic documents may be found throughout Vandermeersch, Wangdao.

112. How to render the Chinese texts of the inscriptions is another issue for consideration. Shaughnessy commendably provides interlineal kaishu renderings of the texts with his translations; but the principle of basing a unit of translated text on the length of the line as it occurs in the inscribed vessel suggests semantic unity where there is none (in fact, when multiple versions of an epigraphic text exist, these often feature different line breaks). As to indicating character emendations, Chinese conventions are somewhat loose; Shaughnessy spells out a rule, which is reasonable (Sources, p. 72, n. 11), but he deviates from his own principle in the way in which he indicates his emendations to the Ran-fangding inscription on p. 48. Perhaps, the epigraphy of Western languages will, in the future, provide a model for more stringent transcription conventions.

113. The only translation issue where I am in substantial disagreement with Sources is its translation of the phrase “Situ Maoshu you Ci ru men li zhong ting” , which is part of the description of an investiture ceremony in the Ci -ding inscription. The phrase is rendered as “Supervisor of Lands Maoshu at the right of Ci entered the gate and stood in the center of the hall” (Sources, p. 80; the same problem recurs in the translation of the Qiu Wei-gui on p. 85). But aside from the fact that ting almost certainly denotes the courtyard, and not the hall, of the royal ceremonial compound (no need to take as ), you should be taken verbally as “to act on the right > help,” governing two parallel verb-noun phrases: “Situ Mao Shu helped Ci to enter the gate and to take his position at the center of the courtyard.” The one who stood in the center was certainly the beneficiary of the royal charge, and not the youzhe , as modern epigraphers call ceremonial “helpers” like Mao Shu. Qiu Dexiu has suggested to me (personal communication, 1986) that, during the entering sequence of the ritual, the youzhe, on the right side of the courtyard, and the beneficiary, on the left, may have performed analogous ceremonial motions symmetrically to one another; if this is true, the dual meaning of the word you can be traced back to a concrete Zhou cultural practice.

114. The only mistake I have spotted – apart from infelicities in transcribing inscriptions – is the misspelling of Liu Yu's personal name as “Yue” (p. 247; again, p. 267). Although the spelling generally follows American conventions, there are some uncorrected instances of divergent British spellings.

115. There is relatively little cross-reference between volumes one and two of the Sackler catalogue. In order to facilitate the use of either volume independently, many objects shown in Bagley's Shang Ritual Bronzes are illustrated again in Rawson's volume.

116. Thorp, Robert, “Bronze Catalogues as Cultural Artifacts,” Archives of Asian Art 44 (1991), 84–94 Google Scholar.

117. From a research point of view, color illustrations of bronzes (as opposed to paintings and other objects) generally constitute an unnecessary expense, except in the case of objects still showing extensive remains of pigments.

118. My “Acoustical and Musical Studies on the Sackler Bells” (co-authored with Thomas D. Rossing), is forthcoming as an appendix to Jenny F.-S. So, Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, the third and final volume in the series.

119. See Fong, Wen, “The Study of Chinese Bronze Age Arts: Methods and Approaches,” in The Great Bronze Age of China , ed. Fong, Wen (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980), 20–34 Google Scholar.

120. The pioneering Chinese work is Ji, Li and Jiabao, Wan , Gu qiwu yanjiu zhuankan , 5 volumes, (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo, 1964–1972)Google Scholar. Recent archaeological reports from China that present data on the elemental analysis (and in some cases lead isotope ratios) of excavated metal objects include: Liancheng, Lu and Zhisheng, Hu , Baoji Yu guo mudi (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1988), vol. 1, 530–645 Google Scholar; Xichuan Xiasi Chunqiu Chu mu (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1990), 379–400 Google Scholar; Zeng Hou Yi mu (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1989), vol. 1, 618–20 and 636–639Google Scholar; Baoshan Chu mu (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1991), vol. 1: 417–430 and 437–438Google Scholar; Xi-Han Nanyue wangmu (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1991), vol. 1, 397–410 Google Scholar; and Guangxi Guixian Luobowan Han mu (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1988), 141–142 Google Scholar. See also Zhitan, Shang , “Su'nan diqu qing-tongqi hejin chengfen de tese ji xiangguan wenti” , Wenwu 1990. 10, 48–55 Google Scholar. For references to several important lead isotope studies, see Bronzes, p. 168.

121. Pertinent bibliographical references are far too numerous to allow enumeration here. An up-to-date synthesis is urgently needed. For partial efforts, see, e.g., Vogel, Hans Ulrich, “Bergbauarchäologische Forschungen in der Volksrepublik China – Von Chengde bis Tonglüshan – ein Forschungsbericht,” Der Anschnitt 34.4 (1982), 138–153 Google Scholar, and Jinghua, Li , “Shinianlai Henan yejin kaogu de xin jinzhan” , Hua Xia kaogu 1989. 3, 68–81 Google Scholar. Donald Wagner's recent Iron and Steel in Ancient China (Leiden et al.: Brill, 1993 Google Scholar; Handbuch der Orientalistik IV.19) also contains some important insights.

122. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes, 49–50, n. 47.

123. Hayashi, In Shū jidai seidōki monyō-no kenkyū. Hayashi has since continued his iconographie research; see his “Chūgoku kodai-ni okeru hasunohana-no shōchō” , Tōhō gakuhō 59 (1987), 1–61 Google Scholar; “Chūgoku kodai-no uibutsu-ni arawasareta ‘ki’-no tsuzōteki hyōgen” , Tōhō gakuhō 61 (1989), 1–93 Google Scholar; “Chūgoku kodai-ni okeru hinokasa-to shinwateki tsuzō” , Shirin 74.4 (1991), 556–581 Google Scholar; “Chūgoku kodai-no bikei, jikei-no shōchōteki tsukei” , Sen'oku Hakkokan kiyō 8 (1992), 3–40 Google Scholar; and “In Shū jidai-no kishin-no itadaku jōkei-no tsuno-ni tsuite” , Sen'oku Hakkokan kiyō 9 (1993), 39–69 Google Scholar. A significant recent Western contribution on this general subject matter, though not directly concerned with the Western Zhou, is Kesner, Ladislav, “The Taotie Reconsidered: Meanings and Functions of Shang Theriomorphic Imagery,” Artibus Asiae 51.1/2 (1991), 29–53 Google Scholar.

124. The correlation given on p. 21 is tentative; on p. 25, for instance, Rawson states that Zhao Wang's reign only “possibly” falls into Early Western Zhou.

125. In tracing the history of the southern bird flanges, some connections to Neolithic and Shang jades might be relevant; see Hung, Wu, “Bird Motifs in Eastern Yi Art,” Orientations 16 (1985), 30–41 Google Scholar.

126. The coiled dragon, as well, can be traced to the neolithic; Rawson (pp. 600–602) discusses its occurrence on the painted sacrificial ceramics from Taosi , Xiangfen (Shanxi), for which, see Kaogu 1983. 1, 30–42 Google Scholar.

127. Such designs can be observed, e.g., on the rim of a nao in the Museum, Shanghai ( Wenwu 1959.10, 33, fig. 3)Google Scholar, and on the shank-protrusion (xuan ) of the large nao from Yueshanpu , Ningxiang (Hunan) ( Wenwu 1986.2, 44–45 Google Scholar). Rawson's prime Western Zhou example of this phenomenon, a you from the Rockefeller Collection (now at the Asia Society, New York; Bronzes, vol. 1, p. 32, fig. 24), is likewise almost certainly a southern regional product. This appears likely from the vessel's large volutes and the circlet bands delimiting the decoration zones (two features originating in Erligang bronzes that were perpetuated as hallmarks of southern bronze styles), the flat, angular, and somewhat uneasy conception of main mask motifs, and the general layout of the masks. Rawson dates the Rockefeller you to the late part of Early Western Zhou, echoing Hayashi's dating of a very similar you featuring a different inscription (In Shū seidōki-no kenkyū, vol. 2, p. 269, fig. Ill); in my opinion, these two specimens may well be somewhat earlier, similar as they are to southern you contemporary with Shang such as the one from Shimen (Hunan), illustrated by Rawson as fig. 52a.(p. 47), and relegated by Hayashi (In Shū seidōki-no kenkyū, vol. 2, p. 186, fig. 227) to the category of “regional types.”

128. The old idea that flanges were a relic of the casting seams and thus an artifact of technological processes was effectively debunked by Bagley (Shang Ritual Bronzes, 26–28).

129. On Eastern Zhou phenomena, see Li Ling, “On the Typology of Chu Bronzes” (translated and edited by Lothar von Falkenhausen), Beiträge zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Archaologie, forthcoming; see also Bronzes, p. 129, n. 116. The new finds from Sanmenxia (see above) have also yielded pertinent material.

130. Karlgren, Bernhard, “Yin and Chou in Chinese Bronzes,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 8 (1936), 9–156 Google Scholar, and “New Studies on Chinese Bronzes,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 9 (1937), 1–117 Google Scholar; Hayashi Minao, In Shū jidai seidōki-no kenkyū, vol. 1, 161–163 et passim. See also Robert W. Bagley, “The Transformation of the Bronze Art in Later Western Zhou,” The Great Bronze Age of China, 238–248. Rawson herself commented on the phenomenon in an earlier article, “A Bronze Casting Revolution in the Western Zhou and its Impact on Provincial Industries,” in The Beginning of the Use of Metals and Alloys , ed. Maddin, Robert (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1988), 228–238 Google Scholar.

131. Though duly noted in general works on archaeology (e.g. Heng, Zou et al., Shang Zhou kaogu [Beijing: Wenwu, 1979], 203–215 Google Scholar; Baojun, Guo , Shang Zhou tangqiqun zonghe yanjiu , [Beijing: Wenwu, 1981], 62–69)Google Scholar, the Late Western Zhou transformations have been accorded relatively little discussion in the Chinese literature. Rawson (p. 131 n. 177) only cites some brief remarks in English-language works by Li Xueqin. For some pertinent speculations, see Pratt, Keith, “The Evidence for Music in the Shang Dynasty: A Reappraisal,” Bulletin of the British Association for Chinese Studies , September 1986, 22–50 Google Scholar.

132. For example, Weichao, Yu and Ming, Gao , “Zhoudai yongding zhidu yanjiu” , Beijing daxue xuebao: Shehui kexue 1978.1, 84–98 Google Scholar, 1978.2, 84–97, and 1979.1, 83–96.

133. These eight gui should have been accompanied by nine ding, which for some reason were not interred in the same hoard. Rawson speculates (p. 100) that Xing's five li could have fulfilled the function of ding, but it seems more likely that the ding were either buried separately, or their owners carried them along on their eastward flight.

134. Interestingly, sets of Shang-derived wine vessel assemblages were also found at Shangcunling, but these are unornamented, non-functional miniature versions, attesting that the old customs were still remembered, though no longer constituting part of ritual practice at that time.

135. Li Xueqin, “Xi-Zhou zhongqi qingtongqi de zhongyao biaochi.”

136. Hayashi, In Shu jidai seidōki-no kenkyū, vol. 2, passim. Hayashi does not attempt such fine-tuned dating for all classes of bronzes. One exception is presented by the yongzhong bells, which I have subsequently attempted to place in an approximately chronological sequence (“Ritual Music,” 340–77). It should be noted that, in spite of periodizing the Xing bronzes as Late Western Zhou, Hayashi apparently follows the opinion that their absolute date falls into Gong Wang's reign; I believe that a later date is more likely (see “The Date of the Late Western Zhou Ritual Reform”).

137. Gombrich, Ernst H., The Sense of Order: A Study in the Psychology of Decorative Art (Oxford: Phaidon, 1979)Google Scholar, 210 (quoted in Bronzes, p. 7).

138. Kubler, George, The Shape of Time (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962)Google Scholar.

139. Rawson defines the term “model” as “a type of bronze (e.g., metropolitan or provincial) or a bronze style (e.g., flamboyant or restrained) with which bronze casters will be familiar; a model is not necessarily a particular vessel” (p. 26, emphasis in the original).

140. Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes, 37–45 et passim, and his “Shang Ritual Bronzes: Casting Technique and Vessel Design,” Archives of Asian Art 43 (1990), 6–20 Google Scholar.

141. Shaughnessy discusses the technological ramifications of bronze inscription casting (Sources, 35–43) and their implications for the authentication of inscriptions on unprovenienced vessels.

142. See Bagley, Robert W., “Replication Techniques in Eastern Zhou Bronze Casting,” History from Things: Essays on Material Culture , eds. Lubar, Stephen and Kingery, W. David (Washington and London, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993), 231–241 Google Scholar.

143. See Ling, Li , “Xi-Zhou jinwenzhong de tudi zhidu” , Xueren 2(Nanjing: liangsu Wenyi, 1992), 224–256 Google Scholar.

144. Shaanxi chutu Shang Zhou qingtongqi , vol. 1 (Beijing: Wenwu, 1979), 99–123 Google Scholar.

145. Shaanxi chutu Shang Zhou qingtongqi, vol. l, 61–98; Shanxi chutu wenwu (Taiyuan: Shanxi sheng wenwu gongzuo weiyuanhui, 1980), 36–48 Google Scholar.

146. See Shaanxi chutu Shang Zhou qingtongqi, vol. 1, nos. 1–60.

147. See Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes, nos. 98–101, pp. 504–514 (no. 98 is purported to have been found in Shaanxi; in the other cases, the style suggests such a provenience); and Rawson, Bronzes, no. 41, pp. 376–379. Bagley assigns specimens lacking handles to the yu class, but these are usually classified as gui in the Chinese reports. Another Late Shang vessel of probable Shaanxi provenience in the Sackler Collections is Bagley's zun no. 44 (pp. 276–279).

148. Rawson does not discuss the Early Western Zhou phenomenon of casting gui with four handles, which is also habitually held to be a Zhou ethnic custom without Shang precedent; the Sackler Collections include one excellent specimen of this type (no. 52, pp. 416–423).

149. I have elaborated on Rawson's idea in a recent, unpublished paper, “Archaism in Late Western Zhou Bronzes” (manuscript, 1992).

150. Kane, Virginia C., “The Independent Bronze Industries in the South of China Contemporary with the Shang and Western Chou Dynasties,” Archives of Asian Art 28 (1974/75), 77–107 Google Scholar.

151. Hayashi Minao, “In Seishū jidai-no chihōkei seidōki” , kōkogaku memowüru 1980, 17–58; Robert W. Bagley, “The Appearance and Growth of Regional Bronze-using Cultures,” The Great Bronze Age of China, Fong, ed., 109–132; Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes, 32–36.

152. See my “The Regionalist Paradigm in Chinese Archaeology,” forthcoming in Nationalism and the Practice of Archaeology, ed. Philip Kohl and Clare Fawcett (Los Angeles: UCLA Institute of Archaeology).

153. Another bell in the Sackler Collections, yongzhong no. 127 (pp. 744–747), here seen as a mainstream item, is almost certainly a southern regional product contemporary with the Springs and Autumns period. The yongzhong no. 12 (pp. 748–751), though undoubtedly of northern manufacture, may very likely date to the early Springs and Autumns period. For a revisionist discussion of these objects, see Falkenhausen and Róssing, “Acoustical and Musical Studies on the Sackler Bells,” section 3.

154. For example, one zun (Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes, no. 43, pp. 266–275), one animal-shaped vessel (no. 74, pp. 416–420), and one bo (no. 104, pp. 538–550).

155. See Bagley, Shang Ritual Bronzes, 32–36.

156. E.g., Hsu and Linduff, Western Chou Civilization, 224–226 et passim.

157. The Yi Hou Ze-gui from Yandunshan , Dantu (Jiangsu) is an Early Western Zhou object ( Wenwu Cankao Ziliao 1955.5, 58–69 Google Scholar); a piedestalled gui found at Muzidun belongs in Middle Western Zhou ( Wenwu 1984.5, 1–10 Google Scholar), as is a you from Tunxi ( Anhui Sheng Bowuguan-cang Shang Zhou qingtongqi [Shanghai: Shanghai Meishu, 1987 Google Scholar], no. 24). On account of the interlocking wings of the two birds, Rawson assignes the last-mentioned object to a local workshop (p. 82), but stylistically and in terms of its workmanship, the vessel is otherwise perfectly metropolitan in character.

158. Chengyuan, Ma , “Changjiang xiayou tudunmu chutu qingtongqi de yanjiu” , ShanghaibmvugMnjikan 4 (1987), 198–220 Google Scholar.

159. See Yasunori, Kawamata , “‘Saiku hakuhaku’, Higashi Ajia-no kodai sensha-to Nishi Ajia” , Koshi Shunjū 4 (1987), 38–58 Google Scholar; Shaughnessy, Edward L., “Historical Perspectives on the Introduction of the Chariot into China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 48.1 (1988), 189–237 Google Scholar.

160. Francfort, Henri-Paul, Klodzinski, Daniel, and Másele, Georges, “Pétroglyphes archaïques du Ladakh et du Zanshar,” Arts Asiatiques 45 (1990), 5–27 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

161. They are gui no. 58 (pp. 452–453), and hu no. 96 (pp. 616–617).

162. Such information can, however, sometimes be gleaned from the bibliographical references given.

163. In conflating under the heading of “Art Historical Criteria” both the dating of bronze inscriptions by their calligraphy and the discussion of typology and ornamentation style (Sources, pp. 121–133), Shaughnessy does not keep the two methods sufficiently distinct.

164. Sometimes, e.g. in the inscriptions on the nao nos. 124 and 126 (pp. 732–733, 740–741), the absence of any discussion of their long texts implies that the author regards them as doubtful; in other cases, there are often overly cautious formulations. When reading, for instance, that an inscription “was added some time after casting” (p. 308), a lay reader might be misled to think that it was incised sometime shortly after the vessel was made; actually, it is highly unlikely that this would have been done before modern times. (Genuine Western Zhou inscriptions are without exception produced as part of the cast vessel.) Elsewhere, the suggestion that an inscribed character extending on a repaired portion of the vessel bottom “must have been recast in the course of this repair” (p. 381) is highly implausible; more probably, the character, together with the entire inscription, was forged after the vessel had been repaired.

165. Falkenhausen, “Ritual Music,” 173, n.1; Suspended Music: Chime-bells in the Culture of Bronze Age China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993)Google Scholar, chapter 4.

166. Some authors prefer to speak of “types” and “varieties” instead of “classes” and “types;” in dealing with Chinese bronzes, I find the latter nomenclature convenient. Shaughnessy, in his own somewhat less than adequate attempts to deal with issues of typology (Sources, 127–133), perplexingly uses the term “style” in the sense of “type.”

167. Rong, Shang Zhou yiqi tongkao (see n. 35 above).

168. Hayashi, In Shit jidai seidöki-no kenkyü.

169. Hayashi, , Shunjü Sen'goku jidai seidöki-no kenkyü (Tōkyō: Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1988 Google Scholar; In Shū Seidōki Sōran part III), 1–218 (pagination in the Western direction).

170. In “Ritual Music” (p. 231 n. 30), I have expressed some reservations as to the possibility that some of the dates appear to have been determined not independently by strict typology, but by reference to inscriptions, potentially resulting in circular reasoning.

171. More discussion is provided in Hayashi, , “In Sei-Shū jidai reiki-no ruibetsu to yōhō” , Tōh¯ gakuhō 53 (1981), 1–108 Google Scholar; In Shu jidai seidōki- no kenkyū, as well, contains some useful tables correlating typological attributes of relevance to dating.

172. Sources mistakenly asserts (p. 157, n. 3) that bells “do not appear in any of the tombs included in this sample” (sc. Table 13), taking them as limited to hoards only. Bells have, in fact, been found at two of the cemeteries mentioned in Table 13: at Ru- jiazhuang and at Zhuyuangou, both in Baoji (Shaanxi) (see Lu and Hu, Baoji Yu guo mudi); the bells from the tomb at Puducun , Chang'an (Shaanxi) have, moreover, been known since the nineteen-fifties ( Kaogu xuebao 1957.1, 57–86 Google Scholar). Before the discovery of the tomb of Xing Shu (M163) at Zhangjiapo , Chang'an, (Shaanxi) ( Kaogu 1986.1, 22–27, 11)Google Scholar, it might have been possible to claim that inscribed bells were not buried in tombs—but here, too, we now know better. The danger, in archaeology, of arguing from absence cannot be overemphasized.

173. Lu and Hu, Baoji Yu guo mudi (see n. 120, above).

174. Lu and Hu, Baoji Yu guo mudi, vol.1, 470–529.

175. Because some of the earliest known sets of yongzhong were found in the Yu tombs, Rawson believes that this important class of bells, which is undoubtedly of southern origin, reached the Zhou heartland by way of its western peripheries (p. 110). This, however, seems doubtful in the light of recent discoveries of similarly earlyyongzhong at Weizhuang , Pingdingshan (Henan) ( Kaogu 1988.5: 466 Google Scholar), and at Hepingcun , Huang Xian , at the tip of the Shandong peninsula ( Kaogu 1991.10, 916, pl. 8.4Google Scholar).

176. Feng, Li, “Huanghe liuyu Xi-Zhou muzang chutu qingtongliqi de fenqi yu niandai” , Kaogu xuebao 1988.4, 383–419 Google Scholar. This article is not mentioned in either book under review.

177. See also Singer, Paul, “A Bone Mask,” Archives of Asian Art 36 (1983), 88–89 Google Scholar; “Shorter Notice,” Oriental Art , n.s. 34.1 (1988), 52 Google Scholar.

178. Hsu and Linduff (in Western Chou Civilization) follow the same system but omit the quotation marks.

179. In transcribing Chinese words, Bronzes (except for terms like “taotie,” which have entered the standard art historical vocabulary) puts a space between every syllable, even transcribing a binominal compound such as the vessel designation fangzun as fang zun, which is inadmissible in Hanyu pinyin. (Even if one were using Wade-Giles, the two elements of a binóme must be linked by a hyphen.)

180. I customarily put the name of the province in brackets, which is useful in enumerations of placenames so as to indicate visually where one term ends and the next one begins.

181. In the Chinese field, Keightley's Sources provides a precedent. My own attempt to capitalize period names in Suspended Music was undone by the copyeditor.