28\u00a0 bar rises 30.35 2mph N dewpoint 25\u00a0\u00a0 Spring<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Full Moon of Winds<\/p>\n
“Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. The pleasure they give is steady, unorgastic, reliable, deep and long-lasting. In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still and absorbed.” – Germaine Greer<\/a> <\/p>\n This quote names the feeling I get when I study, not only in libraries.\u00a0 It identifies the peculiar thrill I got while investigating Chinese bronzes of the Shang and Zhou dynasties.<\/p>\n The Chinese have had advanced material culture for over 3,500 years.\u00a0 In the Neolithic they developed a potter’s wheel (not the first, that was Egypt 4000bce) and an updraft, underground kiln capable of 1250 degrees.\u00a0 Hot enough for stoneware (holds water) and almost hot enough for porcelain.\u00a0 In the MIA’s collection is an early hand-built bowl from Pan-po that captures the viewer with its shape, a gentle half-sphere, and its color, a delicate tawny clay.\u00a0 This is a work both ordinary in appearance and extraordinary in its execution.\u00a0 Nearby are three thin walled ceremonial cups, so thin that none of them weighs more than an ounce.\u00a0 These were wheel thrown in sections, then joined and fired and burnished.\u00a0 The Neolithic case also contains ceramic ancestors to the bronze hu, the tripod vessels like the tings and the ku which resembles the ceremonial stem cups.<\/p>\n The Xia dynasty, a matter of conjecture since there is no archaeological evidence for it, but\u00a0a\u00a0dynasty most scholars do think existed, saw the transition between pottery and bronze because the Shang dynasty has a functional metallurgical industry from the beginning.\u00a0 The Shang dynasty ushers in the age of bronze for China, a reign that will last almost fifteen-hundred years from the Shang through the Warring States Period of the late Eastern Zhou.\u00a0<\/p>\n Shang bronze vessels have three primary functions:\u00a0 to hold wine, food, or water.\u00a0\u00a0 The wine, often warmed on tripod lifted beakers, played a key role in Shang devotion to the Shang-ti, a god of all power.\u00a0\u00a0 The various food containers from the giant ting to the delicate tou held sacrificial grains, millet at first, later rice and meats.\u00a0 Humans died as sacrifice to the Shang gods though there is no mention of cannibalism.\u00a0 Flat vessels and vessels shaped like gravy boats facilitated ablutions in preparation for sacrifice.\u00a0 The bronze used in these ceremonial vessels had lead as an alloy with copper.\u00a0 This made the metal softer, easier to cast.<\/p>\n Weapons, also made from bronze, had tin alloyed with copper, a harder metal, better for cutting and slicing.<\/p>\n The Zhou dynasty, borne from a clan rival to the Tzu, the clan of the Shang kings, continued much of Shang culture.\u00a0 The emphasis on\u00a0 ritual continued and with it the need for the bronze ritual vessels.\u00a0 There was an important difference, however.\u00a0 Where the Shang worshiped a supreme god and their ancestors as divine, the Zhou had a heaven with many gods and their ancestor worship revered ancestors as mediators with the realm of heaven, not divine in themselves.\u00a0 The Zhou also believed that their conquest of the Shang occurred for moral reasons.\u00a0 They thought the Shang had become corrupt and that they were drunkards.\u00a0 The mandate of heaven, a Zhou concept, presented the long lasting notion that rulers did not rule by right, but by the will of heaven.\u00a0 This meant that rule could be lost if the king let his realm fall into disorder\u00a0or the peasantry did not flourish.<\/p>\n Over time this meant that the characteristic Shang decorative symbol, the T’ao T’ieh, began to disappear.\u00a0 Birds began to fill the same, main spots on Zhou bronze.\u00a0 Also,\u00a0where Shang inscriptions were usually terse, often only one or two characters indicating ownership or clan names, the Zhou began to create longer and longer inscriptions, commemorating military victories, political events, seal power transfers.\u00a0<\/p>\n During the Western Zhou, because of the continued centrality of ritual, the need for bronze vessels continued and their assocation with the conservative realm of ritual meant that the changes from the Shang vessels tended to disperse over the whole Zhou realm consistently.\u00a0 Many of the wine vessels used by the Shang did drop away, possibly because of the moral concerns.\u00a0 In 711 bce the Zhou dynasty suffered a military defeat.\u00a0 They closed their western capital and moved east where they served, for the 450 or so years as titulary kings, but had no actual political power.\u00a0<\/p>\n The time of the Eastern Zhou, 711-256 bce, saw China\u00a0splinter first\u00a0into\u00a0many small states during the Spring and Autmn period, then consolidate into a few states, more like contemporary Europe, during the Warring States Period.\u00a0 Bronze continued to be important throughout the Eastern Zhou, but it took on a different cultural role.\u00a0 The violence and public disorder of the Eastern Zhou called into question the mandate of heaven and the ritual practices associated with it.\u00a0 Bronze vessels began to move out into the public sphere where they celebrated weddings, became opulent gifts and sometimes came as gifts to children or relatives with the intention of inheritance. This meant they were no longer exclusively grave objects, and, in fact, in the Eastern Zhou ceramic imitations of the bronze vessels become more and more common in graves.<\/p>\n More on this after my tour.\u00a0 I gotta get ready and go check out my route.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 28\u00a0 bar rises 30.35 2mph N dewpoint 25\u00a0\u00a0 Spring \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Full Moon of Winds “Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. The pleasure they give is steady, unorgastic, reliable, deep and long-lasting. In any library in … Continue reading On the Study of Ancient Chinese Bronzes<\/span>