The existence of certain types of Lung-shan pottery vessels and early Shang bronzes based upon supposed wrought metal prototypes continues to lead some scholars to the conclusion that these cultures had knowledge of sheet metal, smithy techniques. An analysis of such features as the tubular spout, projecting ledges, imitation “rivets,” and imitation folded rims leads to the conclusion that their presence is accounted for either by the versatility of the Neolithic potters, by the requirements of metal casting techniques, or by decorative considerations; it need not, and frequently cannot, be explained in terms of sheet metal prototypes. The article also considers the nature and significance of various cold metal working techniques, such as annealing. In the view of the wrought-metal advocates, these techniques would have had to have been discarded and forgotten by the early Chinese metal workers in favor of direct casting in piece-mold assemblies. This is highly unlikely.

The ancient Chinese diviner's instrument known as a shih was an adjustable cosmic model. A similar object, the ‘lodge dial’, was probably a simple analogue computer for use in calendrical astronomy. Such instruments were forerunners of the armiliary sphere in China. It is possible that the phrase hsüan chi yu heng in the 5th/4th century B.C. Yao tien is a reference to some instrument related to the shih.

This article adduces additional evidence to substantiate the author's ideas regarding the cosmic board shih published in Early China 4. The most essential points in the discussion concern first the relation between the appearance of the Big Dipper on the cosmic board and the role of the Big Dipper in ancient cosmological belief and calendrical theory; and second, the influence of the cosmic board on religious belief and practice beginning in the Han period. Contrary to Cullen's opinion that the expression “main-cay of heaven” which denotes the Big Dipper is merely a figure of speech, passages from a variety of previn and Han texts show that this term accurately reflects the conception of the Big Dipper in ancient cosmological belief. The development of the cosmic board and the system of divination associated with it are best understood in light of this belief and of the major role played by the Big Dipper in ancient calendriil theory. The influence on Han popular belief of the celestial spirits associated with the cosmic board is attested in the Lun Heng. The presence of several cosmic board divination texts dating to the Han and six Dynasties period in the Tao Tsang are evidence of the absorption of the cosmic board system of divinaion into Taoism at that time. In Taoist hagiography the traditional legend of the transmission of cosmic board divination to the Yellow God is also explicitly linked to the Taoist technique of pacing the Dipper, lese facts, combined with a Buddhist description of a mandala modeled on the design of the cosmic board, npy document the role of the cosmic board in Chinese religion.

The inscription on the Li gui, a vessel unearthed in 1976 in Qishan county of Shaanxi province, by substantiating certain key assertions of traditional Chinese historiography, has once again focused attention on King Wu’s conquest of the Shang and his consequent establishment of the Zhou dynasty. It is the expectation, and ever increasing reality, of discovering ancient records, usually in the form of bone or bronze inscriptions, that makes the study of early China so vibrant and open to new interpretations.