A Notable Chinese Bronze

Abstract

As is usual with bronze inscriptions the terms of these two offer no decisive clue to the historical setting. Year, place, queen, chieftain, and court-official are named in a way which no doubt was adequate at the time of drafting when to name the reigning king would have been redundant. Without his name any attempt made now to correlate the terms and scanty history is only guesswork. On style we must base our judgment: style of the vessels' design and of the script. Parallels are found among bronzes of the First Phase near its end. Failure to match also the phraseology is not surprising seeing how few pre-conquest inscriptions there are which extend beyond brief formulas. Moreover, the presence of the spurshaped figure of unknown significance at the end of the tsun inscription (b) is almost conclusive. It occurs often on pre-conquest bronzes. Investigation led Karlgren to decide it “was obsolete at the time when the Chou dynasty started”, doubtless meaning the conquest (6,21–3). In short, the possibility that here are products of the Chou before they defeated the Shang-Yin cannot be denied. Though no such bronze has yet been recognized, surely they existed. Not only the Chou but other principalities may come to be identified as bronze-makers during the Shang-Yin period. To assign the Huan Yu and Tsun to the reign of T'ai Wang (perhaps ca. 1150 b.c.) is admittedly a rash guess, but to my mind no more rash than the guesses quoted above and less questionable. It may be objected that his title of “king” was only a posthumous one according to tradition. On the other hand, bronze inscriptions reveal that many styled themselves “kings” unknown to history, and Tan-fu may have been among them. Another likely objection is the presence of nien for “year”, since everyone knows that ssă was the term used commonly under the Shang-Yin and sometimes after the conquest. Again a negative generalization would be risky in the absence of evidence of earliest Chou practice. Of course the assumption that “the King” was a Chou king can be defended only on grounds of plausibility. Finally “Huan” may not be the right pronunciation of the Registrar's name; perhaps it was “Yüan” or “Ch'iung”.