How to distinguish whether the bronze is from the Shang Dynasty or the Western Zhou Dynasty

It appeared in the late Yinxu period and was used until the early Western Zhou Dynasty, and the epidemic time was not long, and the number was not much. There were six forms in the Shang Dynasty and nine in the Zhou. It can be distinguished according to different forms, and the specific forms will not be talked about here, and it is difficult to understand without combining the diagrams.

According to what you said, the circle foot is the Shang Dynasty, and the square circle foot is the Zhou is not the correct way to distinguish it, and the Shang Dynasty also has a square circle foot, such as the one unearthed from the tomb of the woman. It's just that to Zhou attended that three-legged and four-legged bird beast shape. Therefore, this dating still needs to be corroborated and experienced.

Generally speaking, the one with a longer history is the Shang Dynasty, and the newer one is the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the cub deceives you.

Shang Dynasty. The representatives of the bronzes are the "Four Sheep Zun" Chi Qiao Pants and the "Simu Wuding".

Wait. 1. "Zun" is a kind of ancient wine vessel, wide and bright belly and extravagant mouth, high circle foot, round or square, with many shapes, used to hold wine.

2. "Four sheep honor" four horns each embossed a large curl horn sheep, the sheep's head protrudes outside, the sheep body and the sheep's feet are distributed on the belly and the circle foot of the respect, majestic and erect, lifelike, hence the name.

3. "Ding" is an ancient cooking utensil, which is used to cook and serve meat. During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, in order to celebrate a certain event such as going out, victory, asking for rain, marriage, etc., the country often used the tripod to make sacrifices, and gradually evolved into a symbol of the national community, so there was the idiom of "winning the Central Plains".

4. "Simu Wuding" is a straight mouth, wide side, vertical ears, and pinna.

Decorated with a double tiger devouring human head pattern, deep belly, and a simple belly is decorated with animal face patterns.

The middle is a white ground, with a rib at each of the four corners of the square belly, a flat bottom, and four stout columnar feet.

According to research, "Si" is an ancestral hall, which means "sacrifice"; "Mu Wu" is the name of the mother of Shang King Wen Ding, indicating that the tripod was cast by Wen Ding to sacrifice "Mu Wu". "Simu Wuding" is the largest existing Yin Dynasty bronze, the shape is majestic and solemn, marking the high level of development of Shang Dynasty bronze casting technology, can be called a national treasure.

The typical representative work of the bronzes of the Shang Dynasty is the stepmother Wuding.

Stepmother Wu Ding, also known as Simu Wu Ding, Simu Wu Dafang Ding, is a late Shang period (about the 14th century BC to the 11th century BC) casting, unearthed in 1939 in Anyang City, Henan Province, military attache village, now stored in the National Museum of China "Ancient China" basic exhibition hall.

The stepmother Wu Ding was privately dug for the villagers at the beginning, and because the volume was too large, in order to prevent robbery, it was re-buried. It was re-unearthed in June 1946 and stored in the ** Museum of Nanjing. In 1959, Tongding was transferred from Nanjing to Beijing and stored in the newly built Chinese History Museum.

The stepmother Wuding is 133 cm high, 110 cm long, 79 cm wide, and weighs kilograms; The ear is thick and erect, folded, the abdomen is rectangular, and the lower bearing is four columns. The four corners of the abdomen, the middle of the upper and lower margins, and the upper part of the foot are all placed on the edges.

The body and four legs of the mother Wu Ding are cast as a whole, and the tripod lug is cast after the body is cast. The stepmother Wuding, the shape is huge, majestic and solemn, and the craftsmanship is exquisite; The body of the tripod is cast around the dragon pattern and gluttonous pattern, which increases the sense of majesty and solemnity of the cultural relics themselves. The cicada pattern cast on the foot, the pattern expresses the cicada body, and the lines are clear.

The inner wall of the abdomen is cast with the three words of "Houmu Wu", the font gesture is strong, the shape is plump, the beginning and end of the strokes are more than the peak difference is late to show the mang, and the fat pen is used intermittently.

Houmu Wuding is the heaviest known bronze vessel in ancient China; The casting of the stepmother Wuding fully shows that the bronze casting in the late Shang Dynasty was not only large-scale, but also well-organized and meticulous in the division of labor, which was enough to represent the highly developed bronze culture of the Shang Dynasty.

1. Stepmother Wu Dafang Ding

Stepmother Wu Dafang Ding, also known as Simu Wu Ding, stepmother Wu Ding, etc., was unearthed in Anyang, Henan Province in March 1939, and is now stored in the National Museum of China. After some research, it is concluded that the stepmother Wu Dafang Ding is made by the Shang king Zu Geng or Zu Jia to worship his mother Wu, and it is a representative work of bronze culture in the Shang and Zhou dynasties.

After the mother Wu Dafang Ding in its belly inner wall cast "Hou Mu Wu" three words, the whole shape is cuboidal, the length and width of the mouth are 110cm, 79cm, the wall thickness is 6cm, even the ear height is 133cm, the weight is up. The surrounding relief of the queen mother Wu Dafang Ding is carved out of the coiled dragon and gluttonous patterns.

When the stepmother Wuding was first unearthed, it was the War of Resistance Against Japan, because its size was too large, and it was afraid of being snatched away by the Japanese army, so it chose to be re-buried, and it was re-unearthed in June 1946 after the victory of the Anti-Japanese War, and it was stored in the Nanjing ** Museum. In 1959, Tongding was transferred from Nanjing to Beijing, and it is now stored in the National Museum of China.

Wuding is the largest and heaviest bronze ritual vessel unearthed in the world so far, and enjoys the reputation of "the treasure of the town".

2, the heir of the Ding.

In 1959, the heir of the heir Ding was unearthed in the circular burial pit of Hougang in Anyang, Henan, its general shape is round, the mouth is two straight ears, three hooves and feet, and there are three lines and three crosses of inscriptions cast in the vessel. Through this inscription, we know that the heir of the Ding is in the year of Shang Wang, on the day of September Bingwu, the king of Shang in the temple of the Ming Hall of the temple to reward the heir of the heir of the Ding Bei twenty friends, the heir of the son because of the honor, made this sacrifice to the father's treasure tripod.

3, the four sheep Fangzun.

Four sheep Fangzun is the late Shang Dynasty bronze ritual vessel, unearthed in 1938 in Hunan Ningxiang County Huangcai Town Yueshan Pu Zhuan Erlun mountainside, its general shape is a long neck, high circle foot, the neck is towering, the four sides are decorated with banana leaf pattern, three rocks and horns and animal face pattern, each of the four corners of a sheep, the four corners of the shoulder are four curly horned sheep heads, the sheep head and the sheep neck stretch out of the vessel, the sheep body and the leg of the sheep are attached to the belly and the circle foot.

At the same time, Fang Zun's shoulders are decorated with a high-relief snake body and a clawed dragon branch, and the four sides of the statue are in the middle of the two sheep, and each has a double-horned dragon head poking out of the device table, winding from the right shoulder of each side of Fang Zun in the middle of the front residence.

The whole utensils of Siyang Fangzun are cast with the block model method, which is completed in one go, and is known as the ultimate bronze model, ranking one of the top ten national treasures.

Characteristics of Shang Dynasty bronzes

The characteristics of the bronzes of the Shang Dynasty are rich in variety, beautiful shape, gorgeous ornamentation, exquisite production, from the ornamentation of the bronzes, there are gluttonous patterns, thunder patterns, string patterns, fish patterns, bird patterns, turtle patterns, etc., which occupy a unique position in the history of world art.

The bronze utensils of the Shang Dynasty in China are not only containers for things, but also ritual vessels in the temple. In the early Shang Dynasty, most of them were round-bellied and pointed-footed, and there were also square tripods. In the middle period, there was a flat-footed tripod and so on.

In the late Shang Dynasty, the number of pointed foot tripods gradually decreased, the round-bellied columnar foot tripod began to predominate, and the number of mustache tripods gradually increased.

It is also used as a drinking vessel. This kind of vessel shape was made of horns at the earliest, and copper casting prevailed in the Shang Dynasty and the Western Zhou Dynasty, and the shape was oval abdomen or square abdomen, and the body of the vessel was flowing, there were chisels (handles), there were ring feet or four legs, there were lids and made into horned animal head shapes, and some of them were also attached with spoons for drinking wine. As a drinking vessel, it has a large capacity, and it is recorded in the literature that it is useful to persuade wine, which shows that the drinking habits of slave owners in the Shang and Zhou dynasties were flourishing, and they became extinct in the late Western Zhou Dynasty.

Father Yiyi, centimeter high, centimeter long, late Shang period (13th century BC - 11th century BC). Wine.

The front end of this lid is the head of a beast that rises high, with horns and ears raised in the air, eyes wide open, and a solemn expression. The back end of the cover is a horn-shaped animal face pattern, and the ears are warped. The middle ridge of the lid is embossed with a small dragon, with a long curly tail, phoenix stripes on both sides, and a small snake in front of the wind.

The body is decorated with phoenix patterns. The main phoenix stands with its head held high, full of utensils. The phoenix eyes are particularly prominent, the beak is curved, the long crown is elegantly down, the curved outer curl, the long neck is decorated with feather patterns, the wings are upturned, and the phoenix claws are placed on the circle feet.

The back end of the device is a bull's head wrench. The rest of the phoenixes have long tails and have their own forms. This piece has a solemn shape and a strange shape, and it is a bronze lid with a strong and mysterious color.

The three words "X Father B" with the inscription are the sacrificial vessels made by X for Father B. It is now in the collection of the Shanghai Museum.

Shang Dynasty. The human face pattern is square.

Shang Dynasty pig-shaped bronze statue.

Shang Dynasty cattle-shaped copper.

Shang Dynasty standing elephant beast face pattern bronze cymbal, Sanxingdui bronze.

Exquisite. Four sheep square honor. At that time).