A Preliminary Study Of The Shang And Zhou Bronze Plate

The bronze Pan was a type of important water container in the Shang and Zhou period. In this paper, we make a typological and chronological study of 360 handed down and excavated bronze Pan water containers. According to the relationship of different shapes, we divide them into eight stages. These are the early and late stages of the Shang period, the early and middle stages of the Western Zhou period, the late stages of the Western Zhou period to the early stages of the Spring and Autumn period, the middle stages of the Spring and Autumn period, the late stages of the Spring and Autumn period to the early stages of the warring period, and the middle and late stages of the warring period. The bronze Pan was used orderly with He Hu Ying YuCui the drinking vessel. At the late period of Western Zhou Dynasty, Yi appeared and the combination of Pan and Yi became the most popular combination. According to the name cast on the Pan and historical records, the bronze Pan was used to contain used water which people used to wash their hands; therefore, most of the animals cast on the Pan were aquatic animals, especial fish, tortoise and curled-up dragon. The bronze Pan has enough area to cast scripts and people was easy to read them, so, according to other bronze vessels, inscription was often found in the bronze Pan. In the middle and late period of Warring States, as the Washing Rites were discarding and some new water vessels came to appear, the bronze Pan became to fall into decay with each passing day.