| Recent archaeological investigation on early dynastic China has yielded new materials with which scholars are beginning to re-evaluate the traditional "Middle Kingdom" model, one that defines early China---the state of the Zhou people in particular---as a unified kingdom that assimilated all peoples into one single unity. My dissertation joins this scholarship, and contributes to it from an art-historical perspective by examining the funerary arts of a non-Zhou group, the Yu people. I also study the unique stylistic tradition of bronze vessels from a different archaeological context---a bronze cache---which were commissioned by the Wei Shi people, descendants of the royal Shang who were overpowered by the Zhou. I hypothesize that the Zhou state was not politically and culturally homogeneous, but was diverse. I challenge the centrality of the "Middle Kingdom" model by investigating the artistic manifestation of the Yu and Wei Shi groups and the socio-political relations they had with the Zhou.; The dissertation begins with an introduction that outlines the structure and main argument of the thesis. Following this, the research background, problem, and methodology are introduced. Major analytical approaches in the studies of the Chinese bronze age are then evaluated, and my hypothesis is proposed. I compare the Yu mortuary practice with those of the Zhou and two of the Zhou's sub-states---the Jin and Yan---to explore patterns of differentiation and affiliation in their material culture. I discuss arts, ritual, human agency, gender, and different political strategies among these various groups. Different from what the "Middle Kingdom" model assumes, I suggest that the formation of early Chinese culture is characterized by difference and diversity. By taking an interdisciplinary approach that combines studies of artistic style, patronage and function of commemorative bronzes with mortuary analysis, my research establishes an interpretive model of social and political function of funerary arts and burial practice in the Zhou, and provides insight into the statecraft in early dynastic China. |
