A Study Of The Tapir-shaped Bronze Wares And Related Issues

This article takes the tapir-shaped bronze wares,as the anchor point to conduct extensive research and sorting on materials related to the tapir-shaped bronze wares and tapir patterns.It attempts to explore the issues related to the vessel’s shape,naming,pictography,source,and meaning,to clarify the increasingly blurry relationship between the tapir-shaped bronze wares and Xizun(牺尊).The paper provides comprehensive examination of the tapir-shaped bronze wares from three perspectives:its nomenclature,vessel shape,and the image that the vessel imitates.The relationship between the tapirshaped bronze wares and the real tapir it imitates and explores the stylistic significance of the realistic animal-form vessels is clarified.It is confirming that the tapir imitated by the tapir-shaped bronze wares did indeed survive in ancient China and that this tapir is not related to the term’tapir’in the ancient texts.On this basis,the paper develops a collection of tapir patterns,examining the intrinsic pattern of tapir pattern decoration and its association with the tapir-shaped bronze wares.The mo-shaped vessel is a reproduction and stereoscopic representation of the tapir pattern and is in essence a continuation of the unrealistic pattern traditions by the Zhou people,as well as a mapping of the social development and spiritual world of the ancestors of the time.The present confusion between the tapir-shaped bronze ware and Xizun(牺尊)is due to the collision between newly excavated archaeological material and traditional epigraphy,and is rooted in the mismatch between the rich and varied bronze artifacts and inscriptions in epigraphy and traditional literature,which is studied through an art historical approach with a view to distinguishing them from each other,from connotation to image.