Unearthed From The Shang And Zhou Bronze Statue

Bronze Zun, which appeared in the up-layer stratum of Er Li Gang of the Shang dynasty, is one of the important wine vessels, and plays a important role in the bronze ritual vessels. The author collects 262 unearthed Bronze Zuns and 40 handed-down Bronze Zuns which have very clearly characteristic of times and divides the history of Bronze Zun into five periods and ten phases based on the typology of archaeology, those are the later phase of up-layer stratum of Er Li Gang of the Shang dynasty, the first phase of Yin Xu ruins, the second and third phases of Yin Xu ruins, the forth phase of Yin Xu -the ending of the Shang dynasty and the beginning of the Zhou dynasty, the earlier phase of early period of the Western Zhou dynasty, the later phaseof early period of the Western Zhou dynasty, the earlier phase of middle period of the Western Zhou dynasty, the later phase of middle period to the late period of the Western Zhou dynasty,the Spring and Autumn period and the Warring States period to the Western Han dynasty and states on the characteristics of evolution of Bronze Zun of each period. She also Divides into five areas to analyze characteristics of different areas, those are central China area, Guan zhong area, the middle and the lower area of Changjiang River, Ba ,Shu and Dian area,and Northern area During the Shang dynasty, Bronze Zun was prevailing in Main-land area whose center is Zhengzhou and Anyang nowadays. During the early period to middle period of the Western Zhou dynasty, it was prevailing in Guanzhong area whose center is Baoji and Xi'an nowadays.Each of these two areas has it's own characteristic of times, and the rules of evolution is very obvious. After the middle period of the Western Zhou, people had a great change that is from attaching importance to drinking to eating, Bronze zun was declining with the decadence of all the other wine vessels. During the Spring and Autumn period and Warring States, Bronze Zun was mainly appeared in the middle course and lower river of Changjiang River, Guangxi province and Yunnan province. Researching on the integrated tombs, we can see that the evolution of Bronze Zun is not independently, but always set with Gu, Jia, Jue to be buried in the large and middle tombs, which include many aristocrats and seigneurs. The appearance of Bronze Zun is not accidentally, but is the big development of the force of society, the popular of drinking wine in the merchants estate, these are the main causes of the arising of Bronze Zun. The shape of Bronze Zun adopt the characteristic of big mouth and wide shoulder crockery Zun initially, and was influenced by Gu, Zhi, You in the process of development, comes out different complex characteristics. During the Warring States period, Bronze Zun shrunk in amount and distributed in Yunnan province, till the Western Han dynasty, it withered away.