On The Casting Technique Of Bronze Vessels Of Erlitou And Erligang Culture In The Perspective Of Decorative Complication

Bronzes in the early Bronze Age of China reflected the political system,production life and social culture at that time,from the beginning of the early Erlitou culture in the Central Plains to the peak of the bronze civilization in the Yinxu culture period,the decorative art style of each stage of the bronzes is the best expression of the connotation of the era.Erlitou,Erligang cultural period is the key transitional period of the development of bronze art,is the bronze finally able to complete the qualitative leap in the late Shang Dynasty quantum change process,reflecting the productivity and social development of continuous adaptation.Therefore,the study of the decorative art of bronzes from this period,especially the evolution of their decorations,will help to understand the factors of progress in casting technology of bronzes,which will have a positive effect on the exploration of the development of early Chinese bronze civilization.The Erlitou site and The Shang Dynasty city site in Zhengzhou are the two most representative sites of the Erlitou and Erligang cultures,and the bronze vessels also have an important place in the bronzes,so this paper limits the study to the decorations on the bronze vessels in the two metropolitan cities.On the basis of the integration of the research results of previous generations,a systematic combing of bronzes in different shapes has been carried out,using time as the boundary and ornamentation as the basis for classification.Through the combing of the decorations,it can be seen that from the Erlitou to the Erligang cultural period,the decorations of the bronzes showed a trend from geometric pattern to zoomorphic design to predominantly zoomorphic design,assisted by geometric pattern and mixed with elements,and the spatial distribution on the surface of the vessels also gradually evolved from a large area of white to ornamentation area far more than the plain surface.It can be seen that the complexity and refinement of the decorations during this period was high,and the connotations displayed increased accordingly,and the bronzes were able to show the will of the ruling class in a more complete way,and behind this change in decorations was a change in productivity.Through the characteristics of the ornaments on the bronze vessels,this paper classifies and researches the casting techniques seen in the decorations in different vessel shapes,and synthesizes the research results to discuss the progress of bronze casting techniques from the Erlitou to Erligang cultural period in four aspects: alloy,casting techniques of decorations,casting techniques of pottery molds and post-casting processing techniques.Alloy-wise,the bronzesunderwent a change from a predominantly binary alloy to a predominantly ternary alloy,with the intentional addition of lead and tin playing a direct role in shaping the complex,detailed decorations of the bronzes.In terms of decorations casting,the shape of the vessel gradually did not become a hindrance to the expression of decorations,the bronzes found their own independent language,and technically completed the leap from pottery molds-casting decorations to clay model-casting decorations and even molds and modal cooperation,the appearance of the master mold and model during the Erliang culture,meaning that the production efficiency of bronzes increased significantly.The scientificalness of the pottery molds setting also improved greatly at this stage,and the correlation with the number of groupings of bronze decorations strips rises in direct proportion,and the pottery molds improved the coherence of the decorations from positioning line to mortise and tenon positioning,and the technique of casting in the square Ding also gave new ideas to the composite molds process.The advanced pottery production technology and social development of the cultural needs brought about by the complexity of decorations is also the motive force for the progress of casting technology,reflecting the decisive role of productivity in production relations and even superstructure.