The Anyang bronze foundries: Archaeological remains, casting technology, and production organization (China)

There have been only a limited number of bronze foundry sites discovered in Bronze Age China. During the long history of archaeological research at Anyang, the last capital of the Shang dynasty, archaeologists have found six sites with foundry remains since the early 1930s, the newest find being as recent as 2000. While these finds have provided a great deal of information concerning Shang bronze technology, it has become essential to re-evaluate previous excavations and research on the Anyang foundries and to synthesize data that were obtained under varying conditions over a period of 70 years.; This thesis examines the archaeology of Anyang foundries, including the history of excavations and archaeological features and remains related to foundry operations. It also attempts to reconstruct the form of production organization that may have existed at Anyang bronze workshops, using comparative models from porcelain production at Jingdezhen and stoneware production at Yixing. The intended goal of this thesis is to fill a gap in the study of craft production in Chinese archaeology and to provide empirical data from China for the study of craft production in general by studying foundry remains from Anyang and by reconstructing Shang production organization using ethno-historical models drawn from other types of craft production.