The emergence of bronze ware in China is about 1000 to 2000 years later than the West. The origin of Chinese bronze ware is still a mystery and also a subject requiring study. Why did the bronze ware in China peak in the Bronze Age? I believe this owes to its functions. The function of bronze ware in ancient China, as concluded by Commentary of Zuo, an ancient Chinese narrative history, can be reflected by “what matter for a country are the worship ceremonies and wars”. For the question of “what are great matters for a country”, the answers were worship ceremonies and wars at that time. Both worship ceremony and war are closely related to bronze ware. In terms of worship ceremony, it is an ancient religion in China. Before emergence of bronze ware, pottery and jadeware were employed to worship the ancestors.

Before bronze ware occurs, weapons were mainly stone and wood tools. Their effects in war can be easily imagined. For this reason, it is no wander that ancient people would use it as weapon once they found and master the material of copper. Because of this function, bronze wares were endowed with very high level of artistic forms. It is a kind of art hard to be evaluated. I’d like to describe it as “distinctive”. This is because the shapes and decorations of bronze ware in China can be found nowhere in any other culture around the world. The characteristics of Chinese bronze ware are clear. The shapes are certainly partly related to the previous pottery, ceramics and craving technology of jadeware. As to the decoration, the shapes and decoration are correlative. For bronze craft, as the processing technology of bronze reached a peak, craftsmen later were able to make bronze wares as they wished. As a result, its achievement significantly outperformed those of pottery and jadeware. The decoration is a very mysterious nonobjective animal pattern which is really abstract. It is impossible to explain the origin of these animal patterns till now. However, the mysterious decoration helped the wizard of that time to communicate with heaven and earth, as well as connect the past, present and future.

Bronze ware in China has its unique system as shown by the following aspects. In Europe and other cultures, bronze was processed mainly by forging, or in combination with forging and casting. In China, some forging process is also employed before the advent of the Bronze Age. However, in the Bronze Age, casting was dominant in processing. For material, tin content in bronze alloy of China is higher or even much higher than that of Europe. Lead is particularly not common in the bronze of Europe, while it is very common to find lead in bronze alloy of China. Therefore, it is unique in terms of material. For decoration, as the West employed the traditional method of forging, many decorations were hammered or craved. However, decorations are basically casted in the Bronze Age of China. Emergence of gold and silver is relatively late in China. They were used for decoration as well, but gold and silver decoration in West was in large quantity in early stage. This is also different between the West and China.

In fact, the development of bronze ware in China extended from its emergence in 4000 B.C. and the advent of the Bronze Age in 3000 B.C.to the 20th century till the last emperor was dethroned from the Imperial Palace. Before that, traditional Chinese bronze wares were still manufactured unceasingly in the Imperial Palace. Bronze technology is certainly an important category in industrial art now. The development process can be divided into three periods and five stages. The first stage is classical period. The classical traditional period lasted for a long time. It is from the advent of the Bronze Age to the end of the Spring and Autumn Period in 500 B.C.. The second period is called the newly developing period. It is from the end of the Spring and Autumn Period in 500 B.C. to about the beginning of the Christian era. The third period is the practical and retro period. It is from about the beginning of the Christian era to the 20th century.

The origin of bronze ware in China is being studied by the academic world and can be described as complicated and confusing. In light of the background of occurrence, at the time of 5000 B.C., Yangshao Culture developed at the Yellow River basin and the Dawenkou Culture developed at downstream of the Yellow River. There was also Daxi Culture at the Yangtze River region and the Hongshan Culture at the Liaohe River Basin. In all these cultures, relics related to copper smelting were found successively. In the social background of that time, there was no Anatolia or cities like the big cities of Mesopotamia in China. However, according to current archaeological investigation, settlements in China were enormous as well. In addition, agriculture was highly developed in China at that time. It was dominated by millet planting. Though rice agriculture in southern China had developed at that time, the cultural features of southern China remain unclear by far.

Prosperity of bronze at the end of Shang dynasty continued to the early period of the Western Zhou Dynasty. Zhou Dynasty is of feudal family system, in which offspring of the emperor are enfeoffed to different places to reign over and control these regions. Therefore, bronze wares of the style of Zhou Dynasty are found in many places throughout China. In addition, crafts and technology of these bronze wares are astonishingly identical. Though only a few large bronze wares of Zhou Dynasty are found by far, their crafts are exquisite. Compared with the bronze wares of Shang Dynasty when separated casting was dominant, Zhou Dynasty might emphasize casting in one process which means minimize the separated casting of Shang Dynasty.

Bronze ware in the early stage of the Spring and Autumn Period was basically the extension of that in the Western Zhou Dynasty. There was not much worth to be mentioned in terms of craft and technology in this stage. However, at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, bronze wares and technologies experienced great changes along with the changes of social environment. Though the Zhou royal court still existed that time, it was too weak to control the local kingdoms. The emerging landlord class was becoming so powerful that they were able to compete with the royal court. The etiquette system established in the Western Zhou Dynasty had been damaged. For this reason, this period is called as a period with rite system of Zhou destructed by historians. With competition between different kingdoms, literature, art and culture thrived at that time. The period is called a period all schools of thoughts contend for attention. As for bronze technology, features of the period were shown by the fact that its traditional shapes as sacrificial vessel were started to be replaced by realistic and lively shapes. The bronze wares tended to be more practical. For example, there were an increasing number of chariots and harnesses, weapons, bronze mirrors, as well as wares for decoration and daily use at that time. Building components started to occur at that time. As for ornamentation, the previous beast-face pattern was on the decrease and replaced by coiled hornless dragon pattern, geometric pattern and some realistic animal patterns, as well as patterns depicting social life scenes.

In the Warring States Period, another important craft, lost wax casting, occurred. Lost wax casting is different from mud mould casting. This is because the mould for mud mould casting is made of mud, while the mould for lost wax casting is made of wax. After a wax mould is made, mud is applied on the mould. When the mould is baked, the wax will flow away. Then, the mould can be used directly for casting. In this way, there is no need to make mould piece by piece and assemble them at last just as the way in mud mould method. Hollow decorations can be made with this method. The piece of bronze ware at the top right corner is a set of zun and its matching tray unearthed from the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng. Li Xueqin appraised that its decoration looked like loofah sponge with four or five layers hollow units connected together. The lower part is a ding and a pot, while the outside of upper part is a vessel which can be used for containing stuff. However, the decorations outside are completely hollow and keep certain distance to the main body inside. We seldom use this technology to cast articles. There are less than 20 pieces of lost wax castings found by far.

At the end of the Warring States Period, Qin Shi Huang unified China, bringing China into the age of monarchy and autocratic monarchy age. As emperor controlled more resources, he could make more exquisite and grand implements. However, great revolution took place in handicraft industry at that time. For one thing, the prevailing custom started to change. Though etiquette establishment was still one of the most important activities in feudal dynasties, the status of sacrificial vessels was lowered. From this point, bronze ware and bronze technology started to decline. For the other, other handicraft industries developed.

Generally speaking, when I talked about Chinese bronze ware in the past, I believed its development ceased in the Han Dynasty. Though I am still studying the bronze ware, it has no great breakthrough in terms of culture and technology after the Han Dynasty. In the aspect of art, it has no classical status, so the study is not much. To sum up, the period after Han Dynasty is a practical and retro period for bronze ware. “Practical” means that most implements are useful tools for daily life. The large amount of buddhist statues manufactured after introduction of Buddhism are excluded from this type. Monetization is always the most important bronze industry in every dynasty. Bronze mirror is basically an essential daily necessity of every common people. As a result, the two kinds of products are key points of bronze industry in the feudal age. As for technology, in the period lasting for 2000 year, mud mould method and lost wax method were used in parallel. The mud mould method was employed for coin and copper mirror casting, while lost wax method was employed for statue casting. As for alloy, there were copper-tin alloy, copper-lead-tin alloy and copper-lead alloy. From Song Dynasty, there were two important innovations related to bronze industry: one was the occurrence of spot copper, namely copper-nickel alloy; the other was the breakthroughs made in zinc smelting technology at the end of Ming Dynasty. Thus, the Bronze Age basically shifts to the Brass Age.