The Da He ''ding'' or Da He ''fangding'' () is an ancient Chinese bronze rectangular '' ding'' vessel from the late

Shang dynasty The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty founded by Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang) that ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and ...

(c. 1600–1046 BC). Unearthed in Tanheli,

Ningxiang Ningxiang () is a county-level city and the 2nd most populous county-level division in the Province of Hunan, China; it is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Changsha. The city is bordered to the north by Heshan Distric ...

Hunan Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi ...

in 1959, it is on display in the

Hunan Museum The Hunan Museum () is the provincial museum of Hunan, China. It was built in 1951 and opened to the public in July 1956. It is located in the provincial capital Changsha at No. 50, Dongfeng Lu next to the Revolutionary Martyr's Park. It spans a ...

. Uniquely decorated with a

high-relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...

human face on each of its four sides, it is the only known ancient Chinese bronze cauldron to use human faces as decoration.

Description

The Da He ''ding'' is named for the inscription in

bronzeware script Chinese bronze inscriptions, also commonly referred to as bronze script or bronzeware script, are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on ritual bronzes such as ''zhōng'' bells and '' dǐng'' tripodal cauldrons from the Shang dynasty (2nd mi ...

on its interior wall, which reads "Da He" (), or "Great Grain". Judging by the inscription, it may have been used during sacrifices for harvest. Although the Da He ''ding'' was discovered in the southern

Yangtze The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest river in Asia, the third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains (Tibetan Plateau) and flows ...

region, its inscription closely resembles those found in the core

Zhongyuan Zhongyuan (), the Central Plain(s), also known as Zhongtu (, lit. 'central land') and Zhongzhou (, lit. 'central region'), commonly refers to the part of the North China Plain surrounding the lower and middle reaches of the Yellow River, centere ...

region of the Shang dynasty. The ''ding'' is rectangular, with four legs, a common shape during the late Shang. It is high, and its opening measures by , which is slightly larger than its bottom. The most unique feature of the vessel is that each of its four sides are decorated with a dominant

human face The face is the front of an animal's head that features the eyes, nose and mouth, and through which animals express many of their emotions. The face is crucial for human identity, and damage such as scarring or developmental deformities may aff ...

, which is not found in any other ancient Chinese bronzeware. Around the faces are small symbolic decorations of horns and claws, indicating a half-human, half-animal nature of the figures. There are many speculations regarding the identity of the figures, including ancient mythological figures such as

Taotie The ''Taotie'' () is an ancient Chinese mythological creature that was commonly emblazoned on bronze and other artifacts during the 1st millennium BC. ''Taotie'' are one of the " four evil creatures of the world". In Chinese classical texts such a ...

Zhurong Zhurong (), also known as Chongli (), is an important personage in Chinese mythology and Chinese folk religion. According to the '' Huainanzi'' and the philosophical texts of Mozi and his followers, Zhurong is a god of fire and of the south. Th ...

Chiyou Chiyou (蚩尤, ) is a mythological being that appears in East Asian mythology. Individual According to the Song dynasty history book '' Lushi'', Chiyou's surname was Jiang (), and he was a descendant of flame. According to legend, Chiyou had a ...

, and the four-faced

Yellow Emperor The Yellow Emperor, also known as the Yellow Thearch or by his Chinese name Huangdi (), is a deity ('' shen'') in Chinese religion, one of the legendary Chinese sovereigns and culture heroes included among the mytho-historical Three Soverei ...

. They may also represent Nuo masks or local ancestral deities.

Discovery

The Da He ''ding'' was unearthed in 1959 at Tanheli (now an archaeological park) in Huangcai Town, Ningxiang County,

Province. A peasant digging in his field accidentally discovered the vessel and sold it as

scrap metal Scrap consists of recyclable materials, usually metals, left over from product manufacturing and consumption, such as parts of vehicles, building supplies, and surplus materials. Unlike waste, scrap has monetary value, especially recovered me ...

. This was during the Great Leap Forward, when backyard furnaces were numerous in China. It was sorted and sent to a scrap copper warehouse in

Changsha Changsha (; ; ; Changshanese pronunciation: (), Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is the Capital city, capital and the largest city of Hunan Province of China. Changsha is the 17th most populous city in China with a popul ...

, the capital of Hunan. An employee from the Hunan Museum who was posted at the warehouse to rescue cultural relics, spotted a broken piece from the vessel. He searched the warehouse for the remaining parts, eventually locating more than ten pieces, only missing one leg and the bottom. The pieces were reassembled by Zhang Xinru (), a bronze repair expert at the Hunan Museum. The missing leg was also found two years later and put back on the vessel.

Gallery

References

{{Chinese bronzeware Ningxiang History of Changsha Collections of the Hunan Museum Shang dynasty bronzeware 1959 archaeological discoveries Shang Dings Dings