Wine vessel (Hu)

771 BCE

256 BCE

35.6 cm

16 cm

HKU.B.1993.0991

The object was a Wine vessel (Hu) produced during the Eastern Zhou dynasty (771–256 BCE). As it had been kept oxidized for a very long time, though the original dark green colour has somewhat been left intact, it’s surface has also shown large signs of faded gray and dark yellow.

On the top of the vessel, there is a cover for the storage of the wine in the container.
Vessels produced from the same period usually have handles designed on both sides for carriage and delivery. There are two bulging projections found opposite to each other. Probably the vessel had been so designed to allow handles to be added in the manufacturing process, or it could be hung upon on both sides of a shoulder pole for laborers to deliver the wine vessels. That no handles had been found on any part of the vessel might be the effects of long centuries of ageing erosion.

Similarly manufactured and designed vessels from the same period usually were decorated with mythic animal patterns on the outer surface. However, the vessel found here had been decorated with six bands of low relief bumpy dots.

Scholars have found that, in the ancient times, the earliest Chinese bronze manufactured products were made by piece-mold casting, whereby artisans usually made a model of the item to be cast using clay mold. Then the craftsmen cut in parts to get the model and then reassembled the parts by cementing them together. By looking at the surface of the vessel, we can find very rough rudimentary vestiges on the body and the pattern, showing not just low craftsmanship in assembling the sections together but also suggesting the more commonly usage of the item for commoners at that time. Again, the low relief bands found on the surface of the vessel as against the more complicated designs of mythic animal patterns (for example, the taotie mythic beast) and the missing handles on both sides all suggest the vessel’s more affordable pricings and more popular accessibility.

At the bottom part of the vessel, we can find there is a projected bulge designed like a handle. It is placed right in the center of the bottom of the vessel, a design best fit for its fixing on wooden poles set on wheeled carts for road transportation or ship decks for long-range water transportation. Whether the vessels were used for wine storage or other drinks, its primitive and economic design made the item marketable.

The piece-mold casting method of manufacturing all sorts of bronze-made items allowed the craftsmen and the artisanal workers to produce similar items at different prices to suit different market demands at different prices. All these have helped in the imaginative reconstruction of patterns of daily lives of both ordinary people and noble aristocracy.

This leapt of knowledge and imagination about the ancient past not only helps us today to picture the technological level of bronze manufacturing production, but also the popularity of metal products circulated for all walks of life during the Eastern Zhou dynasty. At a time when China had been divided into many different states competing and at war with each other all the time, getting a glimpse of the advancement of the manufacturing of bronze products can help enhance our understanding about geographical diversities in culture but also the diffusion of technology through war and migration patterns from that period.