The Houmuwu ding (), also called Simuwu ding (), is a rectangular bronze ding (sacrificial vessel, one of the common types of Chinese ritual bronzes) of the ancient Chinese Shang dynasty. It is the heaviest piece of bronzeware to survive from anywhere in the ancient world.
Owner
The naming of bronzeware generally follows this principle: the last character is usually the type of the ware, e.g.
ding,
dou,
hu,
pan, or
zun. Since this bronzeware is a
ding, it is called XX
ding. The specific type of
ding depends on whether the ware has an inscription. If there is an inscription, the character in the inscription that can reflect the name of the owner of the ware is used as the name of the
ding. There are a total of three characters inscribed on the vessel.
The ding is named for the inscription in bronzeware script on the interior wall, which reads "Queen Mother Wu" (). This is the temple name of Fu Jing, queen and primary wife of Wu Ding. The ding was made after her death, presumably by her son, Zu Geng of Shang. While the ding itself was unearthed in 1939, in Wuguan Village (五官村), Anyang, Henan,
Discovery
The Ding was unearthed in Anyang,
Henan in 1939. In October 1946, after an on-site interview by reporter Shao Shenzhi, it was confirmed to be a bronze vessel from the
Shang dynasty. The inscription was interpreted as "Queen Wu" or "Wife Wu". In November, scholar Zhang Feng interpreted the inscription as "Simu Wu". It was named "Simu Wu Large Square Ding". In 1959, Guo Moruo believed that "Si" is the same as "Si", which means that the tripod was cast by Wu's son to worship his mother. So it was named "Simu Wu Ding".
Description
The
ding is of the rectangular type, with four legs. It is high, wide, deep, and weighs . Compared to earlier
ding, such as the
Duling fangdings (杜岭方鼎]]), it is wider and its walls are thicker, making it much more massive. Each side has a blank space in the middle, surrounded by a band of decoration featuring
taotie (animal faced creatures) and
kuilong (one-legged dragons). There are two handles, each decorated on the exterior with two tigers facing each other, their jaws closing around a human head in between them, an image which is also found on
Fu Hao battle axes.
The vessel is the largest and heaviest ancient Chinese bronzeware yet discovered. It is the only one of its kind in the world, and is a representative work of Shang bronzeware.
Epigraphic readings
The inscription was originally written as sīmǔwù ().
After 1949,
Guo Moruo, then president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, interpreted the inscription as sīmǔwù. Guo interpreted the word sī as meaning "sacrifice" and "Wù" as the temple name of the owner of the tomb.
In 1977, Li Xueqin proposed that the first glyph in the inscription should be read as hòu (), rejecting sī because simuwu is a verb-object construction rare in the epigraphic record.
Such interpretation caused widespread concern in the academics.
Sun Ji pointed out that many oracle bone inscriptions can be written in horizontal reflection, and hòu () is the horizontal reflection of si ().
In March 2011, after the renovation of the National Museum of China reopened, in the special display of "ancient Chinese bronze art", Sīmǔwù has been renamed as Hòumǔwù.
See also
-
List of Chinese cultural relics forbidden to be exhibited abroad
Citations
Bibliography
