pan (ritual) BM-1952-1216.1

Period:Western Zhou dynasty Production date:1050BC-771BC (circa)
Materials:bronze
Technique:
Subjects:bird fish dragon
Dimensions:Diameter: 34.10 centimetres Height: 13 centimetres

Description:
Bronze water basin of the type called pan. The interior of the basin is decorated with a coiled snake-like creature with large eyes in high relief surrounded by fish and other water animals. A three-character inscription runs along the central creature’s nose. Below the rim a series of dragon-like creatures and birds in profile alternate. The exterior is decorated with a band of profile dragon-like creatures against a leiwen background. The foot shows a taotie with a flange as its nose against a leiwen background.
IMG


Comments:Rawson 1987:A dragon is coiled on the interior of this water basin. The same beast also appears in profile with only only one horn visible just below the rim. Bottle-shaped horns and a long snaky body are the defining characteristics of the long, or dragon, which is represented with precisely these features in oracle-bone graphs. Although many long-dragon motifs differed slightly from the graph, being equipped with pointed horns and claws, it is still possible to discern the original snake-like features. They are quite different from the Erligang-period profile creatures composed of quills, or the very varied creatures made up from parts of Style IV and C taotie in the Anyang period, illustrated in no. 5.From an early date water basins, pan, were decorated with creatures such as fish, turtles and birds that were at home in the water. Some of these motifs appear on Erlitou-ceramic pan. Among them is the dragon, a creature associated in Chinese lore with water and plenty. Erligang pan were not usually decorated in this way (Fig. 5), but on the northern borders of China’s central plain more realistic creatures were used as on a pan from Beijing (see p. 29). Pan similarly decorated in Fu Hao’s tomb suggest, as does the presence of an ibex-headed knife, that there was contact between Anyang and the north at this date. The present pan is a later descendant of the Anyang pan. An inscription runs down the nose of the dragon and comprises the ancestor designation Fu Wu followed by a clan sign.