Three ritual vessel shapes. The gu and jue are wine vessels. Both are very ancient forms that were in use from the Erlitou period (see Part 2). The ding tripod was used for cooked food.

Bronze vessels were used during the Shang and Zhou periods in ancestral rituals. Ancestors, it was believed, could intercede on behalf of the living, provided they were honored and respected. The bronze vessels were kept in ancestral halls and used during a variety of feasts and banquets. Most bronze vessels were used for food or to heat or cool a millet-based wine. Others served as water basins or jugs. Wine vessels dominated during the Shang, but ritual changes in the middle of the Western Zhou period resulted in a shift toward food vessels.

These Shang and Zhou bronze vessels were the most highly esteemed objects of their time, usurping the position held by jade in the late Neolithic period. In addition to their functional and symbolic role in support of lineage rites, bronzes also exemplified the latest technical and artistic developments. Early bronze vessels, including the jue, gu, and ding (above), were based on Neolithic pottery prototypes. But as bronze technology improved, vessels took on shapes and decorative schemes that were unique to the medium.

Diagram of piece-molds In the center, upside down, is the model for a wine vessel. The two sections of the mold, made of soft clay, are pressed against it to transfer the vessel's shape and decoration. The model is then trimmed away to form a core. The mold-pieces are reassembled around the core, leaving a space, which is filled with molten bronze.

Bronzes were made in ceramic piece-molds (right). The process began with a model, to which soft clay was applied. These clay pieces were removed in sections to form molds, which were reassembled around a core, whereupon molten bronze was poured into the space between the mold and the core. After cooling, the mold pieces were removed. Pre-cast sections of a bronze could be attachedan infinite number of variations could be created on the basis of a few standard shapes. Originally these bronzes were bright and shiny (their present dark patina is a result of burial and age).

Surface decoration could be made by carving into the mold (for raised relief) or into the model (for recessed designs). The narrow bands that characterized early bronze designs gave way to more expansive decorations, which by the late Shang period covered the whole vessel. A common Shang motif is the taotie. Other zoomorphic designs consisted of various animal parts flowing into one another. By the end of the Western Zhou period, this imagery had begun to turn into purely abstract patterns, the meaning of which will probably never be known. They may have been symbolic of the spirits of the ancestors, protective devices, clan or lineage motifs, or perhaps they were associated with mythical beasts or supernatural entities.