Mineralogical make-up of casting moulds and its archaeological implications for bronze making techniques in ancient China

Summary

In order to understand how bronze vessels were produced and the knowledge involved we cannot limit our study to simply the bronze vessels themselves. Thus, the analysis on bronze mold production plays a key role to our understanding of bronze vessel production. The focus in this study will be on the 155 mold fragments currently housed at the Royal Ontario Museum, originally from Anyang dated to the Shang dynasty. Petrographic analysis was utilized for this research on raw materials and how the fabrics were processed to distinguish the texture and production method that may have applied to form these artifacts. Mineralogical analysis can shed new light between fabric types and previously distinguished mold forms as well as how distinct the various fabric types were within the different layers of the bronze mold itself. Thus giving us new insight on both the knowledge involved in the mold production and the technology available to the bronze craftsmen of the Shang dynasty.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Advances in Archaeology of Prehistoric and Early China

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14612