Ritual wine vessel (he)

With its drum-like body, its zoomorphic spout and handle and its half zoomorphic-half anthropomorphic legs, our he (B60B1007) is a bewildering illustration of the attempts made by some Mid Western Zhou bronze casters to force old shapes into new concepts. Both front and rear of the flat cylinder are divided into three longitudinal friezes, the central one filled with a large, angular spiral, and the lateral ones with scale motifs. The large sides display the same concentric ornamental scheme consisting of a whorl-circle surrounded by two ribbons of scale motifs. The underside shows an unusual arrangement of overlapping chevrons, all oriented toward a common center. The long slender neck is incised with four longitudinal scale bands. Similar scale bands appear on the lower part of the bow handle. The top of this handle consists of an animal head with a curled muzzle and a mask incised on its neck. Judging by the well-known Fufeng he discovered in 1963 and other comparable examples, the now missing lid was in the shape of a long-beaked and crested brooding bird. The masks of the clawed legs are variants of the typical dragon of the period, but they have been compressed to the point where they look almost human.