Ritual vessel with lid (gong) (guang)

A latecomer, the short-lived gong is also the most distinctive of all the wine containers. The range of decorative motifs found on gong vessels is particularly broad as it includes quadrupeds, reptiles, birds, and even at times human elements. Such wealth and variety seem to reflect an attempt to produce a syncretic vessel illustrating all the main aspects of the Shang pantheon. Simultaneously, this whole category of vessels is dominated by a type of association quite unique in Shang art: that of a horned quadruped and an owl-like bird standing on fairly equal terms.

More streamlined and better integrated than the two previous specimens [B60B1032 and B60B1004], the third gong illustrated here (bottom right, B60B976) is also more convincingly zoomorphic. The ovine head of the front part of the lid is counterbalanced on the rear by a large-eyed, two-crested bird. On each side of the lid the remaining space is occupied by an elongated, crested bird with a ribbon-like bifurcated tail. Two large birds of the same type fill three-quarters of the body proper and extend well into the foot zone of the vessel. The bow-shaped spurred handle is surmounted by a smaller, simplified version of the ovine head of the lid.

The inside of the lid and the bottom of the vessel bear cast-in, three-graph, almost identical inscriptions. The first two characters read "Father Wu" (a posthumous appellation) and are followed by a clan name consisting of a man in profile, in flexed position and with crown-like headgear.