2022/08/10 by A.M. Pollard, A. Mark Pollard, Ruiliang Liu
Social Sciences · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Eurasian Exchange Networks #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Chinese history and philosophy
paper · doi:10.15184/aqy.2022.81
Knowledge of alloying practices is key to understanding the mass production of ancient Chinese bronzes. The Eastern Zhou text, the Rites of Zhou , contains six formulae, or recipes, for casting different forms of bronze based on the combination of two components: Jin and Xi. For more than 100 years, the precise interpretation of these two components has eluded explanation. Drawing on analyses of pre-Qin coinage, the authors offer a new interpretation, arguing that, rather than pure metals, Jin and Xi were pre-prepared copper-rich alloys, in turn indicating an additional step in the manufacturing process of copper-alloy objects. This result will be of interest to linguists, as well as archaeologists of ancient Chinese technology.