Describes the Chinese Bronze Age, including the development of the Chinese state, writing, religion and architecture.

Drawing on a wealth of archaeological data, this study gives a succinct yet comprehensive survey of ancient Chinese bronzes. The book discusses the alloy and mining processes, the casting techniques, and the evolving historical and social background over a two-thousand year period during which the tools, weapons, vessels, musical instruments, and other bronze pieces were produced and used.

A leading scholar in the United States on Chinese archaeology challenges long-standing conceptions of the rise of political authority in ancient China. Questioning Marx's concept of an "Asiatic" mode of production, Wittfogel's "hydraulic hypothesis," and cultural-materialist theories on the importance of technology, K. C. Chang builds an impressive counterargument, one which ranges widely from recent archaeological discoveries to studies of mythology, ancient Chinese poetry, and the iconography of Shang food vessels.

This catalog focuses on the casting techniques of archiac bronzes.

In contrast to the West, where diamonds, gold and silver have usually been highly valued, in China bronzes and jades were chosen early on for the societyâe(tm)s most valued artefacts, and retained this very high status over millennia. Bronze and jades were used in China for ritual and burial, and were thus associated with the sacred worlds of the ancestors and spirits. In later China, these precious relics of the past were collected by rulers and scholars as routes to understanding a distant golden age. These ancient objects, some dating from the neolithic period, set the artistic standard for all time; this is where Chinese art begins. Chinese bronzes, in particular, are one of the worldâe(tm)s major art forms. Few if any other ancient cultures achieved the artistic excellence and technical virtuosity in bronze attained in China. Using a unique casting method involving multiple ceramic section moulds, the Chinese cast vessels, weapons and ornaments of great beauty and elegance. Jade, too, is central to Chinaâe(tm)s culture. This tough translucent stone has been worked to produce the most prized ornaments and ceremonial implements from the Neolithic period to the present day. The jades featured in this catalogue, carved by some of the groups of ancient inhabitants in the Shanghai area. They include wonderful, decorated ritual jades, cong, bi discs, weapons and ornaments. This catalogue not only celebrates an important collection, but highlights the extraordinary skills of the craftsmen of very early cultures, placing the objects in their historical and archaeological context. Here are exquisite objects made for the ancient Chinese elite and subsequently revered by emperors and collectors alike.