Introduction of Four-goat Square Zun

The Four Sheep Square Zun is a bronze ritual object of the late Shang Dynasty.

The Four Sheep Square Dignitaries are square in shape, with a square mouth, a large rim, and a neck decorated with a flared rim, each side of which is 52.4 centimeters in length, and the length of the rim is almost as long as the height of the vessel, which is 58.3 centimeters. It has a long neck and a high footrim. The neck is elevated and decorated on all four sides with banana leaf motifs, triangular kui dragons, and animal-face motifs. The shoulders, abdomen and foot as a whole are skillfully designed as four curly-horned sheep.

The four corners of the shoulders are four horned sheep's heads, the heads and necks of the sheep stick out of the vessel, and the bodies and legs of the sheep are attached to the belly and feet of the vessel. The whole vessel is well-patterned, with clean and strong lines. Zun belly that is the chest of the sheep, sheep legs attached to the foot, bear the weight of the body. The breast and back of the neck of the sheep decorated with scale pattern, both sides are decorated with beautiful long crown phoenix pattern, the foot on the kui dragons pattern.

Square Zun neck decorated with kui dragons composed of banana leaf pattern and banded taotie pattern, shoulder decorated with high-relief carving of the snake body and clawed dragons, the Zun four sides of the center that is adjacent to the two sheep, each with a two-horned dragon head poking out of the surface of the vessel from the square Zun on each side of the right shoulder meandering in the front of the middle of the residence. The whole is decorated with fine thunder pattern. The four corners and the center line of the four sides of the device are designed at the center line of the long ridge, the role of which is to cover up the possible combination of the model may produce the incorrect pattern, not only cover up the traces of the combination of the model, but also to improve the monotony of the corners of the artifacts, enhance the modeling of the momentum, all in one.

Expanded Information

The Four Sheep Square Zun with four sheep, four dragons opposite the modeling of the wine ceremony to show the supreme weather. Sheep became the object of expression of the bronze heavy artifacts, has its unique symbolic significance. During the pre-Qin period, people had two summarizations of the sheep's personality: goodness and courtesy; and softness on the outside and firmness on the inside. Sheep "kneeling milk" habit, is regarded as good manners, and even later interpreted as a model of filial piety and respect for parents; softness and internal rigidity has also been derived from many sacred nature, the legend of the ancestor of the Gaotao respect sheep, "Poetry - Zhaonan" in the "King of Kings of the political, honest and straight, moral such as the lambs!

Sheep is the most popular or folk symbolism is "auspicious", at least since the Han Dynasty, sheep and auspicious together, the Han Dynasty wadang, bronze mirror and other inscriptions in the "Yihou Wang Daji sheep (Xiang)" inscriptions, auspicious sometimes written directly into the "auspicious sheep". "auspicious sheep".

Hunan unearthed to the four sheep square Zun as a representative of the effort to show the sheep bronze, both retained the original totem worship, but also a replacement for the sheep as a sacrifice to the gods of the meaning of the sacrifice, but also contains a sheep and other livestock breeding prosperity expectations, but also may be germinated in the later generations of the sheep on the idea of all kinds of things.

The Four Sheep Square Zun is known in the historical community as "the ultimate example of bronze."

In May 2000, the Museum of Chinese History for the first time to select the collection of the top ten national treasures of bronze, the Four Sheep Square Zun was among them.

On August 19, 2013, the Four Sheep Square Zun was determined to be the third batch of prohibited exhibitions of cultural relics out of the country list.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Four Sheep Square Zun