Characteristics of Bronze Patterns in Pre-Qin Period

Bronzes in the early Shang Dynasty directly inherited some characteristics of Erlitou culture, such as thin containers. However, compared with Erlitou bronzes, the types of bronzes in the early Shang Dynasty increased obviously, such as Ding, Wei and Gui for food containers, Jue for wine containers (Figure 3), Jiao, Wei, Zun, Wei, Hu and Yu. There are many characteristics in shape, which are easy to distinguish, such as a tripod with many conical feet, a crown, a flat bottom and a short body. During this period, the decorative patterns of bronzes have not been used as ground-lining patterns, which are called ground patterns. Decorative patterns are mostly ribbon-shaped, and the common patterns are string pattern, animal face pattern, real dragon pattern and so on. The lines of animal face patterns are round and flowing, which is very distinctive. It was a popular design at that time to clip the beaded pattern above and below the banded animal face pattern.