Ritual vessels, sun with spiral rays, solar disc, sun disc

European Museums, The British Museum

---

Ritual vessels with swirls, solar disc design

Ancient China
Ritual vessels

Our granaries are all full,
For our stacks were in their millions,
To make wine and food,
To make offering, to make prayer offering.
That we may have peace, that we may have ease,
That every blessing may be vouchsafed.
Book of Songs, Translation by Arthur Waley

Some of the most skilful pieces of metalwork the world has ever seen are the cast bronze vessels of the Shang dynasty (c. 1500-1050 BC). Because they were among the most important artifacts of their day, huge quantities of metal and of labour were used in their manufacture.

The vessels were for religious ceremonies in which food and wine were offered to the ancestors. The dead were regarded, and continued to be regarded in later China, as forming a part of the whole society, and such offerings were prepared and served as in a banquet for the living. Very elaborate forms of ordinary eating and drinking utensils were used. About twenty different shapes were employed, which were derived from Neolithic ceramics and survived in ritual use long after the original forms had disappeared from daily life. Kings and members of their families owned the largest sets of vessels, which were also bigger and more highly decorated than those owned by the lesser nobility. Lower down the social scale, families had to make do with ceramic copies of bronzes.

---

Supplementary images:

• 
• 

---

Ritual vessels with swirls, solar disc design

---

Source:  London, United Kingdom