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Lot Essay
This yue axe belongs to an important group of Shang dynasty axe heads featuring taotie masks and stylized gaping mouths. The present example is decorated both on the tang and the lower part of the blade with a taotie mask with tiger ears, finely delineated with sunken lines originally filled with material that is now missing.
This type of bronze yue was popular during the Shang and Western Zhou dynasties and is rarely found after the Spring and Autumn period. Over time, its shape evolved from narrow and long to wide and flat, and the edge angle of the blade gradually increased. A yue excavated from the M25 site in the south of Dasikongcun, Anyang, Henan Province, dated to the second phase of the Yin Ruins period, is published in Gu Fei, “1986 nian Anyang Dasikongcun nandi de liangzuo Yin mu,” Kaogu 1989, no. 7, pl. 4.2. This example is similar to the present yue in both shape and decoration, differing only in the addition of an aperture in the tang for hafting a wooden shaft. The present yue with animal masks can be dated to almost the same period as the M25 yue. Another very similar bronze yue was found among hundreds of bronze weapons in the famous late Shang tomb of the high-ranking imperial consort and military commander Lady Hao (ca. 1200 BC), illustrated in Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan Kaogu Yanjiusuo ed., Yinxu Fu Hao mu, Beijing, 1980, pl. 69, fig. 1, with a line drawing (p. 106, fig. 66:2).
This type of bronze yue was popular during the Shang and Western Zhou dynasties and is rarely found after the Spring and Autumn period. Over time, its shape evolved from narrow and long to wide and flat, and the edge angle of the blade gradually increased. A yue excavated from the M25 site in the south of Dasikongcun, Anyang, Henan Province, dated to the second phase of the Yin Ruins period, is published in Gu Fei, “1986 nian Anyang Dasikongcun nandi de liangzuo Yin mu,” Kaogu 1989, no. 7, pl. 4.2. This example is similar to the present yue in both shape and decoration, differing only in the addition of an aperture in the tang for hafting a wooden shaft. The present yue with animal masks can be dated to almost the same period as the M25 yue. Another very similar bronze yue was found among hundreds of bronze weapons in the famous late Shang tomb of the high-ranking imperial consort and military commander Lady Hao (ca. 1200 BC), illustrated in Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan Kaogu Yanjiusuo ed., Yinxu Fu Hao mu, Beijing, 1980, pl. 69, fig. 1, with a line drawing (p. 106, fig. 66:2).