Lot Essay
Based on the characters that are legible in the inscriptions on bell no. 8 (see details below) the bells date to the Chu Kingdom Period and the inscriptions may be partially translated as:
It was the royal first month, first auspiciousness (i.e., the first lunar quarter), gengyin (the 27th day of the Chinese 60-day cycle);
Pidouzi of Chu....
used his auspicious metal to make for himself....
harmonic bell....
to use to make offerings and to use....
metal....
king of Chu for the first time....
for ten thousand years....sacrifice; sons and grandsons
The name of the maker of this vessel may be rendered as Pidouzi, although other possibilities are Budouzi or Piyanzi. The character, bu, usually transcribed as pi, occurs in the name of several late Spring and Autumn/early Warring States vessel donors. It is possible that this was originally a place name, referring to the area near Dapishan, about eighty kilometers due east of the Eastern Zhou capital at Luoyang
For a similar example see the bell illustrated by Jenny So, Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. III, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1995, no. 80. The decoration on this bell is a little more ornate than that of the present example, but it is all of the same type and arranged in the same manner. A comparable set of nine bells together with their original wood suspension frame was excavated in 1978 from the Eastern Zhou tomb of Hougudui, Gushi county, Henan province. These bells are very similar in shape and the arrangement of the decoration. See Wenwu, 1981:1, pp. 1-8, pl. 4, fig. 2
A metal corrosion analysis by Conservation and Technical Services Ltd., University of London, is consistent with the dating of this lot
It was the royal first month, first auspiciousness (i.e., the first lunar quarter), gengyin (the 27th day of the Chinese 60-day cycle);
Pidouzi of Chu....
used his auspicious metal to make for himself....
harmonic bell....
to use to make offerings and to use....
metal....
king of Chu for the first time....
for ten thousand years....sacrifice; sons and grandsons
The name of the maker of this vessel may be rendered as Pidouzi, although other possibilities are Budouzi or Piyanzi. The character, bu, usually transcribed as pi, occurs in the name of several late Spring and Autumn/early Warring States vessel donors. It is possible that this was originally a place name, referring to the area near Dapishan, about eighty kilometers due east of the Eastern Zhou capital at Luoyang
For a similar example see the bell illustrated by Jenny So, Eastern Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. III, Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1995, no. 80. The decoration on this bell is a little more ornate than that of the present example, but it is all of the same type and arranged in the same manner. A comparable set of nine bells together with their original wood suspension frame was excavated in 1978 from the Eastern Zhou tomb of Hougudui, Gushi county, Henan province. These bells are very similar in shape and the arrangement of the decoration. See Wenwu, 1981:1, pp. 1-8, pl. 4, fig. 2
A metal corrosion analysis by Conservation and Technical Services Ltd., University of London, is consistent with the dating of this lot