EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 11TH-10TH CENTURY BC

Compare the you in the British Museum with similar cast decoration, but lacking the saw-tooth pattern encircling the sides of the cover, illustrated by Jessica Rawson in Western Zhou Ritual Bronzes from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections, vol. IIB, The Arthur M. Sackler Foundation, 1990, p. 517, fig. 72.4, where it is dated to the second half of the early Western Zhou dynasty. The author notes, p. 517, that you with covers flanked by 'beaks' remained popular into the middle Western Zhou, and that many of them are decorated with birds.