Sources of Western Zhou History: Inscribed Bronze Vessels.

• Author: Schuessler, Axel

Sources, the author says (p. xvii), is "designed to complement David N. Keightley's Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China (Berkeley, 1978)." Its purpose is "to make explicit the methodological assumptions involved in the treatment of all Western Zhou bronze inscriptions" (p. xvi).

Sources lives up to this goal. Chapter 1 summarizes the history of bronze inscription studies; ch. 2 is a lucid introduction and discussion of the technological aspects of the casting of bronze vessels; ch. 3 discusses the philological assumptions and problems regarding the bronze texts; and chs. 4 and 5 deal with the periodization of and historiographical questions concerning bronze vessels and their inscriptions. Much of the remainder of this handy book, almost half of it, is taken up by appendices: appendix 1 adds comments and notes to the "Shi Qiang pan" inscription whose translation serves as a historiographical introduction to the book; app. 2 is a translation and discussion of the "Ling yi" inscription; in app. 3 (pp. 217-87), Shaughnessy establishes an absolute chronology for the Western Zhou dynasty. A list of figures, a list of tables, a short reference table of the proposed chronology of the Western Zhou dynasty, a finding list of inscribed bronze vessels cited, an index, a bibliography of major catalogues of inscribed Western Zhou bronze vessels, and a bibliography of works cited help to make this a convenient reference work which anyone with an interest in Western Zhou bronzes will find helpful. Bronze vessels are conveniently identified throughout the book by their location in Shirakawa Shizuka's Kimbun tsushaku.

The great virtue of Shaughnessy's book is that it does not simply discuss principles and methods abstractly, but applies them to specific bronzes for illustration. Thus we find several important inscriptions translated and discussed in full. The book is introduced with a translation of the "Shi Qiang pan" because it is the first historiographical text in which a person, scribe Qiang, reflects on the past and present of his family and dynasty; appendix 1 adds the discussion and notes. The "Ran fangding" (ch. 2.3) serves as an illustration of how a vessel of heretofore questionable authenticity can now be analyzed and shown to be a genuine Zhou artefact. The "Qui wei gui" (3.3) serves as an example of how to apply philological methods to read and interpret an inscription, while the historically highly...