Microscopic study of Chinese bronze casting moulds from the Eastern Zhou period》.pdfVIP

Journal of Archaeological Science 40 (2013) 2402 e2414 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science journal homepage: http://www. /locate/jas Microscopic study of Chinese bronze casting moulds from the Eastern Zhou period Siran Liu a, b, *, Kai Wang a, Quanfa Cai c, Jianli Chen a, ** a School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China b UCL, Institute of Archaeology, United Kingdom c Henan Provincial Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Relics, China a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: Piece mould casting technology, as a hall mark of the central plains of China during the Bronze Age, has Received 13 February 2012 attracted scholars’ interest globally. Bronze ritual vessels found in this area were produced in large Received in revised form quantities and generally cast with the moulds composed of three or more sections. This enormous 16 November 2012 industry certainly required workers to have had professional knowledge to ensure the success of every Accepted 17 November 2012 single cast. Mould making technology was one of its most important parts. This research looks into the microstructure of bronze casting moulds of the Eastern Zhou period, which was a rarely studied topic in Keywords: previous research. Through comparison with local pottery, it is shown that casting moulds in thi