As regards the characteristics of the ancient Chinese bronze ritual vessels, the scientific excavations carried out by the Academia Sinica for fifteen times since 1928 at the ancient Yin sites specially at graves in Anyang, Honan Province, showed a great success in discovering the numerous bronzes of exact date. These vessels, belonging to the later half of Yin dynasty, exhibit the various techniques of bronze casting as well as the shapes of various type which had already attained their highest development by that time. They were best proved by the groups buried in the district of the Royal Cemetery of Hou-chia-chuang. Under the Communist China, the old sites of the same kind were newly excavated in recent years in the region of Cheng ju, Honan, which has been told to bear aspects antedating that of Anyang. These sites also yielded the bronze vessels, of which one supposed to represent types which belong to the Middle Yin, and which precede the Anyang group. This view is now widely accepted because of the scientific methods used in the excavation work. However, these Cheng ju groups of bronzes are hardly regarded as preceding those of the Anyang groups, though unfortunately the whole aspect of the latter group has not yet been made public owing to the adversial state resulting from the War. The present article explains and testifies these facts. The Cheng ju group under question, shown in Section II, are all buried in the ancient graves. These graves same in their system from those common in Anyang. And, among the latter group, some of them in the Shaotung district are clearly dated to the later period rather than to the common Anyang graves, while they involve the same kind of bronzes, as is shown in Section IV. Still more, as far as the bronzes theirselves are concerned, their shapes and decorations definitely show the conventional types of the Anyang bronzes, and their seemingly archaic technique of bronze casting is considered to show their being later and local products. This is more clearly perceived on the examples of the same kind previously published. Also, if we recall the burial form of Anyang tombs, we notice that the bronzes of this kind are buried in the same manner with which the earthen vessels in the shape of Kuo or Chueh goblets are buried in the simple or immolation graves in Anyang. This fact reveals that this group of bronze vessels noted for the Cheng ju finds are a later product than the Anyang bronzes and locally made for funeral use, 'Ming-Ch'i'. The Cheng ju group itself is considered to be no exception. Thus, the type preceding the Anyang bronzes of the highest standard must be sought in some other direction than the earthen vessels, as has been tried in general, and here we may add our guess that the wooden vessels so numerously found in the Anyang region are the most probable direct prototype of the bronzes. The patterns impressed on the mud block from the Anyang tombs should be observed with utmost attention.
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