Large bronze vessel is an icon of Yin ruins
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The Houmuwu ding, more commonly known as Simuwu ding, was unearthed in 1939 in Anyang.
It is largest and heaviest bronze sacrificial vessel ever found in the world.
Since 1959, it was kept at the Museum of Chinese History and then the National Museum of China.
The ding was carved with thunder-like patterns and mythical creatures, such as Chinese dragons and taotie, a motif commonly found on Chinese ritual bronze vessels. Experts estimate that up to 300 craftsmen used more than 1,000 kilograms of material to forge the vessel.
The Houmuwu ding was dedicated to Fu Jing, a wife of King Wu Ding.
According to oracle inscriptions, Fu Jing enjoyed high social status among the king’s 60 or so wives, and one of her sons was designated the crown prince. Unlike Fu Hao, the wife who was such a skilled military warrior, Fu Jing was a farming specialist.
Her son Zu Geng ordered the making of the ding in memory of her.
In 1949, historian and archeologist Guo Moruo (1892-1978) read the inscriptions inside the vessel as simuwu. He explained that si means sacrifice, and wu is the posthumous title of the tomb owner. That was how the ding came to be called “Simuwu.”
In 1962, Taiwan oracle inscription expert Jin Xiang-heng translated the inscription as houmuwu, which means “the ding that is dedicated to the queen mother Wu.”
In 2011, when the National Museum of China was reopened after a restoration, the ding was officially introduced as the Houmuwu ding.
The name, however, was not acknowledged by either Yinxu or the National Museum of Chinese Writing. Experts argue that the character hou didn’t refer to the “spouse of a king” until the Spring and Autumn Period (771-476 BC), and that the character in inscription is definitely si, not hou.
A bit confusing, all that, and the matter has yet to be definitely resolved.
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