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Chinese Ritual Bronzes

Picture of a bronze vessel in the shape of a animal (cow?).
Figure 1. Seen at National Palace Museum, Taipei, 2023.

These vessels date from around 1650 BCE. According to Wikipedia [1]:

They were produced for an individual or social group to use in making ritual offerings of food and drink to his or their ancestors and other deities or spirits.

On the death of the owner of a ritual bronze, it would often be placed in his tomb, so that he could continue to pay his respects in the afterlife.

The ritual bronzes were probably not used for normal eating and drinking

Starting from the Song dynasty, these objects started being collected as pieces of art. During the Qing dynasty, Emperor Qianlong categorized the vessels based on usage and form. The vessel from Figure 1 is categorized as a wine vessels, or jiǔqì, (酒器) and being the shape of an animal, subcategorized as yi (匜).

References