LUMINOSITY, SPIRIT, AND THE ROLE OF CLAPPER-BELLS IN THE FORMATION OF A CHINESE METALLURGICAL TRADITION

Abstract

This article explores the manner in which the Eurasian metallurgical tradition was transformed into an indigenous tradition on the Chinese Central Plains. It argues that the association of luminosity with the divine has a cognitive foundation, which accounts for the use translucent stones and shiny metals, including copper, bronze, silver, and gold as mediums for religious artifacts throughout the world. In China, this association was the primary impetus for the development of an indigenous metallurgy based on a piece-mold and coring technology. Although the technology ultimately concentrated on the production of ritual vessels, it was first developed at Yanshi Erlitou 偃師二里頭 for the production of clapper-bells (ling 鈴), which had similar round hollow bodies. We further explore the history of clapper-bells, arguing that they were a development of a Central Plains tradition dating back to the Yangshao 仰韶 period (5000–3000 b.c.e.). We argue that their religious significance at Erlitou lay in the previously unheard sound produced when the two luminous substances, jade and bronze, struck against one another. Thus, religious interlocutors at Erlitou used them to contact the ancestral spirits. Later, in the Yinxu 殷墟 period of the Shang Dynasty (ca. 1300–1050 b.c.e.), bronze clapper-bells were worn by dogs buried in tombs. We propose that their role there was a development of the earlier one; that is, they were used to contact the occupant's ancestral spirits as he was guided by the dog in the underworld.