Metalworking in Bronze Age China: The Lost-Wax Process By Peng Pe ...

Another objecting opinion, Perspective 2, proposed by Wang Jinchao, argues that each quarter of the rim appendage of the zun was cast in one piece using a special kind of section-mold technique.¹⁰ More specifically, manufacturing a quarter of the rim appendage required a preliminary model somewhat simpler than the finished bronze. From the model, five outer mold sections would have been made (fig. 19). The simple pattern elements transferred to these mold sections (fig. 20a) could be carved in the mold with the raised lines and dots that appear on the surface of the finished bronze (fig. 20b). Once the double-layered “inner mold” assembly (fig. 21)¹¹ was constructed within the outer mold pieces, the outer layer of the inner mold would be overprinted with the embellished design from the outer mold. Before pouring the bronze, space for casting would be reserved between the outer and inner molds, including numerous small casting cavities for pattern elements of the embellished design. At an earlier stage, however, the desired number of small “tunnels” had to be created within the double-layered inner mold through the use of a thin cylindrical tool that could penetrate the outer layer of the inner mold and leave a number of tiny “pits” on its inner layer (fig. 22). By connecting all such “pits,” the newly produced horizontal “channels” (fig. 23), together with the vertical “tunnels” achieved earlier, could serve as runners to lead the molten bronze into the numerous casting spaces for the pattern elements. Once the liquid bronze solidified, the quarter of the zun rim appendage took its final shape.¹²

A series of details suggests that the method proposed by Perspective 2, ingenious though it may be, cannot be historically correct. First, on some deformed pattern elements of the rim appendage of the zun, the raised lines become lower and wider (fig. 24).¹³ This phenomenon is readily explained if one assumes the use of the lost-wax process: handwork on the soft wax model could easily have led to the deformation of both its basic shape and its decoration. This phenomenon is difficult to reconcile with Perspective 2, which holds that the raised linear ornament of the pattern elements was produced by carving on the outer mold pieces. Furthermore, the ripple-like wrinkles on fragments from the handle-shaped