21. The major testimony of casting from archaeological materials in northwest and northern China is still stone molds, which are in consistence with the finds in the Eurasian Steppes.

22. In the earliest known account, from the first half of the thirteenth century CE, Zhao Xihu was already arguing that bronze vessels “in ancient times” (an imprecise appellation, probably referring to Bronze Age antiquity) were shaped directly from wax models and manufactured by the lost-wax process.

23. For a critical review, see Smith, A Search for Structure, 260.

24. Bushell, Chinese Art, 61.

25. Collins, “The Corrosion of Early Chinese Bronzes,” 37.

26. Simpson, Development of the Metal Castings Industry, 24, fig. 20.

27. For details, see Yetts, The George Eumorfopoulos Collection, 35–38. The term “seam,” which usually refers to a long, narrow space or gap, cannot adequately describe these linear, raised section-mold cast ridges. Seams appear concave, “mold marks” convex.

28. As Yetts asserted, “So far as my experience goes, all archaic Chinese bronze vessels have been cast by this process (‘cire perdue process’); and I venture to suggest that the excavated moulds (or at least many of them) are really those which were used for shaping the wax models. Some of the mould fragments may have been bits of the fire-clay envelope to the wax model. The envelope is broken away after the metal has been poured and cooled; and, of course, such fragments show signs of burning” (“Recent Finds near An-Yang,” 473). However, a careful study published by Karlbeck in the same year clearly showed that many of the mold fragments with scorch marks also had mortises and tenons (“Anyang Moulds”). Yetts’s argument is refuted by Karlbeck’s mold fragments.

29. Creel, “On the Origins of the Manufacture and Decoration of Bronze in the Shang Period,” 68–69.

30. Su, “Ershi Shiji dui Xianqin Qingtong Liqi Zhuzao Jishu de Yanjiu,” 405.

31. For fragments of clay molds, see Creel, “On the Origins of the Manufacture and Decoration of Bronze in the Shang Period,” Plate 9.

32. Creel, “On the Origins of the Manufacture and Decoration of Bronze in the Shang Period,” 69.

33. As Maryon and Plenderleith illustrated in their discussion of casting a bronze zun, a wax layer “of the thickness desired for the bronze” with individual edges “joined by heating” was attached in separate pieces over the surface of a wheel-shaped dried core for the lowest section of