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period, Dong argued that only a one-third model was required. From this fractional model, three identical mold sections could be produced, and later fitted together for the casting of the bronze. Similarly, according to Dong, a one-fourth model was applied to manufacture an Erligang-style square ding. This working manner, as Dong believed, was in constant use even during the Late Bronze Age. For details, see Dong, Fanzhu Qingtong, 4–6, 41–49. Dong’s assertion of the application of fractional models lacks corroboration in archaeological records. As far as I know, none of the foundries in Bronze Age China, including Anyang, Houma, and all others, have ever yielded any physical evidence of the fractional model. Nor do the bronzes themselves offer any proof for this argument, except for the presence of the mold marks central to Dong’s assertion. Yet mold marks can only suggest the use of section molds, and do not necessarily indicate that the mold pieces were serially shaped from a single fractional model. At the very least, during the early Bronze Age, none of the bronzes contained exactly identical sections in shape, size, or especially decoration. This negative evidence perhaps could be explained away by Dong’s other argument, that decoration was always made directly in the mold. But a similar argument proposed by Nickel (“Imperfect Symmetry”) has been convincingly disproved by Bagley (“Anyang Mold-making and the Decorated Model”). Hence, I suspect that Dong’s view is simply an anachronistic perspective based on modern practice. As Dong himself admitted, the use of fractional models is prevalent today, but he traced this technical idea back to the Erlitou period by assuming that all early Chinese bronzes had been fabricated in this manner (Fanzhu Qingtong, 4). As Cyril Smith pointed out, “The greatest problem that a historian of techniques faces is, perhaps, to avoid jumping to the conclusion that an object was made in the way that he himself would find natural to make it!” (in Doeringer et al., Art and Technology, 51). The method that seems natural to modern casters, such as the application of the fractional model, might not have been natural for the ancient craftsmen. A comment by Bagley can be applied to Dong’s argument: “For modern observers it is automatic to look for labor-saving ways of doing things, but we should beware of assuming that Bronze Age kings and Anyang casters shared our instincts. Evidence of a concern for efficient mass production in antiquity, in China or anywhere else, is very hard to come by” (“Anyang Mold-making and the Decorated Model,” 84). Efficient mass production is the main motive for Dong’s proposal.

82. Bagley, “Replication Techniques in Eastern Zhou Bronze Casting,” 238.