Duling No. 2 Square Ding

Duling No. 2 Square Ding, a bronze ritual vessel from the early Shang Dynasty, is 87 cm tall, 61 cm long on the rim, 0.4 cm thick on the belly, and weighs about 64.25 kg. It was unearthed from a bronze ware cellar pit in Zhangzhai South Street, Zhengzhou City, Henan Province in September 1974 and is now in the Henan Museum.

Duling No. 2 Square Ding (Figure 1) unearthed from a bronze ware cellar pit in Zhangzhai South Street, Zhengzhou City has an outward-folded rim, a square lip, and a groove-shaped outer side of the upright ears. The mouth and belly sections are basically square. The four tripod feet are thick at the base, and are cylindrical with thick top and thin bottom. The decoration of the tripod is mainly animal face patterns and nipple patterns, with string patterns as decoration. The nipple pattern band is decorated on both sides of each wall of the tripod and near the bottom of the lower belly of the tripod. The upper belly of the tripod is decorated with a circle of animal face patterns, one group in the middle of each wall, and one group at the corner with the corner as the center, for a total of eight groups of animal face patterns. The middle of the tripod feet is also decorated with animal face patterns. The animal face patterns are all composed of prominent positive lines, with a semi-relief effect, and the animal face images are extremely abstract.

Figure 1 A rubbing of the decoration of the copper square tripod (Duling No. 2) from the cellar pit of Zhangzhai South Street, Zhengzhou

This tripod was unearthed from a copper cellar pit discovered when an air-raid shelter was excavated in Zhangzhai South Street, Zhengzhou in September 1974. There were two square tripods unearthed at the same time. Because Zhangzhai South Street is located in the southern section of the "Duling" mound about 300 meters outside the west wall of Zhengzhou Shangcheng, the two square tripods unearthed in the cellar pit are called Duling square tripods. This one is slightly smaller in size and is commonly known as Duling No. 2 square tripod.

The Duling No. 2 square tripod has a heavy body and a solemn animal face pattern on its belly. The nipple pattern belt adds a sense of solidity to the object, giving people the image of majesty of the ancestral temple.