Focus on Ritual wine server (guang), Indianapolis and explain the Historical information.
Cast during the Shang dynasty (ca. 1600–1050 B.C.), this wine vessel is representative of the highly evolved piece-mold technologies developed within China's Bronze Age. Due to the large number of surviving bronze vessels from this era, scholars have deduced that this age in China's history must have been a highly developed state with strong control over resources such as copper, tin, and lead, needed to create the alloy bronze. Additionally, the Chinese technique of using piece-mold casting was considered extremely sophisticated compared to the lost-wax method used by other world cultures during their own Bronze Ages. During piece-mold casting, the object to be created is first designed as a model, and then enclosed in a clay mold that can be cut into pieces to remove it from the model. These clay pieces are then decorated or stamped with intricate designs before being fired back together, creating a mold for the bronze casting. For vessels such as this one, the central cavity of the container would have been created by placing a core inside the mold before casting with molten bronze. By casting the objects into molds already decorated with designs, craftsmen were able to use this technique to attain a higher level of definition than in any previously utilized casting methods. Furthermore, unlike many other early bronze wine vessels, guang have no history of prior ceramic prototypes, marking them as unique casts specifically from the Shang and Zhou dynasties.Wine vessels such as this one were likely the property of a single owner and according to Chinese traditions of the time, the vessels would have been buried with that owner upon their death. This has resulted in most early Chinese bronze examples having been discovered in tombs throughout the nation. This particular vessel would have only been used for the serving of wine during rituals, particularly ones honoring the owner's ancestors. This is proven by the intricate designs of mythical creatures along the vessel's surface as these images were believed to represent mystical powers beyond the physical world. Stylistic similarities with other vessels excavated in the Henan province, suggest that this guang probably belonged to an individual from Anyang, the last capital of the Shang.
lost-wax Anyang Shang dynasty ca. China's Bronze Age guang Bronze Age Zhou