Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 14. (Budapest, 1994)

KARDOS Tatjána: Bronzdob a Kelet-Ázsiai Művészeti Múzeum gyűjteményében

NOTES 1. The decorations raise up on the surface of drum as they have been pressed into the mould. In case of repetitive patterns dies and rollers used to impressc onto the inner side of the pliable clay mould. During the lost wax (cire perdue) process, the drum is building up on a clay core with wax, the dies and rollers are impressed on the surface of the wax, so the decorations will be impressed in the surface of the drum as well. At the first process the mould is negative, at the second one the mould is positive. The casting of bronze drums using lost wax process in Mandalay, Myanmar (Burma) can be seen at Fraser-Lu, pp. 54-56. 2. No more than five bronze drums are so far known with a decorated inner side of the resonance case (Jiang Ting-yu. pp. 229. 232, 233 and 235). Two of them have already been published by Wen You in 1954 (Wen You, illustrations no 35. and 37.). These rustic raised pictures show village life, houses and bams built up according to non-Chinese tradition. The inscriptions on the inner side of the drum on page 235. arc: Kimg Ming chiang chiin (Kong Ming Jiang jun): General Kungming: Knng Ming ku (Kong Ming git): The drum of Kung-ming. The legends about General Chu-ko Liang (Zhu-ge Liang. 181-234 B. C.) of Tree Kingdom-period have been represented here on a drum originated after the thirteenth century. 3. Wen You. illustration no.

33. 4. For a description of the First Scientific Conference of Ancient Chinese Bronze Drums and the eight grade classification, see: Jiang Ting-yu. pp. 4-13. 5. The name comes from Machianghsien (Majiangxian) of Kuanghsi province, where a similar drum was found in a tomb. This type of drum is very common in Kuanghsi, Kueichou, Yunnan, Sichuan, Kuangtung and the west part of Honan provinces, it was found in northwest of Vietnam as well. It was cast from the 10th century to the beginning of the 20th century. It is still in use in many places (Jiang Ting-yu, pp. 10-11). See this type of drum in use: Wen You. illustration no. 64. 6. The first bronze drum was sent by a Dutchman, G. E. Rumphuis to the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1682. The first time a Dong-son type drum appeared to the public was at the Exhibition of Bronze at Vienna in 1883. This belonged to Count Hans Wilczek, and was bought in Florence. At the Exposition Universelle de Paris in 1889 another drum was exhibited, bought by a Frenchman in Northern Vietnam. By 1900 a hundred and fifty bronze drums were already known, most of them from northern Indochina (Brown, p. 50.). 7. Thanh Hoa province in Northern Vietnam was the first place, where, in the company of different other objects, Heger I type bronze drums were excavated. The Dong-son culture itself was named after the richest site of this province (Groslier, p.

33). 8. Heger considered the decorations as representations of the ceremony of the inauguration of the drums: they represent daily life according to Parmentier, funeral ceremony according to Goloubew, wedding or New Year ceremony according to Cuisinier; attestation of the cull of the sun according to M. Colani and J. Przyluski, representing rain-calling ceremony according to De Groot, the legend of the Flood according to PoréeMaspero. shamanism according to Quaritch Wales and Wang Chiun Ming (Bezacier, pp. 199-207.): LoofsWissowa considers the drums as regalia (Loofs-Wissowa. pp. 39-49). 9. The people of the Dong-son culture are considered to be related to dayaks by the hair-slyle and costume seen on sculptures, on anthropomorphic handles of daggers, and by the couple on the cover of an urn (Bezacier, pp. 114-118 and 167-171). There is a Thraco-Cimmerian theory of the origin of bronze drums as well (Groslier, p. 173.). 10. The ten new sites are as follows: Shibeicun 1952-53; Shizhaishan 1955; Daipona 1964; Taijishan 1964; Tianzimiao ?; Lijiashan 1972; Wangjiaba 1974; Chenggong 1974; Tuanshan ?; Zhujiebatatai 1980. 11. Despite the lack of data, some researchers find it possible to conclude thai this bronze casling civilization was spread over from different Yunnan centres (Groslier, p. 206; Loofs-Wissowa, p. 47.; Pirazzoli-l' Serstevens, p. 86.). It seems to us. that archaeology in Vietnam continues to consider Dong-son as a centre of this bronze casting civilization and tries to avoid the new archaeological finds (Nguyen van Huyen et al., see the map at p. 78.). 12. Jiang Ting-yu, p. 295. 13. Jiang Ting-yu, p. 1.; Brown mentions some Chinese legends concerning Ma Yuan, that he used bronze drums to obtain the collaboration of local chieftains or to frighten the enemy (Brown, p. 50). 14. The life of these bronze casting civilizations changed after the Chinese conquest of Northern Vietnam in the ihird century B. C. The people living in the territories of Northern Vietnam fell under the dominion of the Qin empire. The following century various civilizations of the present South China were incorporated into the Han empire and were divided into commanderies, as the Kingdoms called in Chinese Yiieh (Yue), Ye-lang (Yelang), and finally Tien (Dian) in 109 B. C, while the Han empire was trying to find new trade routes, in all probability the way to Burma. A terminal level has been foud with signs of burning and pillage in the excavation of Northern Vietnam, which has been supposed to be evidence of the Chinese invasion, but which is more visible, the appearance of the Chinese and the disappearance of the Vietnamese material, particularly from the beginning of the later Han dynasty. In the beginning the social hierarchy of the people living in this territories seems to have been respected, or at least tried to used by the conquerors for their own purposes, yet in course of time - particularly in Viet-