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

KARDOS Tatjána: Bronzdob a Kelet-Ázsiai Művészeti Múzeum gyűjteményében

drum is small,

21 the row of dancers, decorated with feathers, has become a band of flags, the characteristic animals and birds of early drums have become Chinese zodiac animals. The modelling of animals on the late drums was getting less elaborate and the animals themselves more and more domestic.

22 While the form of the drums did not change in period of about a thousand years, daily life has appeared in rustic pictures on the inner side of the resonance case (see our note no.

2.). Despite of the simplification in iconography, present users of bronze drums still continue to value and venerate them.

21 According to archaeological findings, several traditions in the use of bronze drums have been unchanged since ancient times to the end of the last, or the beginning of the present century,

24 but there are some functions without background in findings. Personal possession is seems to be new in origin.

25 To conclude: the Heger IV type bronze drums had developed by the tenth century, their decorations are the simplified variations originated from the oldest type of drums. The most recent Heger IV type drums assume a popular character, and experienced the influence of Chinese culture. The simplification in iconography has not decreased the ritual function and value of the bronze drums, while supposedly a new function has been formed: the function of personal property, a possession, which could readily be sold. In line with the characteristic features mentioned above, the bronze drum in the collection of the Ferenc Hopp Museum can be dated to the tenth-eleventh centuries.