2,000-year-old bronze drum found by farmer in China

A 2,000-year-old bronze drum from the Eastern Han Dynasty has been discovered in Wenxing Village near Jiucheng in southern China’s Yunnan Province.

The artifact was discovered by Wang Deqiang on January while farming. He didn’t know it, but another bronze drum from the Eastern Han period had been discovered just 80 feet away from there in 1980. Wang Deqiang turned it in to the police and officially donated it to the Weixin County Cultural Relics Management Office three days later. Experts

It is a drum of the Shizhaishan type, named after the site of a royal cemetery of the Dian Kingdom where thousands of bronze artifacts have been unearthed, including numerous large drums which were used to relay messages in battle and in funerary rituals.

The drum is relatively well preserved and features distinct structural characteristics. Made entirely of cast bronze, it has a drumhead diameter of about 58.5 centimeters [23 inches], a body diameter of 65 centimeters [25.6 inches] and a total height of 29 centimeters [11.4 inches]. It weighs roughly 15 kilograms [33 lbs].

At the center of the drumhead is a 12-pointed sun motif, surrounded by bands of short linear patterns along the edge. Four sculpted toads are evenly spaced around the drumhead’s rim, each about 7 centimeters long.

Two pairs of flat strap-like handles were symmetrically attached to the waist of the drum. Each handle measures about 17 centimeters [6.7 inches] long, 5 centimeters [2 inches] wide and is decorated with rope-like patterns and small square perforations.

Because of the significance of the drum and the proximity to the one found 46 years ago, archaeologists from the Yunnan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology were engaged to investigate the find site. They found a pit that matches the drum’s shape exactly. The imprints of the four toads remained at the bottom of the pit, indicating the drum had been buried upside down.

The burial orientation carries symbolic meaning. In ancient southwestern Chinese cultures, the toad was often associated with fertility, prosperity and abundance. Placing the drum upside down could have represented a ritual act in which prayers or blessings were metaphorically “poured” into the earth, seeking protection or favor from spiritual forces, according to the local Cultural Relics Management Department.

Zhang Qiyu, director of the Weixin County Cultural Relics Management Department, told the Global Times that it has been determined that the drum was not an ordinary musical instrument but a ceremonial object used by ancient elites during important occasions such as rituals and celebrations.

“It served as a sacred vessel that they believed could be used to communicate between Heaven and Earth and symbolized social power and ritual authority,” Zhang said.

The team also sought out the find site of the drum unearthed in 1980. Archaeologists had to interview witnesses to locate the original pit, but there were no archaeological traces remaining of the original burial due to aggressive agricultural work and road building in the area since then. The dig of both sites found no additional artifacts and no remains related to each other. This indicates the two drum depositions were not connected to each other, but were rather independent sacrifices.

* This article was originally published here