Abstract

Sophia-Karin Psarras M U S Shared Imagery: Eastern Zhou Decors and Iconographies Recent studies in Chinese archaeological analysis have tended to focus on the characteristics that set one region of China apart from others. While such a development allows for a more complex view of Chinese history, it obscures identification of unifying traits. In terms of material culture alone, interregional similarities are as revealing as regional distinctions. Examination of specific patterns of vessel ornamentation as well as specific vessel forms from the northern and southern Chinese states reveals extensive sharing, particularly of decors, between the two regions. Indeed, examples of identical decors extends to iconographies incorporating supra-human figures generally identified with the southern state of Chu. These iconographies, derived from the Near Eastern animal master, appear in both northern and southern China in different guises. The manner in which these iconographies are rendered and the position they occupy culturally distinguish north from south more effectively than do any differences in object form and decor. In other words, northern and southern China are closely bound by the Chinese vocabulary of object form and ornamentation, but distinguish themselves in their reactions to foreign influence.