30.
The Hong Kong Naturalist,
Vol. III, Nos. 3 and 4.
36.
31.
32.
33.
37.
38.
Plate 40.
237
*
Archaeological Finds on Lamma Island
239
Plate
it usually occurs in the part corresponding to the ear of the monster. 33, figure is reproduced from (13) (Bronzes, Plate V.B.) and shows it both in the band round the neck and in the crests of the birds.*
The fondness for this style of branching curve could be illustrated from almost every page of any collection of old Chinese bronze motives and its constant recurrence would explain why the "double-F" became so popular on our ware. Even the overprinting to make an elaborate interlacing seems to be inspired by the inter-twined serpents, dragons, fish, even dogs that ap pear on the old vases. That this run of line was characteristic of the Chinese craftsman of the Chou period is well borne out by the bronze buffalo figure on which the artist has adapted the line to do duty for the curling hair of the hide. Figure 5).
Other references in (11) deserving of careful comparison for their relation to this "head" motive will be found on Plates 93 A (Hwai Valley), 95 B (lowest band), 104 (the ornament on the foot of the tou in New York). One of the spoons from Pao Chi (Plate 35) and the jade buckles (Plate 108) show motives closely related to our patterns, the latter recalling fragment 21 or 35.
35.
Fragments 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 and 38.
34.
Figure 5. Sketch from (1) plate I.
The evidence adduced is, I think, sufficient to show that the motive
on the vase-sherds is Chinese and is derived from the bronzes and that these bronzes are those of the end of the Pre-Han period.
*
Some general questions still remain. These vases seem for the most part not to have had a foot. From the most ancient forms of Chinese char- acters known to us we find a wine vessel used in offerings which presents a similar shape it has no foot: the body bears decoration only on its upper half the neck stands up straight; the lip in the characters is exaggerated for it would seem from the comparison of unmistakably covered vessels that these have merely a lip and not a cover on top. On figure 1, above, several
(This particular chia vase is supposed to show Scythian influence in the crest of the birds, but the lower detail is part of the well known zoomorphic design of which two units meet here in the centre of the picture; they are really the sides of two monsters' masks).
December 1932.
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