A 2,000-year-old bronze drum from the Eastern Han Dynasty has been discovered in Wenxing Village near Jiucheng, Yunnan Province, southern China.
The specimen was discovered by Wang Deqiang while farming on January. He didn’t know it, but another bronze drum from the Eastern Han period had been discovered in 1980 just 80 feet away. Wang Deqiang handed it over to the police and three days later officially donated it to the Xi’an County Cultural Relics Management Office. The experts
It is a drum of the Shiheshan type, named after the site of a royal cemetery in the Dayan Kingdom where thousands of bronze artifacts have been discovered, including several large drums used to send messages in war and funeral rites.
The drum is relatively well preserved and has distinct structural features. Made entirely of cast bronze, its drum head is approximately 58.5 cm in diameter. [23 inches]body diameter 65 cm [25.6 inches] and a total height of 29 cm [11.4 inches]. It weighs about 15 kg. [33 lbs].
In the center of the drumhead is a 12-point sun motif, surrounded by bands of smaller linear patterns along the rim. Four sculpted toads are evenly spaced around the rim of the drumhead, each about 7cm tall.
Two pairs of flat strap-like handles were attached parallel to the back of the drum. Each handle measures approximately 17cm. [6.7 inches] long, 5 cm [2 inches] wide and decorated with rope-like patterns and small square holes.
Due to the importance of the drum and its proximity to the discovery 46 years ago, archaeologists from the Yunnan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology were busy investigating the site. They found a crater that perfectly matched the shape of the drum. Four ram marks were left at the bottom of the pit, indicating that the drum had been pressed upside down.
The direction of burial has symbolic meaning. In ancient southwestern Chinese cultures, the toad was often associated with fertility, prosperity, and abundance. According to the local Cultural Relaxation Management Department, placing the drum upside down may have represented a ritual in which prayers or blessings were metaphorically “poured” onto the ground, seeking protection or support from spiritual forces.
Zhang Qiu, director of the Wexin County Cultural Relaxation Management Department, told the Global Times that it was determined that the drum was not an ordinary musical instrument but a ritual object used by ancient elites during important occasions such as rituals and ceremonies.
“It serves as a sacred vessel that they believe can be used to communicate between heaven and earth and is a symbol of social power and ritual authority,” Zhang said.
The team also located the discovery of a drum discovered in 1980. Archaeologists had to interview witnesses to locate the original pit, but since then, aggressive agricultural work and road construction in the area have left no traces of the original burial site. Excavations of the two sites yielded no additional artifacts and no interrelated remains. This indicates that the two drum masses were not connected to each other, but were independent sacrifices.
