Religious ceremonies of the early period of Western Zhou era (1027–966 BC) (based on the materials of the bronze vessels’ inscriptions)

Article in Elibrary

Received: 01/30/2023

Accepted: 03/31/2023

Keywords: Western Zhou; jinwen; epigraphics; religious ceremonies; ritual

Available in the on-line version with: 20.06.2023

To cite this article

Maria V. Efimenko Religious ceremonies of the early period of Western Zhou era (1027–966 BC) (based on the materials of the bronze vessels’ inscriptions). // Lomonosov Oriental Studies Journal. 2023. Vol. 67. N 1,67 p.46-55 https://doi.org/10.55959/MSU0320-8095-13-67-1-4.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribiution - NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Maria V. Efimenko (Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences)

Abstract

Religious ceremonies of the Western Zhou era (1027–771 BC) are rarely the subject of research. The specificity of epigraphic sources of the epoch makes it possible to correlate their data with synchronous written sources and sources of a later time and restore a picture of the religious life of the society of the era studied. The author of the article based on the analysis of the content of inscriptions on bronze vessels of the early period of the Western Zhou era (1027–966 BC) highlights regular and occasional religious ceremonies, as well as their elements, such as ritual feasting, ritual drinking of wine, the instruction of van, various types of sacrifices. The study showed that some of the considered ritual ceremonies and their elements are found unchanged in the historical source “Chunqiu Zuozhuan” of the Chunqiu era (771–453 BC), and some have no analogues in the subsequent era.

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