Stem Cup | Harvard Art Museums

Gallery Text

Although there is evidence of the minor presence of copper artifacts among several late Neolithic cultures, by the dawn of the second millennium BCE, societies in northern China appear to have begun using bronze (an alloy of copper and tin) in earnest. Excavations at several Longshan culture sites along the middle and lower Yellow River valleys have yielded tools, ornaments, and vessel fragments made of bronze. Longshan black pottery vessels with design elements reminiscent of hammered metal also imply the influence of metalwork during the latter part of this otherwise Neolithic culture. Following closely after the Longshan period, Erlitou culture sites in Henan and Shanxi provinces reveal a complex, hierarchical society that produced bronze tools, weapons, vessels, and turquoise-inlaid plaques (such as those displayed here) of astonishing sophistication. The presence of such artifacts, along with the remains of bronze-casting molds at Erlitou, confirms that China had fully entered its Bronze Age by the second millennium BCE.

Identification and Creation

Object Number: 2006.170.100
Title: Stem Cup
Other Titles: Original Language Title: 山東龍山文化黑陶高柄杯
Classification: Vessels
Work Type: vessel
Date: c. 2600-2000 BCE
Places: Creation Place: East Asia, China, Shandong province
Period: Neolithic period, Shandong Longshan culture, c. 2600-2000 BCE
Culture: Chinese
Persistent Link: https://hvrd.art/o/193292

Location

Location: Level 1, Room 1740, Early Chinese Art, Arts of Ancient China from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age

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Physical Descriptions

Medium: Black earthenware
Dimensions: H. 16.2 x Diam. 8.1 cm (6 3/8 x 3 3/16 in.)

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History: [Nicholas Grindley, London, April 1999] sold; to Walter C. Sedgwick Foundation, Woodside, CA (1999-2006), partial gift; to Harvard University Art Museums, 2006.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line: Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Partial gift of the Walter C. Sedgwick Foundation and partial purchase through the Ernest B. and Helen Pratt Dane Fund for Asian Art
Accession Year: 2006
Object Number: 2006.170.100
Division: Asian and Mediterranean Art
Contact: am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu
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Descriptions

Description: Cup with flared, everted rim supported on an elaborate hollow stem with bulb-shaped midsection perforated with four rows of vertical slits; thinly potted, lightly burnished blackened earthenware with incised and openwork decoration. Longshan culture; from Shandong province.
Commentary: Compare to:
(1) Black earthenware stem cups of closely related form, with sharply articulated feet, similarly shaped and perforated stems, and wide, flaring mouths excavated in 1975 from a Longshan site at Donghaiyu, Rizhao county, Shandong province. See Kaogu 6 (1976): 380, fig. 2 and pl. 6.3.
(2) Black pottery stem cup of closely related form excavated in 1976 from a Longshan site at Chengzi, Zhucheng county, Shandong province, now in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology collection, Beijing. See Treasures from a Swallow Garden: Inaugural Exhibit of the Arthur M. Sackler Museum of Art and Archaeology (Beijing: Peking University, 1992), cat. 30, p. 82-83.

Exhibition History

32Q: 1740 Early China I, Harvard Art Museums, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

Sedgwick Collection

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

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2006.170.100: Stem Cup