The bronze inscription is a kind of calligraphy name in ancient China, referring to the inscriptions cast on bronzes of the Yin, Shang, and Zhou dynasties also called Zhong Dingwen. The Shang and Zhou Dynasties were the age of bronze ware. The ritual of bronze ware was represented by the tripod, and the musical instrument was represented by the bell. “Zhongding” was synonymous with bronze ware.
China has entered the Bronze Age in the Xia Dynasty, and copper smelting and copperware manufacturing technologies are very developed. Because the Zhou Dynasty also called copper-gold, the inscription on the bronze ware was called “Jinwen” or “Jijin writing”; and because this type of bronze ware had the largest number of characters on the bell, it used to be called “Zhongdingwen”.
Bronze inscriptions were applied from the late Shang Dynasty to the Qin era of the Six Kingdoms, about 800 years ago. According to the records of Rong Geng’s ” Bronze Inscriptions “, the number of characters in bronze inscriptions is 3,722, of which 2,420 can be recognized.
