Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T18:39:02.596Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Technical Examination of the Chinese Buddhist Bronzes in the Freer Gallery of Art, Part B: Stable Lead Isotope Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2011

Edward V. Sayre
Affiliation:
Conservation Analytical Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560
Paul Jett
Affiliation:
Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560
Emile C. Joel
Affiliation:
Conservation Analytical Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20560
Get access

Abstract

Stable lead isotope ratios were determined on sixty-four samples taken from sixty of the Buddhist bronze images which were examined and chemically analyzed by Jett and Douglas [preceding paper]. The data were grouped using multivariate techniques and were compared with an accumulated data base of lead isotope measurements on more than 700 ancient Chinese artifacts and more than 200 Chinese and Korean ores. One group of ten images which were all datable to a period of less than one century, Eastern Wei through Sui dynasties, form a nearly unique isotopic group which coincides only with an unusual group of Lengshuichong bronze drums. A second large group of thirty-two isotopically matching images contains almost all, fifteen out of sixteen, of the images attributed to the Northern Wei dynasty. The remaining members of this group are of later date, extending into the Tang dynasty, or are animal figures attributed more generally to the Six Dynasties. This group partially overlaps somewhat the isotope fields of some Western and Eastern Han mirrors and some of the Sackler ritual bronze vessels of the Shang and Zhou dynasties, but appears to have been derived from a different ore source from them. The remaining specimens break up into some very tentatively defined small groups of two to four specimens each and a small residue of four unique, unmatched specimens.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Yener, K.A., Sayre, E.V., Ozbal, H., Joel, E.C., Barnes, I.L. and Brill, R.H., Journal of Archaeological Science 18, 541 (1991)Google Scholar
2. Sayre, E.V., Yener, K.A., Joel, E.C. and Barnes, I.L., Archaeometry 34, 73 (1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
3. Zicheng, Peng, Fubin, Wan and Shun'an, Yao, Kexue Tongbao 33, 1027 (1988)Google Scholar
4. Yuwei, Chen, Cunxaio, Mao and Bingquan, Zhu, Geochimica 3 No. 9, 215 (1980)Google Scholar
5. Mabuchi, H., Hirao, Y. and Nishida, M., Archaeometry 27, 131 (1985)Google Scholar
6. Barnes, L.I., Chase, W.T., Holmes, L.L., Joel, E.C., Meyers, P. and Sayre, E.V., in The Beginning of the Use of Metals and Alloys, Edited by Robert Madden (The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1988) pp. 296306.Google Scholar