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Ritual Bell (Nao)
Cast Bronze
Early Zhou dynasty, 10th century BCE
Helen Thurston Ayer Fund and Museum
Auction Funds 54.29

This imposing chalicelike object is actually a gong or bell. Like almost all bells in East Asia, it has no clapper and is meant to be struck rather than swung. Similar bells recently unearthed in China have been shown to belong to sets or ensembles of bells in graduated sizes, meant to be played together like a single instrument. It is very likely that this bell was also part of such a set.

Although other Chinese bells of this early period were suspended mouth downward, bells of the nao type were apparently designed to be mounted with the open end up, since only in this position do their designs become legible. Here the design consists of two flaring panels surrounded by bands of hooked scrolls and divided by a strong vertical seam. The raised elements emerging from the scrollwork in the middle of each panel almost certainly represent the horns and muzzle of a mythical beast known as a taotie. The curved horns are quite distinct, but the elements representing the muzzle are treated so ambiguously that they might also be read as birds with lowered heads and huge claws. The taotie, part bovine and part feline, constitutes one of the principal motifs on Chinese ritual bronzes of the Shang dynasty, particularly those unearthed in North China in the vicinity of the Yellow River. This nao is thought to have come from much farther south, however, from an area far removed from the heartland of Shang dynasty Chinese culture. The taotie may have had less significance for the people in this region.