A bronze basin whose inside is covered with a contract: two states, a disputed border, and the witnesses who guaranteed the deal three thousand years before international law had a name.
The San Family Plate records a land settlement between the states of San and Ji, inscribed in dense clerical script that scholars still decode for what it reveals about early Chinese law. It is one of the few bronzes whose value is documentary as much as sculptural.
The plate is counted among the great ritual bronzes and kept in Taipei. Read closely, its text is the oldest surviving property agreement in Chinese, written not on paper but in metal built to outlast the argument it records.
Object details
| Name | San Family Plate (San Shi Pan) (散氏盘) |
|---|---|
| Artefact no. | — |
| Technique | Cast bronze |
| Period | Western Zhou dynasty (c. 9th c. BCE) |
| Collection | National Palace Museum, Taipei |
| Source | 台北故宫博物院 |
Image © National Palace Museum, Taipei. See the original in the museum collection.