An unremarkable pot from the outside, and a 499-character letter from a king to his minister on the inside: the longest inscription ever found on a Chinese bronze.
King Xuan of Zhou gave Maogong a charge and a vessel to remember it by, spelling out duties, warnings, and gifts in a single breath of archaic script. The text is a window onto the late Western Zhou state, its anxieties and its bureaucracy, preserved in metal rather than bamboo that rotted away.
The ding passed through scholars and collectors for two millennia and now rests in Taipei. Its plain exterior is the joke: the most important thing it carries is the part you cannot see without looking inside.
Object details
| Name | Maogong Ding (Maogong Tripod) (毛公鼎) |
|---|---|
| Artefact no. | — |
| Technique | Cast bronze |
| Period | Western Zhou dynasty (c. 9th c. BCE, King Xuan) |
| 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.