Archaize He Zun Chinese Drinking Vessel Museum Props Home Office Decor

Specification

• Design:  Drinking Vessel 
  
• Material: Bronze
• Size: 17.5 cm * 12.8 cm

The He Zun is an ancient Chinese ritual bronze vessel of the Zun shape. It dates from the era of Western Zhou (1046–771 BC), specifically the early years of the dynasty, and is famous as the oldest artifact with the written characters meaning "Middle Kingdom" in a bronze inscription on the container. Today it is in the Baoji Bronzeware Museum in Shanxi.

The vessel, dating to the 5th year of the reign of King Cheng of Zhou, is 38.8cm tall, 28.8cm in diameter and weighs 14.6kg. Inside the container, at the base, it contains 12 rows of 122 inscribed Chinese characters. Of the 122 characters, 119 are identified while 3 are unknown. The inscription contains the phrase 宅𢆶𠁩或 inscribed in early Zhou form, structurally different to the modern form of the characters. The term (𠁩或) here does not carry exactly the same semantic meaning as today, referring rather to the "central region" of the newly expanded Zhou dynasty political domain, but is the earliest occurrence in the Chinese corpus of the word 中國, which gradually expanded in its meaning over the next millennium. The He Zun is also the earliest known vessel bearing the character de (德, "virtue"), and one of only 64 historical artifacts that can never leave Chinese soil.