Cook or Minister: the Good-Man Ke’s Treasured Tripods.

In the focus of this study is a group of bronze ritual articles, owned by a late IX century BC-nobleman and official Ke. They were discovered in1890 near Rencun village of Fufeng district, Shaanxi province in a hoard,r containing about 120 bronze objects of excellent art and workmanship quality one of the largest and richest hoards unearthed until the present day. Some of them, such as the Big Ding-Tripod of Ke, Bo-Bell of Ke and Lei-Flask of Zhong Yifu certainly represent ones of the most outstanding art works of the Western Zhou epoch (ca. 1046/5-771 BC). Some objects were supplied with ritual inscriptions. These composed by Ke contained at the same time rich biographical data about their author. Four separate text documents counting 490 characters, some of which were reproduced on more than one single object, surely were composed by the same person. On the other hand, few other objects, known from other sources and containing two different texts of 56 and 141 characters respectively might be of the same authorship. Could this be confirmed, Ke’s dossier of six documents in total length of 687 characters would count for an exceptional case, since no one of other known Western Zhou inscriptions composers left such multitudinous textual heritage. Considering the textual information together with art features of the inscribed objects the author of the present article concludes that the single authorship of all six documents is very plausible, while the arguments of the opponents of the single-hand version are not sufficiently grounded. However, the attribution of objects and texts is not a final goal of this investigation, but just a necessary step towards their interpretation. Who actually was this outstanding man? How he acquired such a treasure? Why had he such a rich biography? What do the details of his biography mean?

This task is much more complicated since the actual stage of Western Zhou studies looks like a battle of many scholars’ contradictory opinions with very few touchstones of common agreement. The author introduces to the reader some hot spots of the relevant academic debate. This demonstrates that it is not simply possible to understand Ke’s personal history through the already well-studied and defined historical context of the Zhou state and society. Contrarily, interpretation of Ke’s personal data on the ground of their comparison with the data of other contemporary epigraphic materials influences much more the general representation of the late Western Zhou period and the evaluation of traditionally transmitted literary sources, which used to be the backbone of historical knowledge until the recent times. In particular, the author investigates an apparently tiny detail of Ke’s curriculum vitae: his official title shanfu. This word literally signifies “a good man”, however, unlikely to the English “gentleman” it was not used in Western Zhou in a general sense. According to the late Warring States (mid. V Cent. – 222 BC) – Western Han (206 BC – 9 AD) text “The Zhou Rituals” shanfu was a kind of chief-cook or major-domo of a Zhou king. However, the biography of Ke and information about other shanfu, known from epigraphic materials demonstrates that this view was certainly false. Shanfu were entrusted with control and arrangements of strategically important institutions of the Zhou state: military garrisons, granaries or border markets, and possibly acted sometimes as king’s representatives in the redistribution of service land possessions among Zhou office-holders and noblemen. The author provides a suggestion, how this misinterpretation could occur, and how the adequate interpretation of shanfu’s responsibilities can be deduced from the analysis of various western Zhou bronze inscriptions. There were probably shanfu on a different level, but these, residing, as shanfu Ke directly at the Zhou capital, probably had the status and powers comparable to that of a minister, what also explains his exclusive richness.

In connection to various details of Ke’s biography the author touches other questions, such as the role of the Zhou plain as a political, administrative and social centre of Zhou, Zhou historical geography, investiture ceremonial, aristocratic rank system and family organisation. Extensive footnotes are provided in order to acquaint non-sinologists with some basic information about Western Zhou.