Just as artistic styles and symbolic content evolve, changes in production processes allow for new innovations.  An understanding of the technologies used to manufacture grave goods yields better knowledge of the art’s broader cultural background.  Today, the specific nature of a production process is determined through scientific analysis; for instance X-ray testing reveals inconsistencies in a work’s medium, created through production or restoration. 

        In the case of bronze artifacts, testing brings to light concealed chaplets (fillings for holes left by struts that held multiple mold pieces in place).  A porosity gradient may also be visible, which determines the piece’s orientation during casting.  X-ray fluorescence measures with great accuracy the metallic content of a piece.  Because the manipulation of metals into alloys was important to early Chinese bronze casters, the great majority of metal pieces have been made with deliberate proportions of copper, tin, and lead. Comparing an object’s metallic composition with scientifically excavated artifacts aids in assigning it a date.  Furthermore, bronzes were sometimes cast in multiple pieces; if separate batches of alloy were used, X-ray testing reveals that fact.  In the case of ceramic objects, thermo luminescence testing determines a date range for the last firing of the object.

        Thus, developments in production processes teach us about civilizations. In this section of our exhibition, we introduce several objects from the perspective of technological and manufacturing methods.

                - Bronze Bo
                - Bronze Dui
                - Pagoda Tile
                - Horses
                - Neolithic Ceramics