‘FANGHU’ VESSEL WITH HIGH FOOT

Description The smooth body of this fanghu - “square hu”, used to hold cereal wine and the cereals themselves - is made slender by the high hollow foot. The movable ring handles are held by applied zoomorphic masks (pushou). The neck is shaped in relief at its highest and flared part. The vase is equipped with an interlocking lid in the shape of a truncated pyramid. On each of the four oblique sides, a perforated laminar circle vaguely reminiscent of a bird is fixed, vertically, in the center: the protuberance above the ring resembles a crest, while the beak points towards the center of the lid. Many fanghu similar to this have been unearthed in tombs from the late 3rd and first half of the 2nd century BCE.