Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• LI, Min

Titel

Libation ritual and the performance of kingship in early China

Ist Teil von

• Journal of anthropological archaeology, 2022-03, Vol.65, p.101370, Article 101370

Ort / Verlag

Elsevier Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2022

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• •Origins of royal libation ritual and performance of kingship.•Contextual analysis of libation assemblage.•Emergence of bronze ritual assemblages.•Libation ritual as techniques for engaging with the sacred and ancestral. Building on a diverse array of previous discoveries, this paper investigates the intersection of alcohol consumption, ritual performance, and political representations in early China. It traces the emergence and elaboration of a libation assemblage in coastal Neolithic mound centers to its incorporation into Bronze Age high culture, whereas it became an important medium for religious communication in Zhou bronze inscriptions and ritual texts. As the ritual process bound the living with the ancestral and supernatural realms, the deep continuities in these ritual practices and associated assemblage reveal an emerging notion of kingship in the political evolution of early China that took alcohol and alcohol-related rituals as its primary representation of political and ritual authority. This close connection between libation and power becomes the defining attribute of Bronze Age material culture in early China.