Chinese piece-mould casting
China casts bronze in assembled ceramic moulds rather than beating or lost-wax.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 500 years
- Known to
- ± 100 years
- Era
- Bronze Age, Holocene
Chinese founders build up ceramic moulds in interlocking sections around a core, allowing intricate decoration to be carved into the mould itself before casting. The results — ding cauldrons, zun vessels, enormous bells — are technically superior to anything cast in the West at the time and are made for ritual rather than for tools or weapons. Bronze in China is above all a religious material, used to feed the ancestors.