Metalworking in Bronze Age China: The Lost-Wax Process

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Metalworking in Bronze Age China is the first study that adopts a comprehensive, thorough, and interdisciplinary approach toward early Chinese lost-wax castings. It shows that the dominant belief that the lost-wax process as the optimal method for casting bronzes deserves more rigorous examination. In a broader sense, the book provides a study on the norms, which are seldom questioned. By examining the reasons why Chinese founders often chose not to use the lost-wax process they had clearly mastered, the book refutes the idea that lost-wax technology is the only right way to cast bronzes. This study demonstrates that a norm is in many ways an illusion that twists our comprehension of art, technology, civilization, and history.

This book is in the Cambria Sinophone World Series, headed by Victor Mair (University of Pennsylvania).

*Includes 225 images.