Dimensions: Height: 21cm

Origin: unearthed at Xialiu, Hengshan, Hunan

Zun is a wine vessel. This zun has an outward mouth, narrow neck, swelled belly and circular foot. Its shape indicates that it was a product of the Western Zhou Dynasty in the Central Plain, while it appeared in the region of Xiangjiang River not until the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Through field surveys by archaeologists, the zun was unearthed from a tomb of Eastern Zhou Dynasty, together with Ding, Bells, a Spear, and Gravel. In accordance wth the shape of bronze zun it should have been produced in the Central Plain in Western Zhou Dynasty by people in the area of Xiangjaing River. The decoration of the zun is typical, which has geometric designs of trianglular shape on the neck and circular foot, snake deigns on the belly, crocodile designs on each brim. The brim of the mouth is decorated with snake designs and the heads of the snakes are against each other two by two, with even three heads together at one place. This is the only one found with such decoration in the mouth brim until now. The body and tail of snake designs have no obvious variations. Reflecting its so called silkworm design and leave design, it is named Bronze Zun with Silkworm and Mulberry Leaf Designs. Later, because the contemporaneous bronze vessels found in the area of Xiangjiang River usually have snake designs, and ancient Yue people adored snakes, it was deemed more suitable to call it snake designs.