Xinzheng

Area in central Honan province, China, with an Eastern Zhou (Chou) tomb which was ransacked. More than a hundred bronze ritual vessels and bells said to belong to the find are now divided among museums in Beijing and Taibei. The vessels, of the 8th-6th centuries BC, show a change to more elegant forms, often decorated with an allover pattern of tightly interlaced serpents; vessels may be set about with tigers and dragons modeled in the round and topped with flaring, petaled lids. The name of the site is now attached to these patterns. A group of monumental vessels found at Xinzheng and affiliated with Ch'u bronzes are not of this style.

[Hsin-cheng]. district in central Henan province, China, where an early Eastern Zhou tomb was rifled in 1923. More than a hundred bronze ritual vessels and bells said to belong to the find are now divided among museums in Beijing and Taibei. The somewhat disparate contents of the hoard, accumulated perhaps by several generations of a noble family, range in date from the late 8th to the early 6th century bc. Many of the bronzes carry dense surface patterns built up of identical small rectangular units of dragon interlace, a form of decoration widely popular in the late 7th and 6th centuries bc (examples were included, for instance, in the Liyu hoard). The name of the site is now attached to these patterns even though the ‘Xinzheng style’ has no special connection with the Xinzheng region. The most outstanding objects from the tomb, a group of monumental vessels affiliated with Chu bronzes (see Xiasi), do not carry Xinzheng-style patterns.