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    DongSon Ken Gegou

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    Lourdes
    The Dong Son period in Vietnam lasted from 2000 BCE to 200 CE. During this time, bronze drums were created using the lost-wax casting technique, which required advanced metallurgical skills. These drums provide insights into Dong Son culture, depicting daily life and rituals through images of humans, animals, and geometric motifs centered around a star. Drums from the Dong Son period had a significant influence on neighboring regions in Southeast Asia and were traded as far as Indonesia. While the exact purpose of the drums remains uncertain, they demonstrate the high artistic achievement of Dong Son civilization.

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    DongSon Ken Gegou

    Uploaded by

    Lourdes
    93 views3 pages
    The Dong Son period in Vietnam lasted from 2000 BCE to 200 CE. During this time, bronze drums were created using the lost-wax casting technique, which required advanced metallurgical skills. These drums provide insights into Dong Son culture, depicting daily life and rituals through images of humans, animals, and geometric motifs centered around a star. Drums from the Dong Son period had a significant influence on neighboring regions in Southeast Asia and were traded as far as Indonesia. While the exact purpose of the drums remains uncertain, they demonstrate the high artistic achievement of Dong Son civilization.

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    Dong Son drums

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    The Dong Son period in Vietnam lasted from 2000 BCE to 200 CE. During this time, bronze drums were created using the lost-wax casting technique, which required advanced metallurgical skills. These drums provide insights into Dong Son culture, depicting daily life and rituals through images of humans, animals, and geometric motifs centered around a star. Drums from the Dong Son period had a significant influence on neighboring regions in Southeast Asia and were traded as far as Indonesia. While the exact purpose of the drums remains uncertain, they demonstrate the high artistic achievement of Dong Son civilization.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    93 views3 pages

    DongSon Ken Gegou

    Uploaded by

    Lourdes
    The Dong Son period in Vietnam lasted from 2000 BCE to 200 CE. During this time, bronze drums were created using the lost-wax casting technique, which required advanced metallurgical skills. These drums provide insights into Dong Son culture, depicting daily life and rituals through images of humans, animals, and geometric motifs centered around a star. Drums from the Dong Son period had a significant influence on neighboring regions in Southeast Asia and were traded as far as Indonesia. While the exact purpose of the drums remains uncertain, they demonstrate the high artistic achievement of Dong Son civilization.

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    Dong Son Drums

    (C35 p.35)
    The Dong Son period is characterized as a period lasting from 2000BCE to 200CE, being
    the formation period of the Vietnamese nation under a royal dynasty. It also represents
    the end of the Bronze Age for the Iron Age. As well as the archeological material from the
    Dong Son period was very rich, its related culture is said to have had a great influence on
    its neighbor regions through important connections with the Tibeto-Burman, Thai and
    Mon-Khmer cultures. Such expansion can be explained thanks to the skillfulness of the
    Dong Son people, as they were great agriculturists, fisherman or bold sailors. Living in
    large huts closed to the sea or rivers, their boats traversed all the China Sea.
    Archeological discoveries in Thailand in the 1970's showed that bronze casting began in
    Southeast Asia before being borrowed by the Chinese. Such discoveries confirmed that the
    origin bronze drums of the Dong Son period can be closely related in basic structural
    features and decorative design to the pottery of the Phung Ngyuen culture (5000BCE ~
    4000BCE), as well as being reported in South and Southwest China, Myanmar, Thailand,
    Laos and Indonesia. Up to 140 drums were also located throughout all Viet Nam. In fact, if
    most of the drums were made in Viet Nam or South China, they were trade in Java and
    Bali islands.
    The purpose of these drums (religious ceremonies, wars...) is still uncertain.
    Nevertheless, they were appreciated for their very high artistic level compared to the
    others civilizations of that time. These drums depict the Dong Son society in their daily
    chores or spiritual life with images of object, humans and animals. There is always a star
    on their center, encircled by concentric panels of scenes with humans and animals or
    geometric motifs. It can be understand from these pictures the rituals of the Dong Son
    people and their constant fighting for survival against peoples from the North.

    A close-up of the centre of the


    tympanum dominated by an
    eight-point star with butterfly
    motifs between the rays.

    Birds, deer, buffaloes and


    hornbills were depicted.
    Dr. Franz Hager, an Austrian ethnographer, gave his name in 1902 to a classification of
    Southeast Asian drums (Alte Metalltrommeln aus Sdost-Asien). The classification
    categorized the bronze drums by their shape, dimension, weight, decorative design,
    chemical composition, and casting techniques in four types (I to IV, see below). Thanks to
    new discoveries in 1975, Vietnamese archaeologists proposed a new classification in five

    categories (A to E, see below). In these classifications, due to their characteristics, the


    Dong Son drums should be classified in groups I and B.

    Franz Hagers classification


    Vietnamese archeologists classification
    Date

    Grp

    Examples

    6BCE
    to
    3BCE

    Ngoc Lu,
    Hoang Ha, Co
    Loa, Song Da,
    Mieu Mon

    5BCE
    to
    1BCE

    Duy Tien, Yen


    Tap, Phu Duy,
    Dong Son

    Face: 56-65cm dia.


    Height: 47-53cm;
    slender & tall body

    simpler and marked different


    geometric motifs from Group A

    mostly in Viet Nam

    4BCE
    to 1CE

    Hieu Chung,
    Dong Hieu,
    Thanh Van

    Face: 34-116cm dia.


    Height: 24-92cm

    sophisticated & stylized as


    Group A; 4 frog sculptures near
    the rim of the face

    mostly in Viet Nam

    ew, simple & crude; Flaws


    resulted from poor casting
    techniques

    few in Viet Nam & mostly in


    Southern China

    simple & meager; influenced


    from other cultural forms; some
    only 1/3 of face

    mostly in Southern China

    4BCE
    to 1CE

    Dao Xa, Tung


    Lam

    1CE to
    4CE

    Cao Bang

    Size & Shape


    Face: 60-70cm dia.
    Height: 40-50cm;
    large & proportional;
    shouder and body of
    equal dimensions

    Face: 26-52cm dia.


    Height: 24-38cm
    heavy body; broad
    shoulder, steep slope &
    shorter base
    Face: 35-88cm dia.
    Height: 21-62cm
    undefined &
    dispropotional shoulder,
    body & base

    Design
    vivid, rich & composed

    Discovery
    mostly in Viet Nam; drums with
    sloping body were usually found
    in the highland while those having
    vertical straight body were mostly
    found in the plain

    Casting bronze drums of Dong Sun is said to be a very complex process requiring
    advanced techniques and huge artistic skills. The lost-wax casting technique was used,
    and smelting 1 to 7 tons of copper was necessary for building one "Co Loa" drum. Separate
    circular and rectangular clay moulds for different part of the drum were prepared and
    impress with a patterned old or incised with a stylus. At the end, the procedure gives the
    impression of a wax drum over a clay core.

    Investment of the wax in a layer


    of very fine clay followed before
    the assemblage was covered in a
    coarse clay coat. It was then
    necessary to melt out the wax,
    and preheat the clay old.

    How ever difficult their production was, drums of the Dong Son period were a key
    element of the culture of the becoming Viet Nam, just before the Common Era. Even if the
    purpose of these drums is still unclear, requiring a high level of technique and a great
    sense of art, it allowed the Dong Son people to have a great influence on cultures in
    Southeast Asia at this period. Thanks to their precise depictions, archeologists were also
    able to understand their daily lives and rituals.

    References:
    [1] viettouch.com: Viet Nam History/Pre-Historichttp://www.viettouch.com/pre-hist/
    [2] L'Asie EXotique: Frog Drums and their importance in Karen Culture, Sylvia Fraser-Lu
    http://www.lasieexotique.com/mag_frogdrums.html

    Ken GGOUT
    04M54040ken@tt.cs.titech.ac.jp

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