Ritual wine vessel (you)
These additional variants of the you category of vessels have only two features in common: massive swing handles and tight-fitting lids.
This vessel is in fact a bottle-shaped hu equipped with a "keyhole" handle. The overall decoration consists mainly of animal motifs in flat relief and with incised details against a background of fine spirals. The knob of the lid is in the shape of a small bird with a powerful beak and with scale motifs on its breast. The dome or the lid presents three concentric zones of decoration, a couple of parallel lines in the center, surrounded by a belt with I and T-shaped scores and an outside meander band. The upper neck band contains four birds with spiraling tails and beaks, as well as unusual wattles. The lower neck band consists simply of a row of meanders. On the upper shoulder zone four taloned dragons are confronted, two by two, to form on either side of central ridges two large taotie masks. Atypically, the open mouths and teeth are clearly indicated. The narrow lower shoulder belt is made or barbed, interlocked S-shaped spirals. Basically the motifs of the main zone on the belly of the vase are similar to those of the upper shoulder band; here, however, the masks have neither mouths nor teeth, their horns are curling down instead of up and small descending dragons are located under the tails or the dragons. The main axis or the foot band is marked by two ridges serving as apexes for two shields of highly conventionalized taotie masks on either side of which is a regardant gaping dragon.
The profile of the conspicuous handle is emphasized by a flange with T-and-L-shaped scores. On both sides of this flange, incised zigzag lines delineate dotted triangles. The terminal animal heads have bottle-shaped horns and mouths that echo that or the mask on the upper shoulder band.
This handle is attached to the lid by means of a peculiar device which consists or two links, a hybrid animal partly (cicada partly bat) and a coiled dragon which swallows its tail and whose body is scaled.
