The Eagle-shaped Ding: China’s 6,000-year-old Cultural Ambassador

Today, we’ll talk about the Eagle-shaped Pottery Ding, a prehistoric vessel that reveals the advanced artistry, spiritual beliefs, and enduring cultural legacy of ancient Chinese civilization.

Transcript

The Eagle-shaped Ding: China’s 6,000-year-old Cultural Ambassador

Today, we’ll talk about the Eagle-shaped Pottery Ding, a prehistoric vessel that reveals the advanced artistry, spiritual beliefs, and enduring cultural legacy of ancient Chinese civilization.

In our previous podcast, we discussed a pair of owl-shaped wine vessels unearthed in the tomb of Fu Hao, China’s first female general, as well as the cultural significance of owls throughout Chinese history. Now, let’s talk about another important antique related to a different animal – the majestic eagle.

In the summer of 1958, the fields of Taipingzhuang in Huaxian County, Shaanxi Province, sweltered under a scorching sun. Farmer Yin Siyi was sweating profusely as he weeded his plot of land. Suddenly, with a sharp clang, his hoe struck something hard, jolting his hand so severely that it went numb. “What on earth is so hard?” he muttered, crouching down to dig through the soil with his hands.

Gradually, the outline of a dusty object emerged – a round, bulging belly, two stout and somewhat clumsy legs firmly embedded in the earth, and at the top, a bird-like head, with a pair of wide, staring “eyes” silently “watching” him.

Yin Siyi dug the whole thing out, weighed it in his hands, and tapped the side of the vessel with his finger. It made a deep, solid thud. Wiping the mud from his hands onto his pants, he looked at the strange, dirt-covered object and thought it was too good to throw away. “Perfect,” he said to himself, “the old clay bowl we use to feed the chickens is cracked. This can take its place!”

And so, the pottery piece that would later be hailed as a priceless national treasure – the Eagle-shaped Pottery Ding – was casually carried home by Yin Siyi and placed next to the chicken coop, beginning its short-lived and humble “career” as a chicken feed bowl. The hens showed no respect for this newcomer, stepping all over its sturdy body day after day as they pecked at the scattered grains.

That autumn, an archaeology team from Peking University discovered the Yangshao cultural site at Huaxian County. The Yangshao culture was a major Neolithic culture in northern China, particularly along the Yellow River, flourishing from around 6,000 to 3,000 BCE. While excavating the Quanhucun site, the team also conducted surveys in nearby areas. Taipingzhuang, located just west of Quanhucun, was practically connected to it by both land and village boundaries. Seeing the archaeologists hard at work, Yin Siyi approached one of the team members who was conducting a village survey and told him about the pottery piece he had unearthed. He then handed over the Eagle Ding to the archaeological team.

A ceramic eagle with a full, rounded form and a powerful sense of primitive force stands proudly upright. Its head is held high, and its wide, round eyes gleam with intensity, as if capable of piercing through time itself. Its hooked beak, slightly open, captures the precise moment of sharpness before a raptor strikes. Two thick, pillar-like legs and a naturally drooping, robust tail are ingeniously combined to form an exceptionally stable tripod structure. At the center of its broad back, a circular, open mouth reveals its essential function as a vessel.

The entire artifact stands 35.8 cm tall, with a mouth diameter of 23.3 cm and a maximum belly diameter of 32 cm. Its body is cast in the distinctive austere gray-black tone of Yangshao pottery, devoid of any ornate painted designs. Yet the artisan, through masterful control of clay, managed to express the alertness of an eagle, the strength of a bird of prey, and the solemn dignity of a ceremonial vessel – purely through form. This eagle seems poised to spread its wings and let out a piercing cry, echoing across six thousand years.

The Eagle Ding was carefully wrapped layer by layer in soft cotton paper and wadding, packed into a custom-made wooden crate, and personally escorted to Beijing. There, it was solemnly placed into the collection of the Institute of Archaeology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, later transferred to the National Museum of China. In 2002, when the State Administration of Cultural Heritage released its First List of Cultural Relics Prohibited from Exhibition Abroad, the Eagle Ding, due to its irreplaceable value and fragility, topped the list, becoming a national treasure of the highest order, protected with the utmost care.

This ceramic eagle, as if it had traveled through a tunnel of time, traces its spiritual homeland to Quanhucun in Huaxian County, Shaanxi – a land nourished for millennia by the waters of the Wei River. The Quanhucun site represents a large central settlement of the late Yangshao Culture (circa 3500-2900 BCE) in the Yellow River basin.  

Imagine the scene six thousand years ago: clear river waters flowing gently, millet heads bending over fields of fertile soil. The ancestors built semi-subterranean dwellings and formed orderly villages. They ground stone tools, fired pottery, cultivated millet and broomcorn, and raised pigs and dogs. Life was tough, but the stability of agricultural living allowed their spirits to seek more than sustenance – to yearn for beauty, to revere the forces of nature, and to imagine the existence of a transcendent world.

The Eagle Ding is a brilliant fusion of practical needs and spiritual belief, forged by the hands of a prehistoric artisan. It is, first and foremost, a ding – a vessel used to hold grain, water, or for ritual offerings. But the people of the Yangshao culture did not stop at mere utility. They infused their observations of life, their reverence for power, and their awe for the mysterious into the very clay itself.

The creation of this vessel embodied the highest level of intelligence and craftsmanship of the time. The artisan would have carefully selected fine-grained clay and, to enhance the strength of the pottery during drying and firing while minimizing the risk of cracking, likely mixed in crushed sand or grit – what archaeologists call sand-tempered pottery.

For the main body, the artisan employed the advanced pottery technique of the time known as the coil-building method – rolling moist clay into long strips and stacking them in spirals to gradually build up the rounded belly and back of the eagle. But that alone was far from enough. To sculpt a lifelike eagle – especially to capture the unique essence of an eagle – required far more refined hand-modeling skills.

The artisan must have spent long hours observing eagles perched in nearby woods or ruins: how their large, bulging eyes glowed faintly in the dark, how their short, powerful hooked beaks tore into prey, how their sturdy, feathered legs gripped tree branches with strength and precision. With these vivid images in mind, lumps of soft clay came to life in the artisan’s hands – shaped into dramatically protruding round eyes, a sharply hooked beak with its tip slightly open. as if freezing in time, a deep, echoing hoot.

The most ingenious part lies in the treatment of the eagle’s legs and tail. This was not only an artistic decision, but a structural one – vital to the vessel’s ability to stand securely. The artisan crafted the two legs and one tail thick and solid, like roots plunging deep into the earth, bearing the weight of the rounded body above. This profound understanding of balance and center of gravity, combined with exquisite execution, remains deeply impressive – even by modern standards.

The shaped clay vessel was left to dry slowly in a cool, shaded place before being placed in a kiln. There, under blazing heat of approximately 800 to 1,000 degrees Celsius, the clay underwent its most magical transformation – changing from soft and malleable to hard and enduring. When it emerged from the kiln, the vessel displayed the unpainted, rustic gray-black hue typical of Yangshao pottery.

Unlike the painted pottery jars and basins of the same period – often adorned with intricate fish patterns, human faces, or geometric designs – the Eagle Ding stood out in its near-complete austerity. Yet, it is precisely this absence of surface decoration that gives the piece its breathtaking artistic power. The artisan poured all their skill and emotion into the form itself, using sheer shape and presence to convey strength and spirit.

The coarse texture of the clay and the strikingly lifelike modeling together give the eagle a raw, almost tangible vitality. Though it stands silently, it seems surrounded by the night winds of the Wei River Plain from six thousand years ago, echoing with the cry of eagles from ancient forests. It was not only a utilitarian vessel for daily use, but also a sacred object in the minds of early peoples – bridging heaven and earth, embodying the spirit of courage and fearlessness.

The reemergence of the Eagle Ding was like a giant stone cast into the still waters of archaeology – its ripples profoundly reshaping scholarly understanding of the origins of Chinese art. Before its discovery, many experts believed that China’s independent and highly expressive sculptural art did not mature until the Shang and Zhou dynasties, marked by fierce and mysterious bronze beast motifs and zoomorphic ritual vessels.

Yet the Eagle Ding, with its astonishingly realistic design, capturing every detail with uncanny precision, its perfectly executed three-dimensional form, fully independent and complete from every viewing angle, and its imposing size of 36 centimeters, a monumental scale for Neolithic clay sculptures, makes an irrefutable claim: the glorious origins of Chinese independent sculpture must be traced back much further – to the late Neolithic era.

This prehistoric sculpture predates the majestic army of the Qin Terracotta Warriors by a full three thousand years. It stands silently, yet speaks volumes – a rewritten textbook of art history in and of itself.

But its value goes beyond being a milestone in sculptural history. It shattered the long-standing assumption that Neolithic pottery was purely functional, with decoration limited to painted surface designs. The anonymous genius of the Yangshao culture behind this piece achieved a stunning synthesis of sculptural language and utilitarian purpose. This marked a critical moment: Chinese ancestors were no longer content with simply making containers – they began to imbue their creations with soul, power, and aesthetic beauty.

The Eagle Ding from the Neolithic period was unearthed from the tomb of an adult woman. Alongside it were more than a dozen bone daggers, several stone ritual tablets, stone axes, and a collection of domestic pottery. Items like the ritual tablets and bone daggers were typically used as ritual implements. That the Eagle Ding was placed among these ceremonial objects, and in such a unique form, strongly suggests a connection to religious or sacrificial practices of the time.

The choice to sculpt this ceremonial vessel in the form of an eagle was no mere aesthetic preference. It was a vivid reflection of primitive eagle worship – a totemic belief embodied in physical form. That such a weighty ritual object, likely used in sacrificial rites or significant tribal events, was crafted as an eagle speaks volumes about the people’s desires. It symbolized prayers for eagle spirits to provide divine protection, the expulsion of misfortune, the safeguarding of the homeland, and the blessing of abundant harvests.

The allure of the Eagle Ding has long transcended national borders, becoming one of the oldest and most unique ambassadors of Chinese civilization. In 1993, when Beijing made its first bid to host the Olympic Games, the Olympic Bid Committee carefully selected seven of China’s most iconic national treasures to showcase the profound depth and long history of Chinese culture at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. Among this star-studded lineup, the Eagle Ding stood proudly included.

It stood alongside other world-renowned relics such as the mysterious bronze masks with protruding eyes from Sanxingdui and the imposing Terracotta Warriors of the Qin Shi Huang Mausoleum. Under the bright display lights in Lausanne, its charming yet powerful form instantly captivated countless Western visitors, drawing their curiosity and admiration.

Its primitive and unpretentious artistic language transcended cultural barriers, becoming one of the most direct and striking windows through which the world could appreciate China’s prehistoric civilization. It boldly proclaimed to the world that the dawn of Chinese civilization had already shone with such a unique and dazzling brilliance at the very earliest moments of human history.

Well, that’s the end of our podcast. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Lü Weitao, translator Wang Yuyan, and copy editor Pu Ren. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.