Bell (or weight?)

In 2005 Chinese archaeologists unearthed a tomb complex 20 kilometers northwest of present-day Wuxi in Jiangsu province. So far seven aristocrats’ tombs of the Warring States period have been excavated and some 2,300 objects recovered. The unearthed ritual vessels were all made of ceramic in imitation of bronzes. Some 500 pieces were identified as musical instruments, in different shapes and sizes. Several dozen ceramic bells, similar to this example, were also discovered. Previously, art historians had assumed that such objects were weights, used to measure grain or salt. However, the Wuxi excavations definitively proved that they were not used as weights, but as bells. Like the bronze examples, they were suspended from a wooden rack and struck to produce various tones.