You wine vessel

The you was a ritual wine vessel in use from the Shang dynasty (c.1600–1046 BCE) to the mid–Western Zhou dynasty in the 800s BCE. It evolved from its early form—an oval base and a broad body that swelled at the center and tapered to a wide neck—into various body shapes, including cylindrical and four-sided ones. By the late Shang, animal or bird-form you emerged. This you is very close to its basic form of the Shang but shorter and stouter. The body and the domed lid, interrupted only by two unsegmented flanges at the ends of the oval, constitute two large fields for the principal decoration: the taotie (composite animal) masks, executed in rather high, rounded relief on a bare ground. Two winged dragons appear in each panel of the narrow bands; those in one panel facing those in the next. The animal head with palm-like horn at the end of the handle is a characteristic design from the western region of Shaanxi province.