"An excellent overview of studies focusing on lost-wax casting in Bronze Age China ... a fresh contribution to a long-standing debate. It offers many constructive points on the identification, origin, and transmission of this exotic casting method. The 190 pages of main text is followed by 223 pages of figures, which are mostly images of the bronze artifacts that are mentioned throughout the text; these provide much-needed illustrations for the complicated technical discussions. ... Readers will find a systematic and insightful review of previous studies on this topic and sophisticated characterizations of many important artifacts that are regarded as the products of lost-wax casting (chapters 2–6). This book is a highly useful introduction and resource for researchers and students who are seeking to obtain a detailed understanding of these discussions. ... The most inspiring parts of this book are chapters 7 and 8 ... on how and why this technology was introduced to and developed in China. Peng highlights the importance of this topic for a more general investigation of Late Bronze Age China and its interaction with surrounding regions. ... based on the contents of this book, that researchers can finally put aside previous disputes and move forward to more culturally significant questions, thereby joining the effort to develop new investigative tools for answering these questions." –Asian Perspectives: The Journal of Archaeology and the Pacific
"This book is well structured and written, offering, for the first time, a thorough and excellent assessment in English of the use of lost-wax casting technology in Bronze Age China, an extremely difficult and complex topic, which Professor Peng should be congratulated for his masterly treatment of the subject. This impressive book—with its wide, detailed coverage, high-quality illustrations, and extensive list of references—will receive much attention from students and scholars working on Chinese archaeology as well as the history of metalworking, and will certainly stimulate much more research on lost–wax casting technology in early China in the years to come." —Jianjun Mei, Senior Research Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge University; and Director, Needham Research Institute
"This study is a very interesting and thought-provoking look at the question of lost-wax casting in Ancient China, its origins and introduction, and how one can confirm its use in castings. Professor Peng does not shrink from entertaining contradictory views on how particular objects were made. He thoroughly assesses objects possibly made by lost-wax casting (he has examined many of them himself) and deals with the complexities of determining whether particular objects were made by lost-wax or by piece-molding techniques. This book is a very useful compendium of controversial examples, and a good overview of what we know (and don’t know) about early lost-wax casting in China." —Tom Chase, Head Conservator (ret.), Freer and Sackler Galleries, Smithsonian Institution
“In pre-imperial China, lost-wax casting was very rarely used. As the identification of the technique has generated lively debates among specialists, some disputing the possibility of its use, a comprehensive investigation of its history is long overdue. For the first time, through the careful investigation of Professor Peng we have with this well-researched book a complete state-of-the-field report on this issue.” —Alain Thote, Directeur d’études, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris
