Metalworking in Bronze Age China is the first study that adopts a comprehensive, thorough, and interdisciplinary approach toward early Chinese lost-wax castings. It shows that the dominant belief that the lost-wax process as the optimal method for casting bronzes deserves more rigorous examination. In a broader sense, the book provides a study on the "norms," which are seldom questioned. By examining the reasons why Chinese founders often chose not to use the lost-wax process they had clearly mastered, the book refutes the idea that lost-wax technology is the only "right way" to cast bronzes. This study demonstrates that a "norm" is in many ways an illusion that twists our comprehension of art, technology, civilization, and history.
This book is in the Cambria Sinophone World Series, headed by Victor Mair (University of Pennsylvania).
*Includes 225 images.

Peng Peng is an assistant professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Prior to this appointment, Professor Peng was a visiting assistant professor of Asian art history at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He holds a PhD and an MA from Princeton University, an MA and a BA from Peking University. Professor Peng's research centers on the art, archaeology, visual and material cultures of ancient East Asia; and his work has been published in Orientations and Sino-Platonic Papers.