Bronze 'gui', decorated with dragons, monsters and 'taotie', Shang dynasty, 12th century BC. Diameter: 7.8 inches, Height: 6 inches. Donated by P T Brooke Sewell, Esq, 1957,0221.1 © 2017 Trustees of the British Museum

'Gui' is a ritual vessel for offering food. For much of the Shang, 'gui' seem to have been made without handles and these are sometimes termed 'yu'; from late Shang and throughout the Zhou most 'gui' had two handles, although a few were cast with four.

Group of bronzes found in graves demonstrate that sets, which included a large number of shapes, were used. There were as many as twenty different types, although only a much smaller number was essential. A group of vessels of the types most commonly found in Shang tombs was recovered from a single tomb of a high-ranking Shang noble, the tomb known as Tomb 18 at Anyang Xiaotun. Wine vessels, such as this one, dominated the sets, in numbers, complexity of shape and elaboration of decoration. Food containers were less complicated and only in the Western Zhou did they come to be pre-eminent in the ritual vessel set. As a group, bronze ritual vessels would have created a striking visual effect. Golden in colour when first made, they would rapidly have turned black in the humid summer climate of north-central China.