■公盨铭文考释

Decipherment of the Inscription on the Duke Bin Xu Oval Container

北京保利艺术博物馆新近入藏西周中期青铜器公盨,铭10行98字(图一),内容十分重要。兹谨释写铭文,并做初步考释。天令(命)禹专土,隓(堕)山(濬) 川,乃(任)(地)(艺)征,降民监德,乃自乍(作)配乡(相)民,成父母,生我王。乍(则)臣(氏十)(厥)显唯德。

A bronze vessel of the mid Western Zhou period, called Duke Bin xu oval container, has recently teen brought into the collection of Beijing Baoli Museum of Art. It bears an inscription consisting of 98 characters in ten lines, which states Great Yu's regulation of rivers and watercourses and moral education in the Western Zhou period. The historical statements are mostly corresponding to tex-tural records and suggest that ancient Chinese historiography became a considerable system in the mid Western Zhou Dynasty. They have important value to the study of the history of ancient China and the ideological history of the pre-Qin period. The present paper makes a decipherment of the inscription and a preliminary study of the problems it concerns.