NARRATOR: To make their superb bronzes, ancient Chinese artists employed a number of different techniques. Often it's quite hard to tell just how they made them, especially when one only looks with the naked eye. For some technical insights into this object, we hear from Tony Frantz, of The Met’s Department of Scientific Research.

TONY FRANTZ: If you look closely at the surface, you can't help but notice that it's completely covered with what appear at first sight to be inlays. That is forms resembling animals, abstract shapes, star patterns. And I say it appears that these were done as inlays, but a careful radiographic study of this object shows that what appear to be inlays, is in fact a set of pieces of metal that were carefully placed in the mould before the vessel itself was cast. They were effectively the starting point for the entire vessel, and the matrix metal that forms the outer part of the shapes here, was poured in subsequently.

NARRATOR: The vessel is from the late Zhou, a dynasty which ended in about 250 BC.

TONY FRANTZ: The evidence here suggests that it is a decidedly innovative technique that was used, innovative certainly with respect to what had gone before in Shang and Zhou Dynasty China.