Thousands of years of Chinese civilization in the primitive age has long been sealed in green rust-ridden bronze vessels and modern people have yet to find the key to opens them. Though we know legends and myths of our ancestors are kept in those vessels, we have no courage to open them whenever our eyes touch on horrible appearance of those bronze wares.

While we are eager to unfold the mystery of bronze wares, we may wonder how significant the Bronze Age is to Chinese civilization. In fact, the time-honored five-thousand-year Chinese civilization embraced its first peak in Bronze Age, which set the course for Chinese history. If the history of Egypt is a history carved on stone, the history of China is a history cast in bronze wares.

Why awe-inspiring bronze wares have always triggered out in-depth thoughts of us? There is no definite answer so far. Throughout Chinese hisotry, bronze wares have kept incredible silence. But even today, historians, archeologists and experts on fine art history have not give up their study of the mystery of bronze wares.On the remains of the Shang Dynasty in Henan, you can see no sign of miracle but peaceful villages, familiar livestock and farmers busy with harvesting. It is hard to believe that underneath the soil ploughed every year are buried residences of our ancestors. What you can see is nothing but only shallow square holes dug by archeologists; there is no sign of ancient bronze ware production. Near the village there is a stream. According to archeologists, the stream has existed for thousands of years. How lucky the villagers are! They drink the same water with our ancestors. In the distance, through the swaying crops and trees, you seem to envisage smoke rising from the kilns where bronze wares were cast by our ancestors.