Bảo tàng lịch sử Quốc gia

The Dong Son culture, an influential and splendidly shining culture in Vietnam, was identified and studied in the first year of the 20 th century. In the past one century of Dong Son culture studies, invaluable values of this culture on a variety of aspects, of which include such bronze artifact collections as bronze drums, manufacturin tools, weapons ornaents, artistic finds and so on, have been acknowledge. In addition, a large number of utensils utilized in daily life of the past people have been recovered, comprising basket-shaped bronze containers with lids – a precious utensil carrying a great deal of material and spiritual values that could be used to compare with bronze drums in terms of size, design notifs, artistic syles as well as spiritual values and beliefs of Dong Son residents.

It is evident that the number of Dong Son basket-shaped bronze containers of varyin sizes and shapes found is rather significant. The number of this artifact, to some extend, might be tantamount to that of Dong Son bronze drums recovered in Vietnam. On the one hand, although the provenance and the ownership of Dong Son bronze drums are under controversy, it is undeniable that the Dong Son basket-shaped bronze containers belong to ancient Vietnamese people.

“Dong Son basket-shaped bronze” collected, described, measured, drawed, classified and extracted as much information as possible on various types of basket-shaped bronze containers so far discovered. The book have also endeavored to gather and extract necessary information for the purpose of contributing to the understanding of the origin of this special artifact type of the Dong Son culture – a product, similar to bronze drums, containing both material and spiritual significance in the ancient Vietnamese civilization.

The book consists of three main content:

Part I. About the Dong Son culture and studing basket-shaped bronze in Vietnam.
Part II. The types of basket-shaped.

Part III. The character and artistic value of basket-shaped bronze.

The Library of Vietnam National Museum of History (No. 25 Tong Dan - Hoan Kiem - Ha Noi) is pleased to introduce all readers!

Trang Nhung