The museum displays a Shang-dynasty bronze wine vessel called a you.
Tips
history
卣 is archaic and not used in modern Chinese except by archaeologists naming the vessel type. The everyday word for a wine vessel is 酒器.
culture
A 卣 held aromatic ritual liquor in the Shang and Western Zhou. Inscriptions speak of gifts of 秬鬯一卣 — 'one you of black-millet sacrificial wine'.
Components
pictograph
卣yǒu
ancient wine vessel
A pictograph of a lidded, bulging wine jar: the top mark is the stopper and the enclosed body is the swelling belly of the vessel. Drawn as one unit, so it is treated as a single self-component.
Filed under radical 卜 (bǔ, #25) by convention. 卜 is not a separate component in 卣, so no strokes are highlighted.
