Dong Son Drums Trivia Quiz

Answer: Vietnam

There are a lot of Red Rivers in the world, but the Dong Son culture thrived near the mouth of the one that flows through southern China and northern Vietnam, where it enters the Gulf of Tonkin, an arm of the South China Sea. The name refers to the reddish-brown color of its waters due to the silt it carries.

The cities of Hanoi (capital of Vietnam) and Haiphong, an important port city, are located on the Red River Delta. In 1924, a fisherman from the village of Dong Son came across the first artefacts belonging to what is now called the Dong Son culture.

The Dong Son people, also known as Lạc Việt, were skilled artists, who recorded many facets of their culture on these drums.

Answer: Bronze

The term Bronze Age describes different periods of time in different parts of the world, as it describes the use of that alloy in production of tools and other items, and is not defined by precise dates. Cultures are often described as progressing from the Stone Age through the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, as they develop techniques for producing increasingly sophisticated tools and (especially) weapons.

The art of making bronze implements is thought to have arrived in Southeast Asia from China, although some scholars believe it rose independently in Thailand.

The (relative) abundance of drums from the Dong Son culture, showing steady changes over the centuries, has made them very useful in helping provide a reference point for other archaeological finds.

Answer: Lost-wax casting

Lost-wax casting is one of the earliest known methods used for producing intricately-shaped metal objects. The first step is making a hollow clay core, then a clay mould on which the decorations are added (raised clay forming indented wax, therefore raised metal areas, and vice versa) is placed outside, so that molten wax can be poured onto the mould.

When the wax is cooled, it is placed around the core, then covered with another layer of clay. When this is heated, the wax melts and runs out, leaving a space for the molten metal to be poured in. Once the metal has set, the clay is removed, and the metal has the desired shape and patterns.

Answer: False

Drums of a range of sizes and shapes appear to have been produced at the same time, although the small number of specimens (a few hundred) makes it difficult to be very confident about most of the conclusions. The Dong Son drums have been grouped by archaeologists according to their size (up to a metre in height and diameter, and weighing nearly 200 kg) and the subject matter and nature of the ornamentation.

There is no consensus about the division between the groups, which are really better described as stages along a continuum rather than discrete groups. Several different classification schemes have been proposed.

In a classification scheme proposed by Pham Huy Thong in 1990, the earliest group features waterbirds as a prominent theme; one group has a group of men, presumed to be warriors, at the centre of the top, with the waterbirds in a surrounding circle; the last group adds toads on the outer rim, with the sides of the drum featuring boats or geometric patterns. Keiji Imamura offered a more detailed classification scheme in 1993, with six explicit categories (which he called types) based on patterns.

In 2006 he expanded this classification system to add four larger groupings (which he called phases) to allow small fragments to be placed with some confidence. In other words, if there isn't enough information to decide between 1a and 1b, the fragment can still be placed in phase 1. The toads on the edge of the tympanum of the drum shown in the image suggest that it was made late in the time of the Dong Son culture.

Answer: New Zealand

Archaeologists tracing the changes in bronze drums found in different parts of Southeast Asia have found definite patterns showing that the different regions did not operate in isolation, but were strongly influenced by trade with their neighbours. The latest Dong Son drums show definite changes towards the style found earlier in Indonesia, while Dong Son styled drums began to appear in Indonesia during the first century BCE, when they also appeared in Thailand and on the Malay Peninsula.

In southern China, bronze drums seem to have disappeared for a century or so, before Dong Son drums came on the scene, replacing the style that had been found there earlier.

Answer: Ring of circles connected by tangent lines

The flying birds are a feature of almost all the drums, but their style changed over time, and the shape shown here was from one of the earliest stages. Animals (in this case, deer) come and go, and are not a distinctive feature of any particular stage. The decorations also typically include people in feathered headdresses, sometimes engaged in everyday activities such as gathering rice, sometimes apparently armed and on their way to war. The geometric rings, however, show a definite temporal change. The earliest have circles linked by tangents, such as seen in two bands here. These are replaced in later examples, with a simple row of circles touching each other a more likely band patterns. Other geometric bands used parallelograms and/or triangles.

This picture seems to be part of the Ngọc Lũ drum, one of the most archaeologically significant examples of a Dong Son drum.

Answer: It contained around 200 pieces of bronze

While all of these statements are true, the other three are unremarkable. The collection of bronze artefacts inside this drum represented the largest single collection found at that time in Southeast Asia. It included pieces of 96 ploughshares, six hoes, and sixteen spearheads. One of the spearheads generated special interest as it was bimetallic - the socket was bronze, but the blade was iron.

The drum itself is pretty impressive: 57 cm high, 73.6 cm across, and weighing 72 kg. The tympanum has, in addition to the geometric patterns, a band of flying birds around the outside, and a series of images involving human figures inside it.

These include some warriors with spears, a group of musicians and some rice threshers.

Answer: It has three concentric panels of people and/or animals rather than two

Most Dong Son drums have a number of geometric figures, and two bands of animate beings. The outer band is usually flying birds or a mixture of birds and other animals, and the inner band involved human activities. This drum has birds on the outside, then deer, then the humans, who are engaged in a range of activities. The band shows the same (or similar) activities multiple times. These include two processions of musicians (led by someone carrying a spear) wearing feathered headdresses, approaching a building near which people are working in the rice field, and several groups of drummers. On the mantle (the curved side of the drum) there is another procession, of warriors this time, with decorated canoes.

This drum is considered so important in what it shows about the early civilisation of Vietnam that it was declared a national treasure in 2012.

Answer: A bird is eating the rice in the field

Once again there is a combination of warriors and musicians approaching a house. This time, there is nobody in the rice fields - the only person is standing near the house playing a drum, while a bird raids the rice crop. This is more in line with the usual interpretation of the processions on these and other drums as showing some kind of celebratory ritual - with everyone focused on the celebration, nobody is working.

The nature of the celebration is not clear - it may be military (given the warriors) or religious.

This drum only has the usual two bands - egrets and people; the band of deer seen on the Ngọc Lũ drum is absent.

Answer: The procession of men seem to be dancing

While nobody can be sure about the nature of the processions shown on these drums, this example definitely seems different from most. For a start, the procession is shown four times, not just twice, and the groups are composed of people who all seem to be unarmed - there is no spear-carrying leader.

They are not walking upright, but seem to have their bodies bent in such a way as to indicate dancing rather than marching. Along with the Ngọc Lũ drum, this was one of the 18 national treasures put on display at the Vietnam National Museum of History in Hanoi in 2017.