You Yǒu: A specific type of lidded ritual bronze wine vessel, often featuring a prominent swing handle and used in ancestral sacrifices.

The illustration shows a woodcut of a You vessel. These were highly prized by Song dynasty antiquarians and later collectors for their sophisticated casting and animal-head motifs at the handle's terminals.

[An illustration of an archaic ritual wine vessel (You) is depicted here, showing a stout body decorated with relief patterns, a fitted lid, and a thick handle ending in stylized animal heads.]

There are two Tripods of the Xia, seven of the Shang, and twenty-five of the Zhou; their illustrations are provided in detail within the Illustrated Catalog of Antiquity. original: 博古圖 (Bó Gǔ Tú). This refers to the Xuanhe Bogu Tu, a thirty-volume catalog compiled during the Song Dynasty (1123 CE) that meticulously documented bronze vessels in the imperial collection.

The Ding (鼎) mentioned here is a ritual cauldron, standing on legs with two facing handles. While this page is headed "You," it provides a comparative census of the Tripods across the earliest dynasties to establish the historical scope of the collection.

The Three Dynasties: Xia (夏), Shang (商), and Zhou (周) represent the foundational eras of Chinese civilization, stretching from approximately 2070 BCE to 256 BCE. The number of vessels attributed to each era reflects the rarity and survival rate of these ancient artifacts.