This article explores the manner in which the Eurasian metallurgical tradition was transformed into an indigenous tradition on the Chinese Central Plains. It argues that the association of luminosity with the divine has a cognitive foundation, which accounts for the use translucent stones and shiny metals, including copper, bronze, silver, and gold as mediums for religious artifacts throughout the world. In China, this association was the primary impetus for the development of an indigenous metallurgy based on a piece-mold and coring technology. Although the technology ultimately concentrated on the production of ritual vessels, it was first developed at Yanshi Erlitou 偃師二里頭 for the production of clapper-bells (ling 鈴), which had similar round hollow bodies.

We further explore the history of clapper-bells, arguing that they were a development of a Central Plains tradition dating back to the Yangshao 仰韶 period (5000–3000 b.c.e.). We argue that their religious significance at Erlitou lay in the previously unheard sound produced when the two luminous substances, jade and bronze, struck against one another. Thus, religious interlocutors at Erlitou used them to contact the ancestral spirits. Later, in the Yinxu 殷墟 period of the Shang Dynasty (ca. 1300–1050 b.c.e.), bronze clapper-bells were worn by dogs buried in tombs. We propose that their role there was a development of the earlier one; that is, they were used to contact the occupant's ancestral spirits as he was guided by the dog in the underworld.

This paper studies the principles according to which spatial and motion concepts metaphorically structure temporal concepts in some languages. There are two types of space–motion metaphor of time, distinguished by whether or not the metaphor is structured by a person’s perspective. “Christmas is approaching” and “We are approaching Christmas” are perspectival. “New Year’s follows Christmas” is not. This contrast in deixis and frame of reference is linguistically relevant whether the contrast has to do with imagination or external reality. Study of experiential motivations and analysis into primary metaphors helps reveal the particular ways spatial and motion concepts function in each type of metaphor. One focus is accounting for the contrasting temporal meanings that words for in-front and behind can have. For example, “Ahead of us” is later than Now, while “ahead of Christmas” is earlier than Christmas. We find that the temporal ‘directions’ expressed in the contrasting frames of reference are not opposites. Rather, they are motivated by different kinds of temporal experience. This project investigates the fundamental spatial relations that structure temporal concepts; for example co-location vs. separation. But since motion involves time, purely spatial structure is limited. Conceptual blending analysis reveals that the source and target frames of the perspectival metaphors share an aspectual – i.e., temporal – generic structure. Thus a dichotomy between ‘space’ and ‘time’ is of limited utility in describing space–motion metaphors of time. Instead, the analysis has to deal with the specific spatial and temporal concepts that function in each metaphor.