What kinds of information appear in late Shang bronze inscriptions?

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Chinese bronzes Bronze gu from Anyang, Henan province, China, Shang dynasty (c. 1600–1046 bce); in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Mo.

In late Shang times, bronze vessels began to feature short, cast, dedicatory inscriptions. These inscriptions typically provided the following information:

The name of the vessel type.1
The name of the patron who commissioned the vessel.1
The name of the ancestor to whom the vessel was dedicated.1
A clan name, which was often enclosed within an inscribed notched square known as a yaxing.1

While these inscriptions were used to identify the vessel and its purpose in ancestral rites, they were distinct from the more extensive records found on oracle bones, which documented the activities of the theocratic Shang government. Some vessels intended for the tomb were also inscribed with the posthumous ancestral names of the newly deceased.12