Seal for wine vessel Front

In the Song dynasty, wine vessel seals were called jiufeng or nitoufeng in Chinese. Lime was mixed with mud and a small amount of fiber to make a thick seal covering the mouth of a vessel that contained wine. All surviving seals from the Song dynasty are shattered or partially broken, because the seal was struck in order to open the vessel. The characters zhu qian cu jiu (describing the way the wine was prepared) are stamped on the surface of the seal. The seal served many purposes. It was designed to prevent counterfeiting and to implement taxation rules. Another purpose of the seal was to facilitate shipping and storage. Vessel seals provide valuable information for understanding the wine selling system during the Song dynasty.