RENAME
In 2011, scholars argued the ding should be renamed the Houmuwu Ding - "hou" means queen in Chinese - as it was a tribute vessel that represented a son's grief at the loss of his mother.
Tang Jigen says sacrifice tributes were common in the Shang, when people believed the dead could bless the living.
Yinxu, capital of the later Shang, is now home to a China's oldest archaeological site. Located in the north of Anyang, it successfully applied for World Heritage Site status in 2006. The ding played an important role in that decision.
"It is a masterpiece of the high bronze craftsmanship 3,000 years ago, and strong evidence of a dynasty and its culture of which very little has been recorded," says Tang, who leads the Yinxu archaeological team.
It was 67 years later that Wu Peiwen was able to touch the ding again, when it was put on display in Anyang in 2006. He lived to see his former home protected and to receive a reward of 2,000 yuan before he died the same year.
AMBITION
Today, the Houmuwu Ding is an often-replicated cultural icon of Anyang. In front of almost all official buildings stands a bronze ding. Local banks, hotels and museums incorporate it in their logos.
The ding has also become a Chinese icon to mark great events. In 2007, China forged a "Ding of the Century" to present to the United Nations. The "Seeking Truth From Facts Ding" on a square in Guang'an, Sichuan Province, commemorates the centenary of Deng Xiaoping's birth. A farmer donated a "Farewell to the Land Tax Ding" to China's National Agricultural Exhibition Center to celebrate the abolition of agricultural taxes.
Wu Su'an runs a factory producing bronze replicas. Now his main business is publishing comic books and films about his grandfather's story.
His ambition is to build a hotel which will be shaped like the Houmuwu Ding, with elevators running up and down its four legs.
"My grandfather said the great contribution he made during his life was that he didn't give the ding to the Japanese," says Wu Su'an.
