石鼓山周墓出土較多青銅器銘文,整理金文資料時觀察到銘文形制有別,經過分析注意到其差別是因鑄作工藝不同所致。直接刻于范上所鑄銘文即一般所說之陽文,屬于范刻工藝。而陰文則是刻于模芯翻范后再鑄。但晚商及西周早期多在修范時會加工字形,就是在字劃貼塑泥條致筆畫加粗而輪廓清晰,往往有肥筆現象則屬"芯塑"工藝,不加泥條修范的文字筆畫僵硬,屬于模刻工藝。三類工藝技術的運用,以范刻最早可至中商,且一直可見;芯塑流行于晚商到西周早期;模刻也見于晚商及西周早期但較少,西周中期以后至春秋一直流行。

Most bronzes from the Shigushan cemetery have inscriptions. During the analysis of this set of excavated textual materials, we observed that the morphologies of these cast inscriptions present some variations. This paper suggests those variations were caused by different casting technology. The type of inscriptions that were made directly on casting molds, or the so-called characters cut in relief, belonged to the type of carving directly on molds. Another type of inscriptions, or known as characters cut in intaglio, were made by producing imprints on molds using a model with carved inscriptions. During the Late Shang and Early Western Zhou periods, inscriptions on casting molds usually were modified via pasting thin clay-bar along the edges of imprints in order to make each stoke thicker and clearer. The inscriptions showing ‘thick stokes’ belonged to the type making and modifying inscriptions on a model first(or known as xinsu 芯塑). The type of inscriptions showing stiffed stokes and without any trace of modification by clay-bars(or known as moke 模刻) was made directly on models via carving. Among the three types of techniques, the first type that was made directly on casting molds appeared in the Middle Shang and lasted through the Zhou dynasties; the second type(xinsu) only was popular during the Late Shang and Early Western Zhou; the third type(moke) was relatively rare in the Late Shang and Early Western Zhou but became very dominant after the Middle Western Zhou until the Spring-and-Autumn period.