CIIC:Today's featured article/October 2, 2009

The taozhong, the earliest kind of bell, appeared in primitive Chinese society. It was an instrument for labouring people to play after work. The introduction of metal brought about the tongnao (a bronze percussion instrument resembling an inverted bell, sounded by a hammer), tongling (a small bronze bell) and tongzhong (a bronze bell). Then they evolved into the bianling (a chime of small bells), biannao (a chime of percussion instruments resembling inverted bells) and bianzhong (a chime of bells). (More ... )