Chinese bronze inscriptions, also commonly referred to as Bronze script or Bronzeware script are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on Chinese ritual bronzes such as zhong bells and ding tripodal cauldrons from the Shang dynasty to the Zhou dynasty and even later. Early bronze inscriptions were almost always  cast (that is, the writing was done with a stylus in the wet clay of the piece-mold from which the bronze was then cast), while later inscriptions were often engraved after the bronze was cast.