A Dong Son drum (also called Heger Type I drum) is a bronze drum fabricated by the Dong Son culture in the Red River Delta of northern Vietnam. The drums were produced from about 600 BCE or earlier until the third century CE; they are one of the culture's finest examples of metalworking.
The drums, cast in bronze using the lost-wax casting method are up to a meter in height and weigh up to 100 kilograms (220 lb). Dong Son drums were apparently both musical instruments and cult objects. They are decorated with geometric patterns, scenes of daily life and war, animals and birds, and boats. The latter alludes to the importance of trade to the culture in which they were made, and the drums themselves became objects of trade and heirlooms. More than 200 have been found, across an area from eastern Indonesia to Vietnam and parts of Southern China.
The earliest drum found in 1876 existed 2700 years ago in Wangjiaba in Yunnan Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture China. It is classified into the bigger and heavier Yue drums including the Dong Son drums, and the Dian drums, into eight subtypes, purported to be invented by Ma Yuan and Zhuge Liang. But the Book of the Later Han said Ma melt the bronze drums seized from the rebel Lạc Việt in Jiaozhi into horse.
The discovery of Dong Son drums in New Guinea, is seen as proof of trade connections - spanning at least the past thousand years - between this region and the technologically advanced societies of Java and China.
In 1902, a collection of 165 large bronze drums was published by F. Heger, who subdivided them into a classification of four types.
Bronze drums are still being used ceremoniously in Southeast Asia such as Yi people, Zhuang people, Miao people and Qabiao people in northern Vietnam and southern China. They are generally struck in the center with a soft mallet, and on the side with a wooden or bamboo stick. Among the ethnic Vietnamese, it's still a ritual object in some rituals, such as those to the Hung kings, but are rarely used as a musical instrument anymore. In Thailand, Dong Son drums are also used in some ceremonies, where it's called the Mahorathuek
