Ancient jade artifacts

Author: Zhang Minghua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: 3. Western Zhou jades, as recorded in the Rites of Zhou·Kaogongji, were managed by the royal workshop and artisans specializing in jade carving. Therefore, Western Zhou jades saw new developments in craftsmanship and form. As early as the 1930s, numerous Western Zhou jades were unearthed. For example, 80 pieces, including jade daggers, spears, discs, horse-shoe shaped objects, blocks, tigers, cicadas, silkworms, dragons, oxen, rabbits, birds, and fish, were found in Xincai, Jin County, Henan. The large-scale discovery of jades in the Guo Kingdom cemetery at Shanglin Ridge, Sanmenxia, Henan, from the 1950s to the 1990s was one of the most significant finds of this period. Nearly 3,000 jade and stone artifacts were unearthed, most of them from Hetian jade in Xinjiang. The jades in the tombs mostly covered the entire bodies of the interred. Besides the highest-ranking royal tombs of Guo Ji and Guo Zhong, the rest were tombs. In the tomb of Guo Ji excavated in 1990, the first jade mask mimicking human facial features appeared on the tomb owner's head, composed of 58 pieces including jade forehead, eyebrows, ears, nose, moustache, cheeks, mouth, chin, and decorative plaques. This was the most structurally complete, standardized, and exquisitely crafted jade mask in Western Zhou tomb discoveries. The tomb owner wore a set of jade pendants with seven jade beads and tubes reaching from the neck to the abdomen, which were his personal belongings during his lifetime and belonged to ceremonial jade, symbolizing the status of high nobility. The tomb of Guo Zhong, excavated in 1991, yielded 724 exquisite jade artifacts, such as jade discs with regular roundness and flowing designs, abstract transformed cloud-dragon patterns, jade axes with taotie motifs, and creamy white jade drills. Among them, the most exquisite were the biomorphic jade carvings. There were mysterious jade dragons, fierce jade tigers, soaring jade eagles, lively jade rabbits, polychromatic round jade turtles (Figure 12), and variously shaped jade deer, mice, oxen, snakes, sheep, monkeys, spiders, and dragonflies. Additionally, this collection of unearthed jades had another distinctive feature: it included many earlier finds, such as the round jade pig dragon of the Hongshan culture, small minister inscribed jade rings from the Shang Dynasty, "King Bo" jade tubes and jade masks, "Small Minister Awaiting the King" bi disks, and masterpieces from the early and mid-Western Zhou period. These revealed the reverence of these rulers and nobles for ancient jades. In 1984 and 1985, jades such as jade half-moons, handle-shaped objects, fish, beast-face motifs, and dragon-phoenix human figures were unearthed from Western Zhou tombs in Zhangjiapo, Fengxi, Shaanxi. One jade beast-face was milky white, with smooth and lustrous jade quality. The beast-face had a flat top and curved horns, with incised round eyes, nose, mouth, and large teeth, and curved tooth ridges on both sides. It had two rings dangling from its ears. The bottom of the artifact had two holes for riveting. This human-face shaped object should have a lineage connection to jade masks of the Shijiahe culture. At the same time, it also provided new clues for understanding the era and purpose of such jade artifacts. Other sites like Ruzhuang, Zhuyuangu, Zhifangtou, and the Ling Kingdom cemetery in Baoji also yielded numerous jades, while the rare jade scales unearthed from the Western Zhou tomb in Gaomiao Village, Yangping Town, Baoji County, were particularly noteworthy. P40-41