China jade

Whereas graves of the Hongshan culture (about 3800-2700 ВС) might have held as many as twenty jade artefacts, those of the Liangzhu culture (about 3000-2000 ВС) sometimes had as many as three hundred. These included bead necklaces and other decorative pieces such as ornaments for an axe. Many are carved with motifs derived from monster and hu­man-like faces. The carving is often of the highest quality, with fine mod­ulated relief, openwork and very complicated incised designs. The massive jade "cong" and discs must have belonged to a society of considerable complexity.

During the Shang (about 1500-1050 ВС) and early Western Zhou(1050-771 ВС) dynasties, small jade carvings in the shape of animals were made in large numbers and in a wide variety of forms. Their earliest appearance seems to be in the Anyang period, at the time of Fu Hao (around 1200 ВС), the consort of a Shang-dynasty king. She was a formidable woman, who led armies into battle and conducted peace treaties. Her tomb, found in 1976 at Anyang (the major centre of the Shang dynasty from about 1300 ВС, in Henan prov­ince, northern China), is the only royal tomb there to be discovered unrobbed.

It contained over 750 jade artefacts, several of which were Neolithic. They may have been collected by Fu Hao on her travels and conquests.

Small carvings of human figures were made intermittently during the Neolithic period in China, but apart from a few figures from the tomb of Fu Hao, the consort of a Shang-dynasty king, and other royal tombs, there are almost no human images from central China in the Shang period (about 1500-1050 ВС).

Figures from the Western Zhou (1050-771 ВС) are equally rare, and . they may also have been a product of renewed contact with the south of China which resulted in the use of human-like figures, in combination with birds, as surface decoration.

Figures usually have large round and rather flat faces, with eyes, eye­brows, a rounded nose and a small mouth. The man's hands are folded in front of him, and he wears a robe hanging in folds from the waist, with a long 'knee-cover' below the hands. The manner in which the garment hangs below the man's hands has prompted scholars to include this figure within a small group that has been dated to the Western Zhou, following the find­ing of such a figure in a Western Zhou tomb in the eastern suburbs of Lu-oyang.

Axes were decorated with a number of fittings: sections for the top and bottom of the handle, small beads in the shape of "cong", and small in­lays. They took the shape of an extended narrow rectangle, curved in three dimensions, which encloses the slot which would have fitted over the wood­en handle of the axe. Axe shaft ornaments have been found of varying de­grees of workmanship.

Deer are relatively rare among jade animal pendants. However, a num­ber of examples exist, among the most interesting of which is a crouching deer from a tomb dating to the Shang dynasty (about 1500-1050 ВС). Its head is turned to look over its back and its front leg is bent under its body. This form seems to be an early one that was later ignored as creatures were usually shown standing. Such sophisticated poses were probably developed on the borders of China. Contact between the capitals of metropolitan China and the peoples on the western and north-western borders encour­aged trade and exchange between two quite different cultures.