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Archive for the ‘China’s Cultural Relics’ Category

According to the Historical Records, in 1046 BC the capital city of the Shang was lost to armies of King Wu of the Zhou. Reluctant to be a prisoner of war, King Zhou of the Shang, a most notorious tyrant in Chinese history, set a fire and burned himself to death with a “jade shroud” on. The “shroud”, so to speak, consisted of his most valuable jade pieces strung together, which he wanted to perish together with him.

Far back in prehistory times, it was already believed that jade pieces helped preserve dead bodies. Large quantities of jade artifacts have been excavated from ancient tombs, including even grave clothes made of jade pieces, jade bars in the hands of the dead and jade plugs to gorge the mouth, nose, eyes and ears of the dead with. From tombs of the Liangzhu culture, archeologists have unearthed jade pieces strung together to cover the dead body with. Nearly 100 jade pieces were found on the cover of the coffin when, in 1990, a tomb of the Gao State of the Spring and Autumn period was opened for excavation.  The dead body is covered from head to toe with jade pieces. The most remarkable is a piece of textile with small pieces of jade sewn to it, with tiny holes on them to facilitate the sewing.

Things like the “jade veil” and the “jade shroud” that perished along with King Zhou of the Shang were to be developed into “jade grave clothes” – in fact sets of small, polished jade chips sewn together with gold, silver, copper and even silk thread. Two dozen such sets have been unearthed from tombs of princes of the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD). Each set consists of five “jade cases” separately  for the head, the upper part of the body, the lower limbs, the hands and the feet which, put together, assume the shape of a human figure. The jade attire for Prince Liu Sheng of the West Han Dynasty, which was unearthed from his tomb in Mancheng County of Hebei Province, north China, consists of 2,498 jade chips sewn with 1.1 kilograms of gold thread. The prince’s wife shared the tomb with Diflucan Online Pharmacy No Prescription Needed him. She also had jade attire on. Moreover, large quantities of jade ornaments were found in her coffin, the inner walls of the coffin inlaid with as many as 192 jade plates.

After the Han Dynasty, however, use of jade artifacts was no longer limited to aristocrats. It expanded to include rich merchants, landlords and scholars keen to display their social status and wealth. This is due to increased communication between China and areas to its west via the Silk Road, which subsequently boosted the country’s import of raw jade from Central Asia that encompasses what is now Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. As time went by, jade carvings, in fact carvings of not only “soft jade” but also other precious stones like agate and jadeite, became a thriving industry meeting a huge demand from the upper class. Carving techniques and workmanship improved constantly, especially during the period from the Tang Dynasty to the Song and the period when China was under two successive dynasties, the Ming and Qing. People seem to forget that once upon a time, in China’s slavery society, use of jade artifacts was a part of the social estate system prevalent at the time. As ornaments, however, jade artifacts will remain an important aesthetic choice for the Chinese people.

Jade carvings of the Shang-Zhou period feature a much better workmanship than Liangzhu jade artifacts. Those excavated from the tomb of a Shang Dynasty royal concubine testify to the truth of this assertion.

The  women,  Fu Hao,  was a concubine of King Wuding of Shang Dynasty, and her tomb in Anyang, Henan Province, was discovered in 1976 by accident. The tomb is in fact a part of the “Yin Ruins” – ruins of the capital city for the Shang Dynasty in its late period some 3,000 years ago.

Of the 1,600 relics unearthed from the tomb, 755 are jade artifacts, including two dozen exquisitely designed animal and bird figures. Let’s see just a few: two hares about to jump, their short tails upward and their long ears against the backs; a tiger with its mouth wide open; an elephant cub with its trunk swaying; and those monkeys that look so cute. The tomb is in fact a zoo of jade animals – real things like elephants, bears, monkeys, rabbits, horses, cattle, sheep, cranes, vultures, parrots, frogs and fish, as well as legendary dragons and phoenixes. There are seven small dragons coiled like alphabet C, inspiring scholars to link them to a large jade dragon of the prehistory Hongshan culture in their study of the continuity and consistency of the Chinese culture.

Two dozen parrots, in fact relieves carved on flat jade pieces, were excavated from the tomb. Two of them share a long tail, their heads arranged in symmetrical order and one side of the tail sharpened like a sword – a perfect combination of artistic value and practical use.

It is a long time since we began taking note of the decorative designs on jade artifacts of the Liangzhu culture –– particularly on those used at sacrificial ceremonies –– that feature animal faces complete with eyes, noses, mouths and other organs. Despite that, discovery in 1986 of the largest cong, or the “king of congs” as it was dubbed later, still took us by surprise. The “king”, which is 8.8 centimeters long and 17.6 centimeters in diameter and weighs 6.5 kilograms, was unearthed from an ancient tomb on Mt. Fanshan, Zhejiang Province. Animal faces in neat groups are engraved on its surface, with the lines recognized as the most elaborate for jade artifacts of the Liangzhu culture. Each group consists of two parts. The upper part is an inverted trapezoid, which bears a broad human face featuring two big eyes, a flat nose, a feather crown and two arms stretching straight and the hands holding the eyes of the image in the lower part.  The lower part features a fierce-looking, big-eyed animal face that has a big nose and an oblate mouth. The human head and animal face are cut in relief, and the human arms and animal face, in intaglio. Arrangement of the two parts suggests conquest of a monster by an all-powerful god.

Altogether, 16 such patterns, arranged in symmetrical order, are counted on the “King of all congs”. It may be worthwhile to mention that this kind of “god vs. monster” design is found on most jade artifacts unearthed from Mt. Fanshan. What merits even more attention is that such a pattern is also found on the upper part of a jade ax-spear, the symbol of military authority. Basing themselves on the symbolic weapon, archeologists have concluded that the design could be the emblem of the Liangzhu tribes and that animal face designs on jade artifacts unearthed earlier could be the simplified or distorted version of the emblem.

A jade cong produced 3,300-2,200 years ago, a typical art object of the Liangzhu culture. For its size, it is dubbed as “king of all congs”” width=”90″ height=”65″ />Back in the early 20t h century, in Shanghai, adventurers and merchants from the West were able to buy some jade artifacts unique in shape and strange in design. One is a long hollow piece of jade carved with images so strange that it was difficult, if not impossible, to tell whether they were human or supernatural. People had no idea of where, when and for what purpose the jade piece was produced, including even the person who sold it.

Two or three decades later, in Yuhang County of Zhejiang Province, east China, archeologists found some jade artifacts identical in shape and design to the piece mentioned in the proceeding paragraph, but they were still at a loss for when such objects were produced. It was not until the 1980s did experts conclude that these relics belong to the Liangzhu culture dating back to 3,500-4,000 years ago in some areas on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. This came after excavations on Mt. Caoxie and Mt. Zhangling in Wuxian County, Jiangsu Province, during which numerous jade artifacts of the Neolithic Age were found, including cong (long, hollow pieces with triangular sides), bi (round piece with a hole in the middle), as well as yue (battle-ax). Likewise, the Shanghai jade piece sold in the early 20th century was identified as a typical art object of the Liangzhu culture.

Jade artifacts of the Liangzhu culture are found mainly in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui provinces on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. A social estate system was already in place in these areas when these were produced, under which the privileged depended, in addition to forces of arms, on divine power and witchcraft to run roughshod over their subjects, the majority of the local people. That may explain why we attribute most jade artifacts of the Liangzhu culture – cong, bi as well as objects that take the shape of hats, semi-circles or three-throng spears to primitive witchcraft and worshipping of the supernatural. As a matter of fact, these artifacts are often geometrical in shape with symmetrical patterns engraved on them, in a style that denotes solemnity. While the largest in size, Cong pieces– those long, hollow pieces with triangular sides –outnumber jade artifacts of all other types belonging to the Liangzhu culture.