Page 248 - Ming_China_Courts_and_Contacts_1400_1450 Craig lunas

where did they come from? As Lin Meicun has pointed out
in an important recent essay, China is generally poorly
supplied with the major types of gemstone, which
historically have been sought outside its borders. Lin
identifies three major phases in the East–West cultural
exchange of gems. One is to be situated in the late Eastern
Han period (25–220), when the influx of Buddhism also
brought with it the important symbolic role which gems
have played in that religion, as for instance in the concept
of ‘seven jewels’, Chinese qi bao 七寳, after the Sanskrit
sapta-ratnāni, a term of wide usage though of fluctuating
content. It has even been argued by some scholars that
there is in fact a ‘theological-economic link’ between this
Plate 27.4 Loose gems excavated from the tomb of Zhu Zhanji,
Prince Zhuang of Liang, and of Lady Wei at Zhongxiang, Hubei idea and an upsurge in Sino-Indian trade in the first
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province. Hubei Provincial Museum centuries ad. A second phase identified by Lin Meicun as
being crucial to the influx of gems to China is to be found
gems of particularly large size and high quality. The largest in the Yuan period, with its opening of both trans-Eurasian
single group of stones is the rubies, of which there are 175, as and oceanic trade routes, when the classic Arabic lapidary
opposed to 147 sapphires and 52 turquoise (there are no texts such as that of Ahmad al-Tīfāshi (1184–1253) may have
diamonds); rubies also predominate among the loose stones, become known in China. The third phase is situated in the
17 of which display the seductive red gleam of this rarest of early Ming, associated in particular with the Zheng He
the four major gemstone types (diamond, emerald, sapphire voyages, a phase for which the tomb of Prince Zhuang of
and ruby). One of the loose stones has been scientifically Liang offers our best material evidence. 11
tested, proving it to be a true ruby, or corundum (aluminium Rubies are mined today, and indeed have been mined for
oxide Al O coloured with chromium), as opposed to a balas centuries, in a relatively limited number of places. Closest
3
2
ruby or spinel which despite visual similarities is geographically to the Ming borders are the particularly
mineralogically quite different (aluminium magnesium prolific ruby mines of Mogok, now in northern Myanmar,
oxide MgAl O ). Jewellery and items of personal adornment but in the early 15th century controlled by the Shan state of
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4
2
form the great majority of the objects inlaid with gems, Mong Mit, itself part of a larger Shan polity of Hsenwi.
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although it is clear that in this period it was also the practice The scholarship of Sun Laichen has provided us with an
on occasion to inlay vessels and objects, not just jewellery, of account of the key part that an overland trade in gems
various kinds. Although the gold vessels from the Prince played in state formation among the Shan. The trade was
Zhuang of Liang tomb are all plain, a ewer and a basin of partially controlled from the Chinese side by ‘supervising
unknown provenance now in the Philadelphia Museum of eunuchs’ (zhen shou tai jian 鎮守太監) based at the provincial
Art, and included in the British Museum exhibition Ming: 50 capital of Yunnanfu (modern Kunming) from 1425, who
years that changed China, are decorated not only with an incised acquired material directly on behalf of the imperial court,
pattern of dragons and clouds similar in execution to those but it was also partly in the hands of Chinese private traders
on the Rietberg Museum toothpick case, but also with a who ventured to the Shan regions. The trade seems to have
quantity of gems and semi-precious stones, and the now- flourished particularly after 1450. Geoff Wade’s exhaustive
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empty settings for many more. Stones are also inset into the coverage of references to Southeast Asia in the Ming Veritable
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hilt of an elaborate ‘jewel sword’ with courtly connections, Records (Ming shi lu 明實錄) shows almost nothing in the way
the gems forming the eyes of the lion-like beast which grips of gems arriving as ‘tribute’ at court from the Shan states
the blade in its mouth. And jewels of all sorts decorate both before that date; in fact, there is only one such reference,
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the thrones of Ming emperors and the headdresses of their relating to the presentation in 1396 by Si Lunfa 思倫發
consorts as they are portrayed in formal court portraiture. (father of the more famous Shan chieftain Si Renfa 思任發/
8
However, in the case of Prince Zhuang and his consort Lady Thonganbwa, fl. 1400–45) of ‘elephants, horses, gold,
Wei 魏 (d. 1451), the great majority of the jewels they precious stones’. Apart from this reference, we do hear of
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possessed seem to have been worn on the body, on hat envoys from Sulu, Melaka and Xianluo (modern Thailand)
buttons in his case, and on hairpins, earrings, finger rings presenting ‘precious stones’ in 1417, 1419 and 1438
and bracelets in hers. respectively, while in 1436 a righteous envoy to the former
Given their numerical and visual predominance in the colony of Jiaozhi (northern Vietnam) is recorded refusing a
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Prince Zhuang of Liang tomb (note for example their bribe of ‘gold and precious stones’. The mere absence of a
centrality in each plaque of the great gold filigree belt (Pl. record in the Veritable Records cannot be taken as convincing
27.5), which will be further discussed below), and also for evidence that an event did not take place, but it may well be
reasons of space, this chapter will concentrate on the that ‘tribute’ was not the principal route by which rubies got
rubies, noting only in passing that, despite their visual into China. Of course, the rubies in the Prince Zhuang of
dissimilarity, red rubies and blue sapphires are, in terms of Liang gold belt may indeed have come from the Mogok
their basic chemistry, the ‘same thing’ (with different trace mines, but if they did so they are much more likely to have
impurities accounting for the hue), and they tend to be come via intermediaries elsewhere; gems are, after all,
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found in close proximity to each other in nature. But supremely portable items. The chronicler of the Zheng He

238 | Ming China: Courts and Contacts 1400–1450