Page 255 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

86

Jade pel pectoral

Length c. 150 (59 Ys)
Late Western Zhou Period, eighth century BCE
From Tianma-Qucun (Beizhao, Quwo),
Shanxi Province

Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology,
Taiyuan

This complex assembly of jade plaques and beads, 1
more than twice as long as the pectoral ornament
described in cat. 85, comes from Tomb M 63, as
does a bronze vessel also exhibited, cat. 90. Such
bronzes date to the very end of the Western Zhou
period, around the time of the collapse in 771 BCE
of the Zhou kingdom and the loss of its capital at
Xi'an. While these bead-and-jade coverings similar-
ly date to the eighth century BCE, the constituent
jade carvings themselves date from a number of
different periods and were obviously amassed over
a long stretch of time.
Here, threads holding short groups of faience
and agate beads join jade huang, which dominate
the composition. The brown color of the arcs is the
result of burial; the arcs were originally a trans-
lucent gray or green. Many have a schematic animal
head at each end; others carry finely incised deco-
ration, which permits approximate dating of the
individual pieces. One such huang displays patterns
typical of tenth-century BCE bronzes and jadework,
suggesting a date of manufacture one hundred or
more years prior to the burial itself. This huang
features a pair of dragons, each with two heads and
sinuous bodies that intertwine at the center; birds
with long, sweeping plumes were characteristic of
this period, and such dragon designs may have
developed by analogy. Jade craftsmen seem to have
adapted their designs from contemporaneous
bronzework, interlacing the creatures' plumes,
crests, and bodies to fit the limitations of their
inherently smaller work surface. From such small
beginnings arose an entire genre of jade (and later,
bronze) design. 2
Many of the jades found in Tomb M 63, like
those from Tomb M 8 (cat. 85), were originally