Page 57 - Youngman jade Collection Hong Kong March 3 2019 Sotheby's

Depictions of owls feature prominently among the arts of the Shang dynasty. The bird’s
nocturnal and binocular vision and its binaural hearing and hunting skill were revered from
the Neolithic period, when the earliest jade carvings of owls were made. The owl’s terrifying
screech would have fit the perception of abnormality in ritual and magic, and it is most likely
that the bird played a significant role in Shang belief. It has been suggested that the mythi-
cal black-bird (xuanniao) from which the Shang people were believed to have originated
was in fact an owl. Alternatively, Sun Xinzhou has suggested that the mythical ancestor Di
Jun (also known as Di Ku, Shun) can be identified with the owl deity protector of agriculture
(Sun Xinzhou, ‘Chixiao chongbai huaxia lishi wenming’ [On the strigidae worship and histori-
cal civilization in China], Journal of Tianjin Normal University (Social Sciences), no. 5, 2004,
pp 31-7).
Jade owls were excavated from the Tomb of Fu Hao in modern-day Anyang, Henan prov-
ince, and illustrated in Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu, Beijing, 1980, pl. 137, nos 1-3, together
with a further related beaked bird with horns, pl. 134 no. 3; and another was included in the
exhibition Chinese Jade Animals, Hong Kong Museum of Art, 1996, cat. no. 17. See also two
marble owls, excavated from the Shang royal cemetery at Xibeigang, on the northern bank
of the Huan river, one of which is illustrated in Cheng Te-K’un, Archaeology in China, vol. 2,
Shang China, Cambridge, 1960, pl. Xa.

THE ROBERT YOUNGMAN COLLECTION OF CHINESE JADE 55