Sword scabbard slide with raised domes arranged in a grid

• 1. (Jeffrey Smith per Keith Wilson, July 29, 2008) Jewelry and Ornament added as secondary classification.

  2. (Daisy Yiyou Wang, July 15, 2013) Title changed from "Scabbard slide" to "Sword scabbard slide with knobs."

  For a discussion of excavated comparable pieces from Changsha area, see Hunan sheng bowuguan
  湖南省博物馆 et al., Changsha chumu 长沙楚墓 (Beijing: Wenwu  chubanshe, 2000), Vol. 1: pp. 344 47, fig. 277; Vol. 2: pl. 108. The majority of the group of slides were found in tombs dated to the late Warring States period.
  

  3. (Najiba Choudhury per Matthew Clarke, December 14, 2021) Medium changed from "Glass" to "Jade (nephrite)".

  4. (Najiba Choudhury per Keith Wilson, February 23, 2024) Title changed from "Sword scabbard slide with knobs" to "Sword scabbard slide with raised domes arranged in a grid"; Period One changed from "Qin or Western Han dynasty" to "Eastern Zhou dynasty or Western Han dynasty"; Period Two added as "Warring States period"; Date changed from "3rd-2nd century BCE" to "475 BCE–9 CE"; Geography changed from "China" to "China, possibly Hunan province, Changsha or Kingdom of Chu"; added Chinese caption by Jingmin Zhang; and added Unpublished Research by Doris Dohrenwend.

Draft catalogue entry (no. 737) for S2012.9.726 for the catalogue of the Singer collection (1970--1990); by Doris Dohrenwend  
Scabbard Slide
Qin 秦--Western Han 漢 dynasty, 3rd--2nd century BCE
Glass
Length 7.6 cm (3 in)

A white film clouds the decorated exterior of the scabbard fitting, but the pale green glass is still faintly translucent  when held against the light. The rectangular plate is decorated with a field of bumps, the tops of which are the  same height as the raised borders running the length of the plaque (the short ends lack borders). Four rows of  twenty such "grains" are each evenly spaced and probably molded or pressed. The pattern is descended from the raised spirals of late Eastern Chou [Zhou] jades, traditionally identified as a grain pattern. The outer surface of the  plate is nearly flat, and the curled and angled under ends are flush with the underside of the rectangular slot.

There are bronze, bone, and jade examples of the scabbard slide in the Singer collection. According to William  Trousdale, who has studied this peculiar fitting most thoroughly, the glass slides appear to have been cast in  one piece molds, the surface ornamentation pressed into the cooling glass with a die. [1]

The distinctive Chinese form of the ancient scabbard loop, devised for the suspension of long swords first of  bronze and then of iron, is known in China from the fifth century BCE into the Eastern Han 漢, when it seems to have  changed from a utilitarian to a ceremonial use. In Central and West Asia the Chinese form occurs somewhat  later, from roughly the first to the fourth century CE. In China such slides are more common in jade, and glass  examples undoubtedly were copies of jade.

Published: Zachary Taylor, "Ancient Chinese Glass," Arts of Asia 4, no. 6 (November--December, 1974), p. 31; William Trousdale, Long Sword and Scabbard Slide in Asia (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1975), in Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, Vol. 17, pl. 6e, p. 183.

[1] William Trousdale, Long Sword and Scabbard Slide in Asia (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1975), in Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, Vol. 17, p. 173.