1. (Najiba Choudhury per Keith Wilson, August 2, 2017) Title changed to "Tube (cong 琮), one of a pair"; geography changed from "China" to "China, probably Henan province, Anyang."
2. (Najiba Choudhury per Keith Wilson, July 26, 2018) Added Chinese translation by Jingmin Zhang and unpublished research by Louisa Fitzgerald Huber.
Draft catalogue entry (no. 76) for S2012.9.242.1 and S2012.9.242.2 for the catalogue of the Singer collection (1970--90); by Louisa Fitzgerald Huber
Pair of Cong 琮
Shang 商dynasty, 13th century BCE
Marble
Height, each 9.5 cm (3 3/4 in)
Both cong 琮 are of roughly the same dimensions and fashioned from whitish marble, and in both cases their surfaces, which have undergone considerable deterioration, are coated with soil and marked by reddish stains. Each is shaped as a square prism penetrated through the center by a cylindrical perforation of wide diameter, which is enclosed at either end by a low, approximately circular wall created by chamfering the four corners. The total effect is of a tube projecting at each end from within a square prism.
Published: Alfred Salmony, Chinese Jade through the Wei Dynasty (New York: Ronald Press, 1963), pl. 7:5; Umehara Sueji 梅原末治, Inkyo 殷墟 (Tokyo, 1964), pl. 128:2; China Institute in America, Art Styles of Ancient Shang, from Private and Museum Collections (New York: China Institute, 1967), cat. 81.
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