Tapered pendant

• 1. Bought from Hwang Chung huei [Huang Zhonghui] 黃中慧, New York. For price, see R.5687, Reserved Miscellaneous List, p. 8. One of 33 objects purchased for $320.

  2. (Undated Folder Sheet note) Original attribution: Chinese. See above reference.

  3. (Undated Folder Sheet note) Sp. G. is 3.040. Nephrite.

  4. (Archibald Gibson Wenley, 1946) Period uncertain.

  5. (Thomas Lawton, 1978) Attribution changed from "Period uncertain" to "Ch'ing [Qing] 清."

  6. (Jeffrey Smith per Keith Wilson, January 21, 2008) Late Neolithic period, Lake Tai 太湖 region.

  7. (Stephen Allee per Keith Wilson, February 4, 2008) On this date entered: Date (3300--2250 BCE), Artist (Liangzhu 良渚 culture), Title, Object name; plus Dimensions per Christine Lee, from Jade Project Database. Added "Hwang Chung huei [Huang Zhonghui] 黃中慧" to Constituents: Source.

  8. (Jeffrey Smith per Keith Wilson, July 1, 2008) Jewelry added as secondary classification.

  9. (Susan Kitsoulis per Keith Wilson, July 9, 2010) Deleted "(pendant)" from object name.

  10. (Najiba Choudhury per Keith Wilson, August 30, 2016) title changed from "Tapered hairpin pendant" to "Tapered pendant"; in the text entries field, added unpublished research by Jenny So and Chinese translation.

Draft catalogue entry for F1917.651 and F1914.128; by Jenny F. So (2003)

Hair or headdress ornaments
Neolithic period, 3000--2500 BCE
Liangzhu 良渚 culture, Lake Tai 太湖 region or further north
Nephrite, (A) translucent gray-green with reddish-brown patches; (B) grayish-white with red patches
Length (A) 20.5 cm; (B) 5.0 cm
F1917.651 (A), F1914.128 (B)

These two ornaments share the same slender tapering shape with a small perforated tang at one end and a sharp point at the other. Their surfaces are completely undecorated but polished smooth. On (A), tool marks remain visible. (A) is long with a triangular cross-section while (B) is much shorter with a square cross-section.

Although excavated examples point clearly to their home along the lower Yellow and Yangzi 揚子 river valleys, [1] their function remains in dispute. Based on their locations in burials, some seem likely to have been strung with beads and worn as pendants on a necklace. [2] Decorated specimens showing the Liangzhu 良渚 signature man or animal motif indicates that it should be oriented with the point up, with the perforated tang inserted into a socket and secured at the perforations. Ten such jades, the longest reaching 35.5 centimeters, were recovered from a female burial at Xinyi 新沂 Huating 花廳 in northern Jiangsu 江蘇 province, four of them found in a group with points up behind her head suggesting that they were indeed used as vertical inserts of an elaborate headdress (fig. 1). [3] At Yaoshan 瑤山, similar pointed jades were found in bundles (of three to nine) in varying lengths near the head of the deceased. [4] The discovery of a three-pronged hair ornament like S1987.734 with a cylindrical jade inserted into its central prong further supports that certain Liangzhu 良渚 hair ornaments indeed include vertical accents (fig. 2). This function is not restricted to tall examples; even a 3.2 centimeter specimen from Yaoshan 瑤山 must have stood upright because of the animal image on it. [5] Hayashi 林巳奈夫 further sees the radiating points thus produced by bundles of these ornaments on a headdress as symbolic of the radiating power of the sun or the feathers of the heavenly bird. [6] In spite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, some scholars still believe that these ornaments should be understood as two separate types of objects: as pendants (especially the shorter, undecorated versions) and as headdress ornaments (the longer, decorated versions). [7]

Figures:
1. Drawing of M18 at Huating 花廳 (Nanjing bowuyuan 南京博物院, "1987 nian Jiangsu Xinyi Huating yizhi de fajue 1987年江蘇新沂花廳遺址的發掘," Wenwu 文物 1990.2, p. 5, fig. 5).

2. Three-pronged ornament plus insert in situ.

[1] For Liangzhu 良渚 examples, see Zhejiang sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo 浙江省文物考古研究所, Shanghai shi wenwu guanli weiyuanhui 上海市文物管理委员会, and Nanjing bowuyuan 南京博物院, Liangzhu wenhua yuqi 良渚文化玉器 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, and Hong Kong: Liangmu chubanshe, 1989), nos. 133--150; for Shangdong 山東 examples, see Shandong sheng wenwu guanlichu 山東省文物管理處 and Jinan shi bowuguan 濟南市博物館, Dawenkou: Xinshiqi shidai muzang fajue baogao 大汶口：新石器時代墓葬發掘報告 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1974), figs. 80--81.

[2] Zhejiang sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo 浙江省文物考古研究所, Shanghai shi wenwu guanli weiyuanhui 上海市文物管理委员会, and Nanjing bowuyuan 南京博物院, Liangzhu wenhua yuqi 良渚文化玉器 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, and Hong Kong: Liangmu chubanshe, 1989), nos. 165, 169, 170. See also Huang Xuanpei 黃宣佩, Fuquanshan: Xinshiqi shidai yizhi fajue baogao 福泉山：新石器时代遗址发掘报告 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2000), pp. 137--38, where the different locations of the fifty-nine ornaments found are described.

[3] Zhejiang sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo 浙江省文物考古研究所, Shanghai shi wenwu guanli weiyuanhui 上海市文物管理委员会, and Nanjing bowuyuan 南京博物院, Liangzhu wenhua yuqi 良渚文化玉器 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, and Hong Kong: Liangmu chubanshe, 1989), no. 138. This piece comes with a flared cap ground to an extraordinary 2--3 millimeters thin for the insert, perhaps to bring about a tighter fit. The Huating 花廳 site is reported in Nanjing bowuyuan 南京博物院, "1987 nian Jiangsu Xinyi Huating yizhi de fajue 1987年江蘇新沂花廳遺址的發掘," Wenwu 文物 1990.2, pp. 1--26. M9 at Fuquanshan 福泉山 yielded an almost identical example at 34 centimeters long (Zhejiang sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo 浙江省文物考古研究所, Shanghai shi wenwu guanli weiyuanhui 上海市文物管理委员会, and Nanjing bowuyuan 南京博物院, Liangzhu wenhua yuqi 良渚文化玉器 [Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, and Hong Kong: Liangmu chubanshe, 1989], no. 139).

[4] Described but not illustrated in Zhejiang sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo Fanshan kaogudui 浙江省文物考古研究所反山考古隊, "Zhejiang Yuhang Fanshan Liangzhu mudi fajue jianbao浙江餘杭反山良渚墓地發掘簡報," Wenwu 文物 1988.1, p. 22.

[5] Zhejiang sheng wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo 浙江省文物考古研究所, Shanghai shi wenwu guanli weiyuanhui 上海市文物管理委员会, and Nanjing bowuyuan 南京博物院, Liangzhu wenhua yuqi 良渚文化玉器 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, and Hong Kong: Liangmu chubanshe, 1989), no. 188.

[6] Hayashi Minao 林巳奈夫, Chūgoku kogyokuki sōsetsu 中国古玉器総說 (Tokyo: Yoshikawa kōbunkan, 1999), pp. 128--36, especially pp. 134--36.

[7] Jiang Weidong 蔣衛東 in "Shilun Liangzhu wenhua de zhuixing yuqi 試論良渚文化的錐形玉器," Wenwu 文物 1997.7, pp. 28--33, further suggests that as pendants or as hair ornaments the bone spears or arrow points from earlier Neolithic sites might have been its functional prototype, so that the jade versions are the ritual and symbolic insignia of the wearer's physical prowess. That the owner of the ten ornaments from M18 at Huating 花廳 is a woman would seem to cast doubt on this interpretation.

• J. Keith Wilson, Jingmin Zhang. Jades for Life and Death. .