Arc-shaped pendant (huang 璜), made from a disk (bi 璧)

1. Bought from K. T. Wong [Wang Jiantang] 王鑑堂, Shanghai 上海. For price, see Original Miscellaneous List, p. 221. $102.50.

2. (Undated Folder Sheet note) Original attribution: Chinese. Han 漢. See further, S.I. 1019, Appendix VIII (see Paragraph 6).

3. (Isabel Ingram Mayer, 1945) Chou [Zhou] 周 dynasty. May be cut down from a pi [bi] 璧. The boring of the holes and rough edges at base look later.

4. (Undated Folder Sheet note) Sp. G. is 2.908.

5. (William B. Trousdale, 1964) Chou [Zhou] 周 dynasty (?). Probably fashioned from a section of a perforated disk at a slightly later date.

6. (H. Elise Buckman, 1964) The Envelope File contained no further information, and has now been destroyed.

7. (Thomas Lawton, 1978) Some Neolithic pi [bi] 璧 are composed of sections such as F1916.379 and presumably tied by means of the perforations at the edges. See J. G. Andersson, "Researches into the Prehistory of the Chinese," Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 15 (1943), pl. 72, no. 5. The date of F1916.379 remains open to further study. For the moment, the attribution is changed from "Chou [Zhou] 周 dynasty (?)" to "Eastern Chou [Zhou] 周."

8. (Julia K. Murray, 1982) Changed attribution from Eastern Chou [Zhou] 周 to Neolithic period, third millennium BCE (?). While some of the arc shaped ornaments called huang 璜 seem intended to be tied together to create the complete shape of a pi [bi] 璧 disk, others have been found singly, sometimes placed on the chest of the occupant of a Neolithic grave (see Nanking po-wu-yuan [Nanjing bowuyuan] 南京博物院, "Kiangsu Wu hsien Ts'ao-hsieh-shan i-chih [Jiangsu Wu xian Caoxieshan yizhi] 江蘇吳縣草鞋山遺址," Wen wu tzu liao ts'ung k'an [Wenwu ziliao congkan] 文物資料叢刊 3 [1980], pl. 3:2 for such an example from Wu hsien [Wu xian] 吳縣 Ts'ao hsieh shan [Caoxieshan] 草鞋山). There may also be some significance in the difference between huang 璜 whose outer perimeters form 180-degree arcs (i.e., semi circular huang 璜), and those that form arcs of only 120 degrees (i.e., one third of a circle). Both F1916.156 and F1916.379 belong to the former category. The related huang F1917.383 seems a more archaic type in which the outer perimeter is a flattened semi circle with a different curvature than the inner perimeter.

Huang 璜 F1916.379 is very similar to two examples in the Fogg Art Museum (acc. no. 1943.50.597.A-B) both in the shape and in having a pair of holes drilled at each end of the arc rather than the more frequently encountered single hole (see Max Loehr, Ancient Chinese Jades from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA: Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1975), cat. 94). Except for the number of holes at the end of the arc, these huang 璜 are very likely one excavated from the middle layer at Sung tse [Songze] 崧澤, Ch'ing p'u hsien [Qingpu xian] 青浦縣 (see Huang Hsuan-p'ei [Huang Xuanpei] 黃宣佩 and Chang Ming-hua [Zhang Minghua] 張明華, "Ch'ing-p'u hsien Sung-tse i-chih ti-erh-tz'u fa-chueh [Qingpu xian Songze yizhi dierci fajue] 青浦縣崧澤遺址第二次發掘," K'ao ku hsueh pao [Kaogu xuebao] 考古學報 1980.1, p. 51, fig. 16:6 [M97:11]). The Sung tse [Songze] 崧澤 culture has produced carbon 14 dates in the fourth and fifth millennia BCE; while huang 璜 F1916.379 probably is not quite that early, it does seem more likely to belong to the Neolithic period than to the Eastern Chou [Zhou] 周.

9. (Najiba Choudhury per Keith Wilson, September 1, 2016) Period One changed from "Neolithic period" to "Late Neolithic period"; title changed from "Pendant in the form of a arc" to "Arc-shaped pendant (huang 璜), made from a disk (bi 璧)"; date changed from "ca. 3000 BCE" to "ca. 5000--ca. 1700 BCE"; added description; in the Text Entries field added Chinese translation.