Bracelet with bands

• 1. Bought from Lee Van Ching [Li Wenqing] 李文卿 of Shanghai 上海, in New York. For price, see Original Miscellaneous List, p. 254. $50.

  2. (Undated Folder Sheet note) Original attribution: Chinese. Han 漢. See further, S.I. 1132, Appendix VIII (see Paragraph 7).

  3. (John Ellerton Lodge, 1927) Han 漢 or earlier.

  4. (Isabel Ingram Mayer, 1946) Chou [Zhou] 周 dynasty.

  5. (Undated Folder Sheet note) Sp. G. is 2.879. Composition of material has altered by age and possibly by fire, making an accurate result impossible.

  6. (Elisabeth West Fitzhugh, 1959) Identified as diopside by x ray diffraction (Film F864).

  7. (H. Elise Buckman, 1963) The Envelope File contained no further information, and has now been destroyed.

  8. (Thomas Lawton, 1973) The following information was carved on the box in which this object arrived: Chou ts'ung [Zhou cong] 周琮.

  9. (Thomas Lawton, 1978) Attribution changed from Chou [Zhou] 周 to Shang 商.

  10. (Julia K. Murray, 1982) For a discussion of bangles, see Folder Sheet F1917.387. The incised horizontal divisions found on F1917.43 are not immediately comparable to an excavated piece; hence, the dating should be somewhat tentative.

  11. (Stephen Allee per Keith Wilson, February 8, 2008) On this date entered: Period One (Late Neolithic period), Date (3300--2250 BCE), Artist (Liangzhu 良渚 culture), Title, Object name, Geographical region (Lake Tai 太湖 region); plus Dimensions per Christine Lee, from Jade Project Database.

  12. (Stephen Allee, April 1, 2008) On this date, identification as "nephrite/diopside--probably heated" entered as per Elisabeth West Fitzhugh, August 1959, as determined by x ray diffraction and infrared spectroscopy.

  13. (Jeffrey Smith per Keith Wilson, July 17, 2008) Jewelry added as secondary classification.

  14. (Jeffrey Smith per Janet Douglas, June 17, 2010) (Nephrite, heated) added as modifier to existing medium of "jade" based on conservation analysis.
  

Draft catalogue entry for F1917.43; by Jenny F. So (2003)

Bracelet
Neolithic period, 3rd millennium BCE
Liangzhu 良渚 culture, Lake Tai 太湖 region
Diopside, opaque bone-white with fine crackles
Diameter 8.55--8.73 cm; opening 5.93--6.14 cm; height 1.93--2.01 cm
F1917.43

Similar to F1917.385 and F1919.46 in silhouette, this bracelet displays yet another design: three fine circular grooves incised equidistant from each other, the space between them subtly concave so that the outer wall appears to be fluted. The opening was drilled from both sides at oblique angles, the median ridge in the middle rounded off where the drillings meet. The result of this oblique drilling is that the rim is almost twice as thick on one end as the other. The finely crackled opaque white surface is the result of burning, which has turned what was originally nephrite into diopside. This bracelet might have come from those Liangzhu 良渚 burials where fire was part of the ceremony, for example, at Fuquanshan 福泉山 or Sidun 寺墩, so that the interred jades had altered as the result of intense heat. [1]

This bracelet's multiple registers of subtle concave surfaces relate it to tall bracelets with concave walls, like the above mentioned two examples in the Freer collection, as well as those few rare disks, also with concave outer walls (such as F1917.79, F1917.346, and F1917.348). However, the closet comparisons should be with black pottery from Songze 崧擇 and Liangzhu 良渚 contexts, where similarly articulate fluting marks the tall stems of vessels (Fig. 1). [2] It is therefore intriguing that bracelets with a similarly opaque bone-white surface and bow strings bordering the top and bottom edges have been recovered near Guanghan 廣漢 Sanxindui 三星堆 (Fig. 2) and at Jinsha 金沙 at the outskirts of Chengdu 成都. [3] With the additional evidence of a tall cong 琮 complete with Liangzhu 良渚 emblem that has been recovered from Jinsha 金沙 (see F1917.385), there seems to be growing support for possible migration of Liangzhu 良渚 peoples upstream because of war or natural disaster. [4] The cong 琮 and bracelets from the Sichuan 四川 site were probably taken there and preserved over generations as treasured heirlooms or reminders of their religious or cultural heritage.

Figures:
1. Fluted pottery vessel from Songze 崧澤 (Jenny F. So photo)
2. White bracelet from Sanxingdu 三星堆 Museum (Jenny F. So photo)

[1] For Fuquanshan 福泉山, see 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), 64--66; for Sidun, see Nanjing bowuyuan 南京博物院, "1982 nian Jiangsu Changzhou Wujin Sidun yizhi de fajue 1982年江蘇常州武進寺墩遺址的發掘," Kaogu 考古 1984.2, pp. 109--29.

[2] Shanghai shi wenwu baoguan weiyuanhui 上海市文物保管委員會, Songze: Xinshiqi shidai yizhi fajue baogao 崧澤--新時期時代遺址發掘報告 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1987), pls. 47:3, 49:4, 51:4; 52:3--4, etc.

[3] Chengdu shi wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo 成都市文物考古研究所 and Beijing daxue kaogu wenbo yuan 北京大學考古文博院, Jinsha taozhen: Chengdu shi Jinsha cun yizhi chutu wenwu 金沙淘珍--成都市金沙村遺址出土文物 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2002), pp. 89--96.

[4] Yeung Kin Fong [Yang Jianfang] 楊建芳, Zhongguo guyu yanjiu lunwenji 中國古玉研究論文集 = Treatises on Ancient Chinese Jades (Taibei: Luozhi meishu chubanshe, 2001), vol. 1, pp. 70--80, favors political pressure for these movements. Zhang Minghua 張明華 in "Liangzhu wenhua turan xiaowang de yuanyin shi hongshui fanlan 良渚文化突然消亡的原因是洪水汎濫," Jianghan kaogu 江漢考古 1998.1, pp. 62--65, considers wholesale migrations of peoples due to flooding of the Yangzi 揚子 delta some time toward the end of the third millennium BCE.

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