Tube (cong 琮)

• 1. Bought from Tonying and Company, in New York. For price, see Original Miscellaneous List, p. 240. $100

  2. (Undated Folder Sheet note) Original attribution: Chinese. Han 漢. See further, S.I. 1075, Appendix VIII (see paragraph 5).

  3. (Undated Folder Sheet note) Sp. G. is 2.946.

  4. (Archibald Gibson Wenley, 1946) Ch'ing [Qing] 清 dynasty.

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

  6. (Stephen Allee per Keith Wilson, May 29, 2008) Changed title from "Cong 琮" to "Short tube (cong 琮)"; changed Object Name from "Cong 琮" to "Ceremonial object." Added Dimensions per Christine Lee, from Jade Project Database.

  7. (Jeffrey Smith per Keith Wilson, July 17, 2008) Ceremonial Object added as secondary classification.

  8. (Stephen Allee, March 23, 2009) Added designation "nephrite" to Medium as per Janet Douglas using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (January 8, 2009).

  9. (Susan Kitsoulis per Keith Wilson, April 20, 2010) Title changed from "Short tube (cong 琮)" to "Tube (cong 琮)."

  10. (Jeffrey Smith per Keith Wilson, April 29, 2016) Period changed from Qing dynasty to Late Neolithic period, with object date changed from 1644-1911 to ca. 3000-1700 BCE.

Draft catalogue entry for F1917.142; by Jenny F. So (2003)

Cong 琮 bracelet
Late Neolithic or Bronze Age, 2nd millennium BCE
Middle or lower Yellow River basin
Nephrite, gray-green with rust and tan patches
Height 3.04--3.20 cm; dimensions at top 7.20 × 7.41 cm; at bottom 6.83 × 7.10 cm; diameter of opening 5.26--5.46 cm
Purchased from Tonying and Company, New York
F1917.142

In proportions similar to the one-tiered cong 琮 bracelets from the Lake Tai 太湖 region (see F1919.47), this example differs in its material and its completely undecorated surfaces. The cylinder and projecting corners are all clearly and crisply shaped and show little signs of wear or discoloration due to handling. Its circular collar indicates that the object was conceived first and foremost as a cylinder with corners like typical Liangzhu 良渚 cong 琮 bracelets, rather than a squared block with a cylindrical opening drilled through it as in the case of the ritual cong 琮 (for example F1916.410).

Such plain single-tiered cong 琮 bracelets usually come from sites in north China, along the middle and lower Yellow river basin.[1] Examples with similar proportions and simple abstract designs or plain surfaces have come from early second millennium BCE contexts, such as Xiangfen 襄汾, Taosi 陶寺, in southern Shanxi 山西 province.[2] Another similar example, slightly higher but still undecorated, has come from possibly a pre-conquest Zhou 周 context at Fengxi 灃西, Xinwangcun 新旺村. Even with these excavated examples, the fact that they are undecorated, and that they appear in sites ranging over one millennium, make precise dating of these plain low cong 琮 bracelets very difficult.

Such low cong 琮 seem to separate into two broad categories: ones that are still large enough to serve as bracelets and are usually precisely shaped like the present example; and ones that are too small to be worn as bracelets and tend to display softer, more rounded shapes (see F1917.41). Exactly what this difference means in terms of time or space is not yet clear.

[1] See discussion of these low undecorated cong 琮 in Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing (London: British Museum Press, 1995), p. 151, no. 7:3.

[2] See Tang Chung [Deng Cong] 鄧聰, ed., Dongya yuqi 東亞玉器 = East Asian Jade: Symbol of Excellence, vol. 3 (Xianggang: Zhongguo kaogu yishu yanjiu zhongxin, 1998), cats. 59, 61, 62.

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