Pendant with mask

• 1. (Daisy Yiyou Wang 王依悠, May 29, 2012) The Singer piece is of a pale grayish green color. In comparison, the sides of the piece appear to be of a darker green tone. The entire piece has rounded corners and subtly beveled edges in the blade section. The top and back of the crest have engraved lines. On the front side V-shaped lines are incised between the two eyes, and the nose is represented by two crosses.
   
  Another piece (94ALNM873:38) excavated in Anyang 安陽, Henan 河南 province, is similar in size with the Singer piece, but perhaps slightly thinner with more angular edges and cruder engraved lines. The jade is of grayish green with white marks. The figure is identified as a kui 虁 dragon with oblong eyes, one horn, and pointed tail. An even closer example in form, design, and carving was excavated in an aristocratic tomb No. 54 in Huayuanzhuang 花園莊, Anyang 安陽, Henan 河南 province. The Huayuanzhuang 花園莊 piece (L x W x Thickness: 10.4 x 2.4 x 0.95 cm) is slightly longer and wider than the Singer with similar thickness. It is noted that the Huayuanzhuang 花園莊 piece has rounded edges and a bi conical perforation at the end of the tail of the dragon. Two pieces excavated in Anyang are named xi 觹 which refers to a knot opener. See Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo 中國社會科學院考古研究所, Anyang Yinxu chutu yuqi 安陽殷墟出土玉器 (Beijing: Kexue chubanshe, 2005), p. 172 (94ALNM873:38), p. 169 (01HDM54:363).
   
  2. (Daisy Yiyou Wang 王依悠, June 4, 2012) Janet Douglas and I examined this piece together in storage. The lighter tone of the front and back might be burial alteration or natural color. One can see layers of deeper green jade from the sides. The piece appears chunky. This type of blade shaped pendants with a dragon shaped handle is in Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing (London: British Museum Press, 1995),  pp. 215--16, cat.12: 10. The British Museum piece is a 8.3 cm long yellow jade with slight surface pitting with some earth encrustation and traces of cinnabar. Rawson identifies the creature as a bottle horned dragon holding a dagger-axe in its mouth. In comparison, we may identify the compressed dragon body ending in a spiral with two drilled holes in the center. The raised spiral above its oblong eyes are perhaps horns.
   
  Rawson argues that the combination of a creature and the outline of a blade is not typical of Shang 商 work and suggests that it is a Shang 商 reinterpretation of a much earlier jade type, whose original purpose was unknown to the Shang 商.
   
  This type is comparable to the Sackler piece S1987.837, which shows a more three dimensional dragon with a short coiled body and the bronze dagger axe with a dragon-shaped handle. See F1950.9 (the handle and the blade might be married), and RLS1997.48.749.

  3. (Najiba Choudhury per Keith Wilson, May 10, 2018) Title changed from "Horse bit cheek piece with taotie" to "Pendant with mask"; geography changed from "China, Henan province, Anyang" to "China, probably Henan province, Anyang"; object name changed from "Horse trapping" to "pendant"; added Chinese object caption by Jingmin Zhang; and added unpublished research by Louisa Fitzgerald Huber.
  
  
  
  

Draft catalogue entry (no. 106) for S2012.9.293 for the catalogue of the Singer collection (1970--1990); by Louisa Fitzgerald Huber
Bow Tip
Shang 商 dynasty, 12th--11th century BCE
Jade
Length 8.8 cm (3 7/16 in)
 
This object, fashioned from a whitish stone with sparse black and brownish veins, is composed of three sections. The lower-most section, resembling a short blade, curves forward and is sharpened to a blunt tip. A plain, recessed midsection separates it from the topmost section, which is rectangular and decorated with a bovine head. The principal features of the head--its oval eyes and its horns--are rendered in low relief. Simple grooves define the angular mouth and lower jaw. Two wavy lines rising from the nostrils are perhaps meant as whiskers. More unusual are the short legs with small paws, which reach behind the lower corner at the level of the jaw. The large, hooked spiral visible at the center of each side is derived from the curled shape of the upper part of the legs, seen earlier on examples of this type. [1] A biconical hole is drilled transversely through the top.
 
Shi Zhangru 石璋如 has proposed that such objects, which often occur in pairs and are frequently carved of bone, were accoutrements to the reflex bow. He suggests that they were inserted into the tips of the bow to facilitate the attachment of the bow string. [2] His theory receives support from the publication of the contents of the chariot burial Tomb 20 at Xiaotun 小屯, where additional objects of this kind were discovered. [3] A further example has been unearthed from a late Anyang 安陽 grave in the western sector necropolis near Xiaotun 小屯. In this case the piece was found alone, and instead of a perforation at the top, it is provided with a small ring. [4] 
 
[1] The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Chinese Jades: Archaic and Modern (Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1977), cats. 29--30, color pl. IV: b, lowermost.

[2] Shi Zhangru 石璋如, "Xiaotun Yindai de chengtao bingqi 小屯殷代的成套兵器," Lishi yuyan yanjiusuo jikan 歷史語言研究所集刊 22 (1950), pp. 36--39.

[3] Shi Zhangru 石璋如, Yinxu muzang: Beizu muzang 殷虛墓葬：北組墓葬, in Zhongguo kaogu baogao ji zhi er, Xiaotun diyi ben: Yizhi de faxian yu fajue, bingbian 中國考古報告集之二, 小屯第1本：遺址的發現與發掘, 丙編 (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo, 1970), vol. 1: 24, fig. 8, p. 115, fig. 303; vol. 2: pl. 141: 6--7, pl. 142: 6--7.

[4] Zhongguo shehui kexueyuan kaogu yanjiusuo Anyang gongzuodui 中國社會科學院考古研究所安陽工作隊, "1969--1977 nian Yinxu xiqu muzang fajue baogao 1969-1977年殷墟西區墓葬發掘報告," Kaogu xuebao 考古學報 1979.1, p. 100, fig. 74: 5.

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