bi
- Museum number
- 2022,3034.153
- Description
-
Fluted bi disc of very pale green jade with flecking and brown veining polished to a high gloss.
- Production date
- 4thC BC-2ndC BC
- Dimensions
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Diameter: 5.50 centimetres
- Curator's comments
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The biconvex disc is well executed with curved flutes running on both sides of the piece. Song. Purchased as Song dynasty but Jessica Rawson redated to Warring States period, 475BC-221BC. See Rawson 1995, p.263, cat.no.17.1.
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This elegant, highly polished ring is carved with grooves that run from the centre to the edge and round the other side forming a spiral. Indeed, it looks like a ring around which a relatively thick cord has been wound. It was probably part of a pendant set. Similar rings occur in pendants depicted in the dress of lacquer-painted figures excavated from Chu tombs at Henan Xinyang. As with a number of other Eastern Zhou jades, rings with twisted design seem to echo items in gold, in this case, rings made of twisted metal strands. Such gold rings occur in late Western Zhou tombs at Shanxi Tianma Qucun, before the appearance of jade ones. In jade rings with twisted bands of relief seem to have enjoyed a relatively long period of fashion in the sixth and fifth centuries, BC. Examples have been excavated from a sixth-century tomb at Shaanxi Baoji Yimen and the tomb of the Marquis of Cai at Anhuji Shou xian. Similar rings appear in the pendant sets in the tomb of the King of Nan Yue in the second century BC. Here they may be antiques, treasured and handed down over many generations, or careful copies in a well established traditional form. Peter Lu, a nephew (?) of Jenny So, Professor of Chinese art at Chinese University, Shatin, Hong Kong wrote an article on the ring: EARLY PRECISION COMPOUND MACHINE FROM ANCIENT CHINA, It appeared in SCIENCE, vol. 304, p.1638. A copy is in the plastic file at JEH. This paper shows the ring was made by a method consistent with the way others of this period were made, by mechanical means.
- Location
- On display (G33b/dc11)
- Exhibition history
-
Exhibited:
2002, BM, 'Chinese Jade'
Previous loan number: 2014,AsiaLoan.17
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 2022,3034.153
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: 428 (Hotung database number)
