Jade ceremonial blade - Pale translucen green jade with brown suffusion and calcification.
- This piece has been beautifully prepared.
- Tapered, trapdzoidal blade with six small and one larger hole.
- On three sides the blade is decorated with animal faces (dragons?) and compact, triangular bodies in thread relief.
- Judging by the number of 'eyes', there are many animals lurking in this jungle.
- Cf. an almost identical blade in the Freer gallery, Chinese Art of the Warring States Period, Thomas Lawton, 1982, p. 158.
- The Freer blade is said to derive from the shape of "a Neolithic stone harvesting knife", and is considered an early example of Chinese archaism.
- Some aspects of the carving are peculiar - the relief at the top and bottom of the blade flattens noticably on the 'edge' side of the blade (see the last photo).
- 20.9 x 7.15 x .64 cm.Â
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