An archaic green jade axe (Yue), Neolithic period

Collection of Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald (1902-1982), acquired in Beijing circa 1939.

This jade axe is exceptional for the richly contrasted colors of the stone and the simple yet powerful silhouette. Jade axe of this type is named yue 鉞 in Chinese. While related jades of this form are collectively termed 'axe' in English, they have several different names in Chinese, including fu 斧, chan 鏟, yue, and qi 戚. Yu Yanjiao and Fang Gang provided a clarification in their book, Zhongguo yuqi tongshi. Xiashangjuan [The history of Chinese jade. Xia and Shang dynasties], Shenzhen, 2014, p. 160, where the authors suggests fu, chan, yue, and qi all originated from late Neolithic period stone prototypes of the Longshan culture. Jade fu and chan are both functional items, whereas jade yue and qi are ceremonial weapons. Ceremonial jades of a trapezoidal form with either a straight or curved edge should be named yue.

As a symbol of status and prestige, jade yue are rare, as Jessica Rawson states, '...they were rarely made of jade. Flat axes were of a better shape to show off the stone to its advantage and therefore display power and authority' (Chinese Jade from the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995, p. 169). Archeological findings indicate jade yue can be found in several Neolithic cultures, including Taosi, Liangzhu, Longshan, Qijia, and Shimao. See, for example, a jade yue from the Taosi culture, excavated in Linfen, Shanxi province, now in the Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, published in Gu Fang, Zhongguo chutu Yuqi quanji / The Complete Collection of Jades Unearthed in China, vol. 3, Beijing, 2005, pl. 14; and another from the Liangzhu culture, discovered in Kunshan, Jiangsu province in 1984, illustrated in Yang Boda, ed., Zhongguo yuqi quanji [The complete collection of Chinese jade], vol. 1, Shijiazhuang, 2005, p. 60, pl. 129.