AN ARCHAIC CELADON JADE CONG NEOLITHIC PERIOD, LIANGZHU CULTURE | 新石器時代 良渚文化玉琮

The Liangzhu culture, which is named after a village near Hangzhou in Zhejiang, flourished from the late 4th to the end of the 3rd millennium BC and has brought about a large variety of jade forms, foremost among them bi (discs) and cong. Cong remain among the most enigmatic objects of early Chinese cultures. Generally shaped as cylinders that are round on the inside and square on the outside, they can vary enormously in height and diameter, ranging from wide, shallow bracelets to tall, narrow tubes. Lianzhu cong such as the current example are distinguished by finely engraved anthropomorphic or zoomorphic faces with highly stylized but distinctive features.

The faces on this piece are carved with the characteristic Liangzhu features of two prominent eyes and horizontal bands. 

With no obvious usage explaining their shape and no clearly understandable meaning legible in their decoration, Liangzhu cong have provided fertile grounds for interpretation (K.C. Chang, ‘An Essay on Cong’, and Jean M. James, ‘Images of Power: Masks of the Liangzhu Culture’, in Chinese Jade. Selected Articles from Orientations 1983-2003, Hong Kong, 2005, pp. 70-76 and 101-110). Given their common appearence in Liangzhu burials, their extremely complex and time-consuming workmanship, and their mysterious form and ornamentation, it is likely that they served some important ritual or ceremonial purpose among the elites of this early society, but any more specific interpretation has to await further archaeological or historical studies. As simple works of art handed down to us from a society that flourished over four millennia ago, the present jade and its companion pieces fascinate by their imaginative concept, distinctive style and superb control of the medium.

Although Liangzhu cong are unmistakeable, being composed of a number of recurring elements, individual examples nevertheless vary greatly.  A large range of examples in many different shapes and sizes is illustrated in Liangzhu wenhua yuqi [Jades from the Liangzhu Culture], n.p., 1989, pls 6-58; and in Jessica Rawson, Chinese Jade: From the Neolithic to the Qing, London, 1995, p. 34 and pp. 124-129.