An extremely rare inscribed brown jade ceremonial blade (Zhang), Neolithic period | 新石器時代 玉璋

Collection of Dr Wou Kiuan (1910-1997). 

Wou Lien-Pai Museum, coll. no. E.3.26.

吳權博士 (1910-1997) 收藏

吳蓮伯博物院，編號E.3.26

Enigmatic and ceremonial, the present blade belongs to a small group of Neolithic jade carvings bearing later commemorative inscriptions. Whilst it is difficult to pinpoint when precisely the inscription would have been added, similar inscriptions on jade are known from the late Shang and Zhou dynasties. All positioned near the base of the blade, the vertical inscriptions are similar in content to those found on many oracle and bone inscriptions, commemorating a historical event with mention of the date or time and the persons involved. 

Within this group is the well-known Erlitou culture blade bearing a lengthy Zhou inscription from the Freer collection, now in the National Museum of Asian Art, Washington D.C., discussed in J. Keith Wilson, 'Thinking Green: Chinese Jades Reworked in the Second Millennium BCE', Transactions of the Oriental Ceramic Society, vol. 77, 2012-2013, p. 52, fig 12a-b; and a Neolithic Ge blade bearing a late Shang inscription from the Winthrop collection, now in the Harvard Art Museums, published in Jenny F. So, Early Chinese Jades in the Harvard Art Museums, Harvard, 2019, pl. 13. 

Other jade blades with shorter inscriptions are known, including one excavated from Fu Hao's tomb at Anyang, see The Institute of Archaeology, CASS, Yinxu fuhaomu / Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu in Anyang, Beijing, 1980, col. pl. XVII, fig. 2; another excavated at Sanmenxia in Henan bearing a three-character inscription, illustrated in Institute of Archeology of Henan Province, Archeological Team of Sanmenxia, Sanmenxia guoguomu / The Guo State Tombs in Sanmenxia, vol. 1 (II), Beijing, 1999, col. pl. XXIX, figs 1 and 2; and a third, bearing a three-character inscription, found at Gansu Qingyang, illustrated in Wenwu, 2, 1979, p. 93, figs 1-3. A late Shang jade blade bearing a four-character inscription from the Chang Wei-Hwa collection sold at Christie's Hong Kong, 30th November 2020, lot 2707. 

Forked blades (zhang) first made their appearance during the Neolithic period, although their source of inspiration remains unknown as the form has no prototype in stone implements of the period. The function of this type of blade has been an area of discussion, and interpretations of it as a military implement have bene suggested in ancient texts such as Zhouli [Rites of Zhou], as well as Zheng Xuan's commentaries in the Eastern Han dynasty. Blades of this form are often of large size and are finely and thinly carved, suggesting a ceremonial function, which is consistent with archaeological excavation findings from sacrificial pits.