A pale celadon jade 'cicada' handle, Early - mid Shang dynasty | 商代早中期 青白玉三節蟬紋柄形飾

Jenny F. So, Chinese Jades from the Cissy and Robert Tang Collection, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Art Museum, Hong Kong, 2015, cat. no. 8a.

蘇芳淑，《玉澤恆輝：喜聞過齋藏玉》，香港中文大學文物館，香港，2015年，編號8a

Jade tablet or handle such as the present lot is likely to have served as lingpai or ancestral insignia during the early Shang to Western Zhou periods. This is evident from a few rare examples excavated from the Shang capital at Anyang, Henan province, which carry inscriptions of ancestor names, one such example is illustrated in Cao Nan, 'Sandai shiqi chutu bingxing yuqi yanjiu [A study of the handled-shaped jades from the Three dynasties period]', Kaogu Xuebao / Journal of Archaeology, Beijing, 2008, vol. 2, pp. 141-174, fig. 136. See two other closely related examples, excavated in the late 1989 from the large Shang dynasty tomb in the Dayangzhou Chengjia site, Xingan county, Jiangxi province, illustrated in Xingan shangdai damu [The large Shang tomb in Xingan], 1997, p. 151, fig. 77:5-6, col. pl. 44:1-2.

此類柄形飾功用未見最終定論，一說或為祭祖所用靈牌，如河南安陽商都遺址發掘的幾件類似的玉飾上見刻有代表先祖的銘文，見曹楠，「三代時期出土柄形玉器研究」，刊於《考古學報》，北京，2008 年，卷二，頁 141-174，圖 136。另見 1989 年江西省新幹縣程家都鄉商代大墓發掘兩例，著錄於《新幹商代大墓》，1997 年，頁 151，圖 77:5-6，圖版 44:1-2。