Period:Shang dynasty Production date:15thC BC-10thC BC
Materials:jade, cinnabar (traces),
Technique:incised
Subjects:dragon
Dimensions:Height: 3 centimetres Length: 6 centimetres
Description:
Dragon pendant in the round of pale green jade almost totally calcified with earth encrustation and very slight traces of cinnabar in the perforations.
IMG
![图片[1]-pendant BM-2022-3034.117-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Shang dynasty/Jades/193_.jpg)
Comments:This rounded regardant dragon with large head, open jaws and a pair of bottlehorns separated by a groove is decorated on the body with double lozenges in relief terminating in a coiled tail which has an enclosed scroll extension. The animal rests on one taloned foot turned towards the undecorated back. One perforation is through the extension on the tail and a second biconical perforation runs through the back of the neck. Shang. Length 60mm. See Loo 1950, Philadelphia 1940, Salmony 1963, Lyons 1978, Ayers and Rawson 1975, China Institute 1967, and Min Chiu 1985. This dragon with its head turned back to look over its tail creates an s-shape. The head is very large, with an open jaw, an oval eye and a bottle horn. The body is much more slender and diminishes in size as it coils round to form a tail with an enclosed scroll extension. Below the body is a claw. One side of the dragon is decorated with incised lozenges, and the other side is plain. The pendant could be suspended or attached at three points: at a small loop on the tail, at the coil within the tail and at a slanting hole on the undecorated side of the body. Indeed the position of this hole and the lack of decoration on this side would suggest that the jade was attached to cloth or some other solid surface. S-shaped dragons show how the Shang craftsman had freed himself from the Hongshan dragon formula by allowing the dragon to assume a more dynamic form. A similarly powerful but still tightly coiled dragon can be seen among the jades in Fu Hao’s tomb. This piece retains the simple Hongshan coil, but it has moved in three dimensions to lie over part of the body. Both illustrate the Shang craftmens’ reinterpretation of the dragon as a living creature within their own cultural universe. See Loo 1980; pl. 11:8.
Materials:jade, cinnabar (traces),
Technique:incised
Subjects:dragon
Dimensions:Height: 3 centimetres Length: 6 centimetres
Description:
Dragon pendant in the round of pale green jade almost totally calcified with earth encrustation and very slight traces of cinnabar in the perforations.
IMG
Comments:This rounded regardant dragon with large head, open jaws and a pair of bottlehorns separated by a groove is decorated on the body with double lozenges in relief terminating in a coiled tail which has an enclosed scroll extension. The animal rests on one taloned foot turned towards the undecorated back. One perforation is through the extension on the tail and a second biconical perforation runs through the back of the neck. Shang. Length 60mm. See Loo 1950, Philadelphia 1940, Salmony 1963, Lyons 1978, Ayers and Rawson 1975, China Institute 1967, and Min Chiu 1985. This dragon with its head turned back to look over its tail creates an s-shape. The head is very large, with an open jaw, an oval eye and a bottle horn. The body is much more slender and diminishes in size as it coils round to form a tail with an enclosed scroll extension. Below the body is a claw. One side of the dragon is decorated with incised lozenges, and the other side is plain. The pendant could be suspended or attached at three points: at a small loop on the tail, at the coil within the tail and at a slanting hole on the undecorated side of the body. Indeed the position of this hole and the lack of decoration on this side would suggest that the jade was attached to cloth or some other solid surface. S-shaped dragons show how the Shang craftsman had freed himself from the Hongshan dragon formula by allowing the dragon to assume a more dynamic form. A similarly powerful but still tightly coiled dragon can be seen among the jades in Fu Hao’s tomb. This piece retains the simple Hongshan coil, but it has moved in three dimensions to lie over part of the body. Both illustrate the Shang craftmens’ reinterpretation of the dragon as a living creature within their own cultural universe. See Loo 1980; pl. 11:8.
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