Period:Shang dynasty Production date:15thC BC-10thC BC
Materials:jade, cinnabar (traces),
Technique:incised
Subjects:dragon
Dimensions:Length: 8.30 centimetres
Description:
Dagger pendant/knot opener of yellow jade with slight surface pitting, earth encrustation and traces of cinnabar in the perforation. The curved dagger is represented by a “bottle-horn” dragon holding a blade in its open mouth. There is a bi-conical perforation through the curled tail of the dragon.
IMG
![图片[1]-pendant BM-2022-3034.106-China Archive](https://chinaarchive.net/Shang dynasty/Jades/mid_Jade_106.jpg)
Comments:See Ip Yee 1983, Loo 1950, and Philadelphia 1940. This small, crouching, bottle-horned dragon appears to hold the blade of a dagger axe in its mouth. The dragon is very compressed with an enormous jaw, a single claw, almost no body and a small coiled tail, with a hole through it, by which the pendant was hung. Eyes, jaw, horn and claw are embellished on both sides with incised lines. Emerging from the dragon’s jaw is a long blade with a double curve on one side, decorated with pairs of lines across its width and with v-shapes along its length. There is the mark of a false cut on one side of the blade. As the pendant appears to have been suspended from the tail of the dragon, it would have been hung vertically. Almost identical jades have come from tomb M856 in the western sector of Yinxu at Anyang and from Western Zhou tombs near Beijing and Luoyang. The function and origin of the pendant are impossible to establish. However, the combination of a creature and the outline of a blade is not typical of Shang work (a distinction is made here between the representation of a blade and an actual tool as seen in no. 12.12), and only this particular formula is found. It is thus possible that it is a Shang reinterpretation of a much earlier jade type whose original purpose was unknown to the Shang. One such model could have been small finials, similar to those seen on no, ll.2, which generally consist of a small eagle-like bird grasping in its claws an undecorated pointed column. As discussed in that entry, such bird and column pendants were quite widely distributed, and have survived at a number of Shang sites, including the tomb of Fu Hao. Their decoration in thread relief is not, however, typical of the Shang and must belong to the late neolithic period. If this jade type, which had clearly belonged to a non-Shang culture, was sufficiently well known to the Shang, it would not be surprising if it, like the coiled dragon, was given a completely new interpretation, with a bottle -horned dragon replacing the eagle-like bird and a blade, the pointed column. See Rawson 1995, p.215, cat.no.12.10.
Materials:jade, cinnabar (traces),
Technique:incised
Subjects:dragon
Dimensions:Length: 8.30 centimetres
Description:
Dagger pendant/knot opener of yellow jade with slight surface pitting, earth encrustation and traces of cinnabar in the perforation. The curved dagger is represented by a “bottle-horn” dragon holding a blade in its open mouth. There is a bi-conical perforation through the curled tail of the dragon.
IMG
Comments:See Ip Yee 1983, Loo 1950, and Philadelphia 1940. This small, crouching, bottle-horned dragon appears to hold the blade of a dagger axe in its mouth. The dragon is very compressed with an enormous jaw, a single claw, almost no body and a small coiled tail, with a hole through it, by which the pendant was hung. Eyes, jaw, horn and claw are embellished on both sides with incised lines. Emerging from the dragon’s jaw is a long blade with a double curve on one side, decorated with pairs of lines across its width and with v-shapes along its length. There is the mark of a false cut on one side of the blade. As the pendant appears to have been suspended from the tail of the dragon, it would have been hung vertically. Almost identical jades have come from tomb M856 in the western sector of Yinxu at Anyang and from Western Zhou tombs near Beijing and Luoyang. The function and origin of the pendant are impossible to establish. However, the combination of a creature and the outline of a blade is not typical of Shang work (a distinction is made here between the representation of a blade and an actual tool as seen in no. 12.12), and only this particular formula is found. It is thus possible that it is a Shang reinterpretation of a much earlier jade type whose original purpose was unknown to the Shang. One such model could have been small finials, similar to those seen on no, ll.2, which generally consist of a small eagle-like bird grasping in its claws an undecorated pointed column. As discussed in that entry, such bird and column pendants were quite widely distributed, and have survived at a number of Shang sites, including the tomb of Fu Hao. Their decoration in thread relief is not, however, typical of the Shang and must belong to the late neolithic period. If this jade type, which had clearly belonged to a non-Shang culture, was sufficiently well known to the Shang, it would not be surprising if it, like the coiled dragon, was given a completely new interpretation, with a bottle -horned dragon replacing the eagle-like bird and a blade, the pointed column. See Rawson 1995, p.215, cat.no.12.10.
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