sceptre; blade BM-1937-0416.149

Period:Neolithic Period Production date:2000BC-1200BC (circa)
Materials:jade, nephrite,
Technique:polished

Dimensions:Length: 36 centimetres

Description:
Green-black jade sceptre.
IMG


Comments:Rawson 1992:From 4500 BC, jade was employed for exceptionally elegant versions of utilitarian stone tools. Made in jade, the tools were not for daily use but for displays of status and power. Jades, as well as bronzes, were thus used for special ritual or ceremonial versions of standard everyday items. The material itself was scarcer and required more labour to work it than ordinary stone. Not only the material, but also the ways in which they were worked demonstrated their exalted functions. Jade sceptres were ground more thinly than the stone tools they copied. Had they been used (i.e. to chop down a tree), they would have fractured. Details of shape and design – in other words, aesthetic qualities – were chosen to show off the distinctions between the jade sceptre and the stone axe. Fuirthermore, there would be no point in using these scarce and labour-intensive materials in place of common ones if they could not be inmediately recognised as outstanding. Craftmanship was, therefore, directed to exploiting and displaying the particular qualities of jade that make it recognisably different from ordinary stones. These qualities had to be made visually noticeable. Visual distinctions deployed to separate the ceremonial from the everyday can also be used to refer to smaller differences in the ranking of ritual items. In any society, from ancient China to twentieth-century Europe, the scarcest and most beautiful materials will be restricted to the uses deemed most important by that society.These features also serve to advertise the wealth of the patron who can command supplies of both material and skilled labour. It is therefore not suprising that at times when rulers and their courts wished to assert their authority, they commissioned large numbers of jades. Further, when they wished to distract attention from weakness in society, they emphasized their power even more by increasing expenditure on ritual objects. Rawson 1995:The distribution of this blade type is wide and has excited considerable discussion. In the northern metropolitan regions there are two principal sources: Shandong and Shaanxi, principally the hoard at Shaanxi Shenmu Shimao. Scholars are divided as to which of these two areas was the place of origin of this blade type. A few scholars have even suggested that the shape must refer to a sceptre, perhaps is some other material, such as bone, known in the Laingzhu culture, for some graphs or signs on Liangzhu jades appear to show the blade shape. So far no solution to the conundrum is in sight. See also BM 1947.0712.445. Sceptres of this shapes, made from similar black stone, have been excavated from sites in Shaanxi and Sichuan provinces in Western China.