Chinese jade
Although deep and bright green jadeite is better known in Europe, for most of China's history, jade has come in a variety of colors and white "mutton-fat" nephrite was the most highly praised and prized.
Native sources in Henan and along the Yangtze were exploited since prehistoric times and have largely been exhausted; most Chinese jade today is extracted from the northwestern province of Xinjiang.
[4] A prominent early use was the crafting of the Six Ritual Jades, found since the 3rd-millennium BCE Liangzhu culture:[5] the bi, the cong, the huang, the hu, the gui, and the zhang.
[7] By the Han dynasty, the royal family and prominent lords were buried entirely ensheathed in jade burial suits sewn in gold thread, on the idea that it would preserve the body and the souls attached to it.
[9][10] Yù has referred to many rocks and minerals that carve and polish well, especially jadeite, nephrite and agalmatolite, as well as bowenite and other varieties of serpentine.
"cast aside a brick, pick up a jade") "offer banal/humble remarks to spark abler talk by others; sacrifice a little to gain much"—one of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, and idioms, for instance yùlì 玉立 (lit.
[12] Thus, the earliest jades, of the Neolithic period, are unornamented ritual and impractical versions of the tools and weapons that were in ordinary use, often much larger than normal examples.
[13] Realistic figures of fish, turtles, cicadas, and owl-like birds with spread wings were typical carvings of the Hongshan culture.
[15] Archeological finds have also unearthed jade objects in this province in the shapes of dragons and clay-molded human figurines, therefore symbolizing the existence of a developed social group along the Liao River and inner-Mongolia.
Jades of the Shang, Zhou, and Han dynasties are increasingly embellished with animal and other decorative motifs characteristic of those times, and craftsmen developed great skill in detailed low relief work in objects such as the belt-hooks that became part of elite costume.
In later periods ancient jade shapes, derived from bronze sacrificial vessels, and motifs of painting were used to demonstrate the craftsman's extraordinary technical facility.
[3] From about the earliest Chinese dynasties until the present, jade was sourced from deposits in western regions like Khotan and other parts of China like Lantian, Shaanxi.
In Lantian, white and greenish nephrite jade is found in small quarries and as pebbles and boulders in the rivers flowing from the Kun-Lun mountain range northward into the Takla-Makan desert area.
From the Kingdom of Khotan, on the southern leg of the Silk Road, yearly tribute payments consisting of the most precious white jade were made to the Chinese Imperial court and there transformed into objets d'art by skilled artisans as jade was considered more valuable than gold or silver, and white more valuable than green.
During the reign of the Kangxi Emperor, a distinctive pairs of lions or dogs composed of jade were commissioned by the dynastic family.
[19] From the traces of jade left at these sites, one can see the evolution of crafting procedures from chipping and polishing to more advanced drilling and slicing.
[18] At the beginning of the Song dynasty, a time of prolific technology growth, "red sand", with a hardness level of 7.5 became the dominant tool of the industry.
[19] The slow rotating disk, finally, was purposeful in line cutting and preparing jade material for other drilling techniques.
[18] The microstructure especially, with its composition of densely packed fibrous crystals in a felted mass formation, contributed to the mineral's toughness and difficulty in carving.
[18] Jade objects of early ages (Neolithic through Zhou) fall into five categories: small decorative and functional ornaments such as beads, pendants, and belt hooks; weapons and related equipment; independent sculptural, especially of real and mythological animals; small objects of probably emblematic value, including the han (ornaments, often carved in the shape of a cicada, to be placed in the mouth of the dead), and many examples of larger objects—such as the cong (a hollow cylinder or truncated cone).
In terms of the Hongshan culture, bi and cong discs were most common, along with beads, pendants and ornamental pieces for hair and clothing in a variety of animal shapes.
[7] Especially during the Eastern Zhou period and Shang dynasty, jade objects see representations of celestial beings who played key roles in communicating with ancestral spirits.
[7] Later, with the transition to the early Western Zhou period, jade objects began to lose their connectivity to Heavenly powers and instead reflected the political authority and status of their owners.
[7] The spirituality, a mythological connection between the mundane Earth and the transcendence of Heaven, was manifested in many jade objects through the late phase of the Shang dynasty.
[26] Cloud pendants and cloud-shaped jade found in tombs of the elite elicit the belief in a hierarchical social structure with leaders holding both political and spiritual power.
[27] Jade constructed huang pendants likewise saw an important funerary connection due to their inclusion in the typical shaman attire.
