CHINA

449

used for personal ornaments, insignia, and charms, and also for
vessels and utensils of various kinds.18
Jade carving is a very old art in China, going back to legendary
times, and may possibly be traced to the work of the lapidary in
early Babylonia as we saw it in the cylinder seals. The tools
were few, simple, and even crude — saws for cutting and shaping
the objects; iron discs and drills, worked by treadles, for carving
it; and several kinds of abrasives for polishing, such as quartz,
garnet, emery, and, hardest of all, ruby dust. These were applied
with wood, leather, or gourd-skin, for the entire surface, even in
the deepest crevices, must be free from all irregularities and
from all marks of the tools.
The early jades, like the bronzes, were stimulated by religious
ideas and their decorations determined by religious and emo-
tional symbolism. This is seen in the personal ornaments, per-
haps the most interesting of which are the girdle pendants
(Fig. 12.9). Seven pieces of jade formed the pendant, which
tinkled as the bearer walked. Each was a token of love and
friendship, as an old song says:
Who will give me a quince, I shall return to him a central side-ornament of fine
jade for the girdle-pendant. It is not meant as an act of thanks, but I want to render
our friendship everlasting. Who will give me a peach, I shall return to him the
red jade yao. . . . (with the same refrain). Who will give me a plum, I shall
return to him the black jade ornament kiu . . . (with the same refrain).19

These ornaments were sometimes buried with the dead as em-
blems of the parting of death and also of an eternal love. For
this purpose the
finest and most
beautifully colored
stones were used.
Such a burial girdle
ornament is seen in
Fig. 130. On the
right is a phoenix
on a cloud-form,
down to-
long slen-
der hydra, with a
bird’s head, on the lower left side; above, along the upper
edge, cloud bands carved in long firm curves. Here as in the
bronzes, are simplification and conventionalization of form,
18 Something of this variety is suggested by reading the table of contents of a Chinese book
on the subject, in one hundred volumes, quoted in Bushell, Chinese Art, v. 1, p. 132.
19 Laufer, Jade, p. 198.

Fig. 130. Girdle Pendant. Jade. Han dynasty, 2.06 b.c.—
2.2.1 a. d. (Drawing after Laufer)


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