This collared disc, sometimes labeled "T-section ring", sometimes "flanged disc", is characterized by a raised edge or collar that circumscribes the inner wall of the perforated disc. In archaeological and mainland Chinese reports, these rings are inconsistently labeled bi discs, huan rings or cong tubes. As pointed out by S. Howard Hansford, Chinese Carved Jades, London, 1968, pp. 71-3, similar discs found in situ in Gua Cha burials in Malaya suggest discs of this type functioned as arm or wrist ornament. And Doris Dohrenwend in Chinese Jades in the Royal Ontario Museum, 1971, p. 46, discusses similar discs decorating wrists of dancers and musicians from Shih-chai-shan in Yunnan of Han and later date. Concrete early archaeological evidence confirming the decorative function of the so-called T-section disc comes from burials at the Neolithic site of Dawenkou, where T-section discs made out of ivory have been found lying on the upper arm portion of corpses, Dawenkou, fig. 7, p. 15

The present lot is undoubtedly Shang in date since virtually identical examples have been found in royal burials at Anyang, Henan, e.g., M1004, Liang Siyong, Houjiazhuang, vol. 5: HPKM 1004, Taipei, 1970, pls. LVIII:7 and LIX:3 and M1550, Ibid., vol. 8: HPKM 1550, 1976, p. 49, pls. XL:3 and XL:4; and similar examples with a much wider perforation hole at the Fu Hao burial, Yinxu Fu Hao mu, Beijing, 1980, pl. 94

For comparative examples showing variation in the width of the band or size of the perforation hole see examples from museums and collections represented in the Royal Ontario Museum, Dohrenwend, op. cit., fig. p. 47 (probably Late Neolithic, Dawenkou or Longshan Period); Buffalo Museum of Science, E. Childs-Johnson, Ritual and Power: Jades of Ancient China, 1988, fig. 29, p. 18; and in the Winthrop Collection, Fogg Art Museum, illustrated by Max Loehr, Ancient Chinese Jades, 1975, no. 97