This knife blade is identified as a dao by the shape that resembles a saw and by the regularly spaced perforated holes for lashing the blade to a wooden handle. This dao-blade originated in the tool used to saw and cut and was adapted as a jade symbol of status (insigne) during the Longshan and later historic Erlitou periods, E. Childs-Johnson, "Dragons, Masks, Axes and Blades", Orientations, April, 1988, pp. 35-7, figs 14 (illustrated upside down), 15 and 17; idem., Ritual and Power: Jades of Ancient China, China Institute in America, New York, 1988, figs. 44-47. Typical of the dating to Longshan is the tendency to emphasize one face and the asymmetrical trapezoidal shape. Three holes are drilled from one side along the upper edge. A fourth hole is drilled from one side for purposes of securing the blade firmly to a handle. On the other hand, since Late Neolithic jades were frequently reworked, the fourth hole may derive from a former use of this jade. A longitudinal saw mark extends on both sides of the dao. This form is typified by later Erlitou period dao blades, see Wen Fong, ed., The Great Bronze Age of China, New York, 1981, pl. 3; and Kaogu, 1977:5, p. 306, fig. 4:10, pl. VIII:9. Excavated stone and jade dao of pre-Longshan date are represented by finds at Xuejiagang, Kaogu xuebao, 1982:3, fig. 25, p. 310, and of Longshan date by finds at Shimao, Shenmuxian, Shaanxi, Kaogu, 1977.3. A close parallel to the present example has also been recently published as coming from the Tianjin Arts Museum in Shandong Province, Zhongguo meishu quanji: Yuqi, vol. 9, 1992, pl. 53, p. 235

Other dao blades of this type and size are in the Winthrop Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Max Loehr, Ancient Chinese Jades, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1975, no. 217; in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Chinese Jades: Archaic and Modern, Vermont and Japan, 1977, nos. 45 and 36; and in the Kwan Collection, Chinese Archaic Jades, Art Gallery, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1994, Catalogue no. 57