This small pendant represents a popular type of jade that imitates insignia and weapon types in miniature. It is hypothesized that these served as knot-openers because of their structure in the shape of a blade with point and their small size. The Late Shang form from Anyang, as represented by the present lot, is also typically characterized by a half-moon-shaped dip where the blade fits into the dragon's open mouth. The Sackler piece is almost identical to Anyang-excavated pieces from burials at Xiaotun, Shi Zhangru, Archaeologia Sinica 2 (Xiaotun), no. 1, fasc. 3 (Burials of the Middle Section, Anyang), pts. I-II, Nangang, Taiwan, 1970, p. 116, pls. CXLI:7A-D, CXLII:7A-7D; Yang Jianfang, Jade Carving in Chinese Archaeology, 1987, Hong Kong, pl. XXXVI: 11; Dasikongcun, Kaogu xuebao:9, 1955, p. 56, pl. XIX:2; and the Western Sector Cemetery, Kaogu xuebao 1979:1, p. 102, fig. 76:8. The piece from the Western Sector Cemetery at Anyang, although described as a ge-dagger, is small and marked by a strong curve of the blade, as is the case with the present lot, which has a dragon head similar to the pieces from Dasikongcun and Xiaotun burials. Perforations in all these small "knot-openers" are drilled from one side. The Sackler piece undoubtedly came from Anyang or a Late Shang metropolitan site

Several daggers of this type are in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Chinese Jades: Archaic and Modern, Vermont and Tokyo, 1977, nos. 29, 39