NORTH WEST CHINA, SHANG OR WESTERN ZHOU PERIOD, CIRCA 1500-1000 BC

Details

A FOUR-SEGMENT JADE DISC, YUAN
NORTH WEST CHINA, SHANG OR WESTERN ZHOU PERIOD, CIRCA 1500-1000 BC
The thinly polished segments cut from one single disc, each drilled with two holes from one side, the jade of semi-translucent greyish-green tone with opaque buff alteration
Each segment 3 1/8 in. (8 cm.) long, box

Provenance

Baron and Baroness von Oertzen Collection

Literature

S. Howard Hansford, Jade - Essence of Hills and Streams, Johannesburg, 1969, no. A12, p. 35

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

Lot Essay

Although segmented discs are commonly found in both Shang and Western Zhou tombs, they are normally in sets of two or three, rarely in four. A single arc excavated from the tomb of Fuhao is clearly a quarter of a disc (see Tomb of Lady Hao at Yinxu in Anyang, Cultural Relics Publishing House, Beijing, 1980, pl. 97, no.1027.) A set of four-segmented disc decorated with scrolls dated to Early Eastern Zhou is in the Winthrop Collection, illustrated by Loehr in Ancient Chinese Jades, Harvard University, Massachusetts, 1975, no. 349, p. 235. Some of these discs are clearly of Neolithic origin that have been handed down. It is unsure what their function or purposes were.

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