A RARE BLACKISH JADE CEREMONIAL BLADE, DAO
A RARE BLACKISH JADE CEREMONIAL BLADE, DAO

NEOLITHIC PERIOD, QIJIA CULTURE, CIRCA 2000 BC

Details
A RARE BLACKISH JADE CEREMONIAL BLADE, DAO
NEOLITHIC PERIOD, QIJIA CULTURE, CIRCA 2000 BC
Very thinly carved in somewhat trapezoidal form, with one straight edge opposite a beveled and very slightly curved cutting edge on one side, the reverse flat, with three holes drilled from one side near one edge, the stone now opaque and of faintly mottled blackish olive-green color, with satin-like polish and some earth accretions on the reverse
13 13/16 in. (35.2 cm.) long
Provenance
Diedrich-Abbes Collection, 1959.

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Lot Essay

This exceptionally thin blade can be associated with others from the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age Qijia culture of northeast China in what are now Shaanxi and Gansu provinces. Other blades of this type which share the same kind of fine polish and extreme thinness have been recovered from a pit at a Qijia period site in Shenmu, northern Shaanxi province, illustrated by Jenny So in the introductory essay, p. ???, and published in Shenmu Xinhua, Beijing, 2005, pp. 114-15. The blades were arranged in parallel formations and stood on their edges.

A dao of this shape and thinness (2 mm.), but longer (44.6 cm.), in the Winthrop Collection is illustrated by M. Loehr, Ancient Chinese Jades, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, 1975, p. 162, no. 207.

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