WARRING STATES PERIOD-EARLY WESTERN HAN DYNASTY, CIRCA 475-141 BC

This unique jade ring is carved with a rare design, and although other Warring States period pierced rings are recorded, no other example of similar design appears to have been published. The closest example of a Warring States pierced jade ring can be found in the Zibo Museum (fig. 1), also symmetrically decorated with a pair of dragons and a pair of chi-tigers but the width around the ring is of equal proportions. It was excavated from tomb no. 1 at Shangwang village in Zibo county, Shangdong province and is illustrated in Gu Fang, The Complete collection of Unearthed Jades in China-Shangdong, Beijing, 2005, p.196. Compare also two jade rings with similar reticulated carving, one with interlocking three dragons and another with a pair of dragons and a pair of chi tigers, in the Museum of the Western Han Dynasty Mausoleum of the Nanyue King, and illustrated in Lu Zhaoyin, Zhongguo yuqi quanji, vol. 4, 1993, pls. 50 and 51, pp. 40-41.