LATE SHANG-EARLY WESTERN ZHOU DYNASTY, 13TH-11TH CENTURY BC

In her discussion of a late Shang jade curved bottle-horned dragon tool with thin, sharp edge extending from the tail, similar to those seen on the present pendants, Jenny F. So notes in Early Chinese Jades in the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2019, p. 136, “A wide range of activities in Shang society – inscribing oracle bones, carving designs on clay vessels, molds, and models for bronze-casting, the production and decoration of bone and ivory articles, and more – required engraving tools. A total of twenty-three similarly shaped tools in jade and three in bone surmounted by bird, turtle and reptile motifs recovered from Fu Hao’s tomb at Anyang signal the elevated status of this activity in Shang society. Although natural and cheaper choices for engraving tools might be bone, shell, and similar materials, jade versions must have been considered superior in both material and status for the craftsmen who used them.”