NORTH CHINA, 3RD-2ND CENTURY BC

A similar pair of plaques is illustrated by E. C. Bunker et al., Nomadic Art of the Eastern Eurasian Steppes, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2002, pp. 98-99, no. 65, where the authors note that similar plaques "have been found all over northern China", including a pair in Shouzhou, Anhui province, the capital of the state of Chu from 241 to 223 BC. As with the present plaque, they have two squared vertical loops on the reverse and show evidence of having been cast with the lost-wax/lost-textile process, as was another similar plaque, one half of a belt closure in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, illustrated by O. Karlbeck, B.M.F.E.A., No. 27, Stockholm, 1955, pl. 32 (1).