CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

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Jade and hardstone face covering
Late Western Zhou Period, ninth to
eighth century BCE
From Tianma-Qucun (Beizhao, Quwo),
Shanxi Province
Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology,
Taiyuan
These seventy-nine plaques, which were combined
with agate or faience beads to form a schematic
face, covered the head of the person buried in
Tomb M 31 (possibly the consort of the Jin ruler
buried in Tomb M 8; see cats. 129-137). l It is likely
that the individual plaques were sewn onto a textile
to form a complete covering.
The plaques include a variety of different forms.
Small pieces — triangles alternating with threepronged
shapes — form a circular or rounded rectangular
border. The jade is cut to imitate the
features of the face (mouth, nose, eyes, eyebrows,
and ears), and plaques fill the spaces between the
strongly carved eyebrows and areas below the eyes,
at the cheeks, and around the mouth. The varied
carving on the plaques, some of which were clearly
broken or cut for their new function, is evidence of
reuse; it is likely that jade was scarce and that every
available piece was precious.
The tombs at Tianma-Qucun are remarkable for
the large number of jades that they contain. This
face covering is one of a number of similarly complex
jade compositions, which seem to have been a
speciality of this area. While earlier examples may
be recognized in jades found at Chang'an, at sites
in Fengxi, south of present-day Xi'an, none of those
jade groups is as elaborate as the face coverings
from the Jin state tombs. 2
The face coverings were accompanied by
arrangements of beads and arc pendants (huang),
many of great complexity (see cats. 85, 86); the
pendants seem to have come into fashion in the
ninth to eighth centuries and were undoubtedly
important components of burial costumes,
esteemed both for the value of the material and
for the properties ascribed to jade. 3 Certainly, the
choice of a material that was traditionally employed
for highly valued objects suggests that these coverings
were, in themselves, intrinsically important.
The emphasis on the features of the face suggests
that they were intended to protect the person in
the afterlife by creating a sense of awe in those who
might approach the wearer, whether living people
or spirits. In combination with the complex array
of beads and arcs distributed over the body, the
plaques may also have been intended to suggest the
rank and power of their owners.
It has been argued that these face coverings,
together with their associated tiered arrangements
of plaques and beads, were predecessors of Han
period jade shrouds (see cats. 129 and 139), but an
unbroken continuity between the two forms of
burial apparatus is unlikely. The use of jade face
coverings came into being and then declined and
indeed almost disappeared well before the Han
period. For that reason, it is more likely that the
jade ornaments of the Jin state constitute a tradition
peculiar to the Late Western and Early Eastern
Zhou periods in this part of China. The convention
of linking tiers of jade plaques with agate and
faience beads (see cat. 85) may have been introduced
to the Zhou area by peoples who lived on the
western and northern peripheries of the Yellow
River system. JR
1 Excavated in 1993 (M 31:73); reported: Shanxi 19943.
2 See Zhang Changzhou 1993, pi. 6:3.
3 For a discussion of the sources of jade pendants, see Sun
Ji 1998.
251 | ROYAL TOMBS OF THE JIN STATE, BEIZHAO