CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

carved for another purpose, and date from the
tenth or ninth century, 3 others even earlier — back
to the Shang period. It is likely that the Zhou (and
their vassals in the minor states) acquired such
pieces when they conquered the Shang in the mideleventh
century; the looting of the royal tombs
may have occurred at that time or at a later date.
The more difficult question is why these jades
came to be buried in the eighth century and not
earlier. Perhaps in a time of political and economic
uncertainty, when the Zhou were destabilized by
attacks from border peoples, it seemed more prudent
to bury jades for the afterlife than to risk their
immediate loss; or perhaps equipping the bodies of
rulers, their consorts, and their nobles with jades
reflected a change in how the afterlife was conceived
among the Zhou and their Jin dependents.
A direct relation between Zhou burial practices and
the Han's elaborate shrouds, pectorals, and face
coverings for their dead (see cats. 139-146) is implausible,
however, for Han burial appurtenances
were created in a culture separate in both time and
place from the Jin state of the Zhou period. JR
1 Excavated in 1994 (M 63:41); reported: Shanxi 1994}}.
2 For a discussion of the sources of interlace on Western
Zhou bronzes, see Rawson 1990, part 1:113-123. Interlace
appears on the lids of hu from Tomb M 8 at Tianma-Qucun
(Beijing 1994, 20, fig. 26).
3 See Rawson 1995, 22 - 28.
255 I ROYAL TOMBS OF THE JIN STATE, BEIZHAO