CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

H5
Jade pei ornament in the shape of a doubleheaded
dragon
Height 6 (2 3 /s), width 10.2 (4'A)
Western Han Dynasty, second century BCE
From the tomb of the King of Nanyue at Xianggang,
Guangzhou, Guangdong Province
The Museum of the Western Han Tomb of the
Nanyue King, Guangzhou, Guandong Province
This beautifully carved ornament 1 is a Han period
transformation of a conventional type of pendant
known as a huang. The basic form, which appears
as early as the Neolithic period, is an arc-shaped
section of a circle, and it occurs in many variants,
especially along the east coast of China and during
the Shang and Western Zhou periods. During the
Early Eastern Zhou period, huang were decorated
with animal heads at each end (several such examples
have been found in the tombs of the Huang
state in southern Henan province), 2 and this category
of pendants appears in various Chinese states
throughout the Eastern Zhou period. During the
third century BCE, the heads were transformed in
a number of ingenious ways: a pendant found at
Anhui Changfeng Yanggang incorporates outwardfacing
dragons at both ends into the design.
The carving seen here is a later form of the
Anhui example. Two dragons, with broad rounded
chests and feline legs, face each other aggressively,
separated by a pointed projection on which is
carved a rudimentary face. Each advances one paw
to the center and raises the other behind its back
as if poised to attack. Their jaws are open, and the
creatures have small ears and crestlike extensions
at the back of their heads. That the outward-facing
position conventionally depicted in animal-head
huang pendants is here reversed does not conceal
the ornament's close relation to its predecessors:
Like many earlier jades, it has a relief pattern on it,
in this instance small raised scrolls joined by interlinked
spirals, a form characteristic of the second
century BCE.
Seven pendant sets were found in the eastern
chamber of the king's tomb, along with the bodies
of four women. This magnificent ornament seems
to have been the topmost item in a complex pendant
set found lying to the east of the coffin of the
woman called "the Lady on the Right." Together
with this piece, the assemblage comprised five
other huang, a disk with three birds carved along
the outer rim, and two rings incised with spiral
grooves. The loop of this huang is pieced along the
top with three holes, so that the assembled pendant,
fixed to an attachment, could hang from
the neck or from the waist. Texts such as the Li ji
(Record of ritual) describe pendants hanging from
the waist, but, given its length, it is more likely that
a complex assemblage like this example would have
hung from the neck over the chest. JR
1 Excavated in 1983 (E 143-9); reported: Guangzhou 1991,
1:240-241, fig. 163:1.
2 Rawson 1995, 259 - 266, fig. 2 and no. 17:4.
425 TOMB OF THE KING OF NANYUE