CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

figures, a huang, and some beads. 2 A more rudimentary
figure was found in the tomb of Liu Sheng
(cats. 129-137) as part of a pendant.
There is little consistency in the style or the
artistic quality of these dancing figures. The present
figure, carved in the round, is an elaborate,
three-dimensional example; the bead in cat. 144
resembles the Freer figures, although the more
stylized forms of the latter convey a more animated
effect. Some dancing figures are almost flat and
rectangular in form. It is unlikely, however, that
stylistic differences among these figures point to
differing dates of manufacture; indeed both elaborate
and highly simplified dancing figures are found
in the tomb of the King of Nanyue.
These figures seem to depict "jade maidens"
(so named in the Chu ci [Songs of Chu] and in a
number of Han poems of the fu genre) — spirit
mediums whose dancing could summon up spirits.
The Shuo wenjie zi, an early dictionary, identifies
these women as "invocators (zhu) ... women who
can perform services to the shapeless and make the
spirits come down by dancing." 3 Descriptions of
these dancing jade maidens often allude to their
long sleeves, whose swirling movements might have
suggested the mist associated with apparitions
of deities and spirits, and the image of the jade
maiden was used throughout the Han period and
into the early period of the division of the kingdoms.
Jade maidens are also mentioned in later
Tang dynasty poetry, where they are associated
primarily with Daoist-types of paradise. 4 JR
1 Excavated in 1983 (C 137); reported: Guangzhou 1991,
1:120-121, fig. 81:1; 2:242-243, fig. 164:1, 3.
2 Discussed in Priich 1998,172, see Lawton 1982, nos. 77-79.
3 Quoted after Falkenhausen 1995, 279 - 300.
4 The jade carvings and their poetic context have been fully
discussed in Erickson 1994, 39-63.
427 | TOMB OF THE KING OF NANYUE