CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

149
Bronze mounted jade cup
Height 14.5 (5 5 / 8 ), diam. 8.6 (3 3 /s)
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, Guangdong Province
The value of jade required artisans to make
economical use of the material. Carving an object
from a single piece of jade was an extravagance
that necessarily entailed much wastage. More often,
limited supplies of the precious material may
have impelled the King of Nanyue s jade carvers
to use flat jade sections — rectangular, square,
or circular — to create the large number of vessels
(whether intended for the king's life on earth or
thereafter) contained in his tomb.
The framework of this cup, 1 found in the western
chamber of the King of Nanyue's tomb, consists
of two rings joined by seven vertical bronze strips.
The strips hold six rectangular jade sections, each
of which is covered with fine relief spirals linked by
432 | EARLY IMPERIAL CHINA