CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

i6
i6
Jade owl
Width 3.8 (iV 2 )
Hongshan Culture, c. 4700-2920 BCE
From Hutougou, Fuxin, Liaoning Province
Liaoning Provincial Museum, Shenyang
17
Three-holed jade object with animal heads
Height 2.8 (iVs), width 9.2 (3 5 A)
Hongshan Culture, c. 4700-2920 BCE
From Sanguandianzi, Lingyuan, Liaoning Province
Liaoning Provincial Museum, Shenyang
In 1973, along the river at Hutougou (in Fuxin
county, Liaoning province), farmers found a stone
tomb, part of which had been washed away by the
current. 1 They recovered several jades, including
the owl exhibited here (cat. 16), as well as two turtles,
a bird, another owl, a bi disk, and a cloudlike
plaque. (Archaeologists subsequently conducted a
systematic excavation of the tomb and found another
grave.) Although the precise positions of
these particular objects remain unrecorded, discoveries
such as these, as well as systematically excavated
finds, have have enabled archaeologists to
identify jade carving as one of the attributes of the
Hongshan culture.
The Hongshan jade animal figures are
uniformly small (turquoise was also used to create
small-scale animal sculptures); holes drilled into
the back of the objects indicate that they may have
been attached to certain articles — perhaps clothing—
or that they served as pendants. These jade
turtles and birds exhibit a more naturalistic approach
to representation than do other Hongshan
jades such as the jade plaque with animal design
and the Y-shaped object (cats. 14,15). Particular
cultures or periods do not necessarily exhibit a
uniform artistic style; indeed, abstract and realistic
approaches to representation coexisted in the
Hongshan culture.
91 | HONCSHAN CULTURE