A large calcified jade 'cloud' pendant, Neolithic period, Hongshan culture | 新石器時代　紅山文化　勾雲形玉飾

Tiffany Chen, Selected Works of Jade, Aurora Art Museum, Taipei, 2003, pl. 8.

Wu Tanghai, Jades of Hongshan Culture, Aurora Art Museum, Taipei, 2007, pl. 137.

This jade pendant represents the most prominent jade carving recovered from Hongshan burials at its representative site, Niuheliang, Liaoning province. According to the research by Professor Jenny So, less than thirty such 'principal' jade plaques are known from excavations and museum collections, each with variate design. Fifteen, including the present example, are scrolled ornaments, see Jenny F. So, “Jades from Niuheliang: Answers to an Archaeological Problem?”, in Georges Bloch Annual, Vol. 13/14, Zurich, 2009, pp. 79-101.

A closely related green jade ‘cloud’ ornament of simpler outline has been excavated from a tomb at a Niuheliang site in Lingyuan county, Liaoning province, and is now in the Liaoning Provincial Museum, see Guo Dashun & Hong Dianxu, Hongshan wenhua yuqi jianshang/A Study of Hongshan Culture Jades, Beijing, 2014, part 1, pl. 15; another piece from a Niuheliang site was included in exhibition Important Archaeological Finds in China (1985-86) at the Palace Museum, Beijing, 1987, and is illustrated in Hu Jun, ‘Exhibition Highlights’, Orientations, vol. 18, no. 12, December 1987, p. 49. A photograph of Hongshan jades in situ in a Niuheliang tomb in Jianping county shows a large jade scroll ornament of related type resting on the deceased’s chest, with bi discs on either side of the ears and turtles near the hands; see Jenny F. So, Early Chinese Jades in the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Mass., 2019, p. 52, fig. 3.3.

出版

陳臻儀，《古玉選粹》，震旦藝術博物館，台北，2003年，圖版8

吳棠海，《紅山玉器》，震旦藝術博物館，台北，2007年，圖版137

青玉質，器表白化，片雕狀，四周不規則鉤雲出頭。全器有五個桯鑽孔，上面三個小孔排成一列，居中是原來的系帶孔，兩旁小孔與下方兩個小孔位於裂痕兩側，應是為修復斷裂玉器而鑽磨。此獸面紋卷雲形飾為新石器時代紅山文化晚期最具代表性玉器之一，類似的玉器曾於牛河梁遺址出土，根據蘇芳淑教授統計研究，一共僅有三十件同級別玉器出土，其中僅有十五件為獸面紋卷雲形飾，見蘇芳淑，〈Jades from Niuheliang: Answers to an Archaeological Problem〉，《Georges Bloch Annual》，蘇黎世，卷13/14,2009見，頁79-101。

遼寧凌源牛河梁古墓出土一例，現存遼寧省博物館，見郭大順、洪殿旭，《紅山文化玉器鑑賞》，北京，卷1，2014年，圖版15；另一牛河梁遺址出土例，曾在1987年展於北京故宮博物院《中國重要考古發現（1985-86）》，見胡隽，〈Exhibition Highlights〉，《Orientations》，卷18，第12期，1987年12月，頁49。參考另一近例，出土時發現於先人遺體胸膛之上，耳邊放玉璧，手旁置玉鱉，見蘇芳淑，《Early Chinese Jades in the Harvard Art Museums》，劍橋，麻省，2019年，頁52，圖3.3。