Jade Wares Unearthed from the Tanjialing Site and Their Social Functions
From 2014 to 2016, in order to promote the construction of Shijiahe Archaeo logical Site Park and cooperate with the research of the Chinese Civilization Source Exploration Project, a joint archaeological team was formed by Hubei Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, the School of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage of Beijing University, and the Tianmen Museum. The team restarted the archaeological work of Shijiahe Site, and fruitful results were achieved. Due to its great academic value, the project was awarded as the top ten new archaeological discoveries in 2016.
Shijiahe Site was discovered in 1954. Over the past 60 years, many archaeological excavations have been carried out here. In 2001, the Shijiahe site was listed as one of the “100 major archaeological discoveries of the 20th century in China.” In 2006, it was designated as the national key cultural relics protection unit. This archaeological excavation of Tanjialing is the third “Great Jade Discovery” at the Shijiahe Site after those of Luojia Cypress Mountains1 and Xiaojia Ridges. 2 It is also another important discovery of the archaeological work at the Shijiahe Site after its lack of excitement for more than 20 years.
The Tanjialing Site is located in the central area of Shijiahe ancient city. In the winter of 2015, archaeologists found several urn coffins here, from which more than 240 pieces of jades with various shapes, exquisite crafts and peculiar shapes were unearthed. These jade wares from Tan Jialing, whether in terms of quantity or category, are unprecedented important discoveries.3 The jade wares were collectively found in five urn coffins numbered W3, W4, W7, W8 and W9 in the high terrains of the eastern part of Tanjialing Site.
At the same time, a number of earthpit tombs of the late Qujialing culture and large-scale roofs in the early Shijiahe culture were excavated. As inferred by the archaeologist, these jade wares were absolutely the products of the postShijiahe culture period, that is, about 4000 to 4200 years ago. It is calculated in the excavation report that the largest number of jade objects unearthed at Tanjialing site are jade cicadas, jade tubes, jade beads, and jade tigers. Among them, the dual-conjoined-head jade jue, the two-eagles-on the-tiger-seat jade jewelry, the jade plate ornament, the tiger-shaped jade crown, the jade tiger, the jade eagle, the jade axe were found for the first time. In addition, corner jade residues were also found to be buried along with the jade wares in the urn coffins. So far as the craftsmanship is concerned, the commonly adopted techniques of round carving, engraving, earth-reducing Yang carving and shallow relief line carving represent the highest level of jade processing technology in prehistoric China and even East Asia as a whole, as most of the jades have exquisite lines, interlocking patterns, complex carvings and pinpoint drilling holes on their surfaces. In this case, they have attained a strong flavor of life and high artistic value.
In this brief, the jade pictures published in the excavation report will be briefly introduced as follows:
