A Study On Liangzhu Style Jade In The Western Zhou Dynasty

The Liangzhu Jade, one of the important jade culture in the late Neolithic age, has its unique style. These excellent style factors, which influenced later ages, were not only retained in the development of the Liangzhu society, but also absorbed and internalized in the spread of long-term process. This paper goes to discover reasons of that phenomenon by summing up the style and characters of Liangzhu jade and analysing jade with Liangzhu factors according to archaeological materials of Xia Shang XiZhou sites.Liangzhu jade has a unique style, which is represented by Cong, animal mask and a combination of ritual jade. Cong is a new jade kind of the Liangzhu culture. Its unearthed number is large and the shape is unique. It also has complete evolution sequence and sacred significance. Human animal mask is depicted fine, variegated in pattern and has the important religious significance. In the period of the Liangzhu culture, people use different types, different number, and different combinations of jade to show classes, which is a relatively developed rule of jade.To the Xia Shang XiZhou period, the jade culture kept moving on-mixed a variety of prehistoric jade style to form its own character. Many unearthed jade was affected by Liangzhu style. During the Erlitou culture period, Cong and animal mask were rare. As to Shang XiZhou period, more and more Cong appeared, which remained playing a vital role in ritual situations. Inspiring from the Liangzhu Jade, the jade in this period promoted(transformed) into their own character. Moreover, the imitative Cong was also arose. At the same time (Shang XiZhou period), although the ornamentation of animal mask varied, its cultural meaning was weakening gradually. In the view of ritual jade system, Xia Shang XiZhou peiod inherited that of the Liangzhu period—judging by scale and number.In author’s opinion, the inter-influence between Liangzhu culture and Xia Shang XiZhou Jade culture was not in a direct way, and those two culture were born with consciousness of use, aesthetic, collection, imitation and innovation about jade. In conclusion, the direct or indirect absorbing from representative (such as Cong, animal mask, ritual jade) of Jade culture made Xia Shang Xizhou’s Jade culture different.