A Preliminary Research Of Jade In Xia Period

The jade in Xia Period is constituted by the findings from Xia Dynasty and the Fang Country in Xia Period. The jade which found in Erlitou site should belong to the Xia Royalty. In addition, the jade that excavated outside the Erlitous site mainly belongs to Xia Dynasty, which is also a part of Erlitou Culture. The jade of the Fang Country in Xia Period belongs to the Qijia Culture in the Northwest and the Xiajiadian Culture in the south of Northeast. The handle shaped device is a representative jade with the most typical characteristic of Erlitou Culture. This kind of artifacts can be regarded as the royal exclusive ritual of Xia Dynasty, which is important and irreplaceable in recognizing the jade in Xia Dynasty. In Qijia Jade Culture, the most typical characteristic of the objects are all kinds of large and simple Bi. While the typical jade of Xiajiadian Culture is the large number of various agate texture made slotted jade. According to abundant materials, the connotation of the Xia Dynasty jade has formed its own distinctive cultural characteristics with multiple culture factors, which makes a further development of innovation based on the absorption of traditional jade culture history. Generally, some of Jade Cong, jade Gui and jade Bi of early Erlitou culture are the legacy of the previous generation. It not only show us that jade signifies holy or treasure in that specific society, but also could the highly identity and inheritance of traditional culture. Additionally, through those large, thin, exquisite craft jade Zhang and perforated machete jade, we can see that Xia Dynasty jade industry makes a great innovation in process on the foundational elements of spreadly absorption of Longshan Culture and Qijia Culture. From the perspective of using, the jade of Xia Dynasty can be roughly divided into two categories. One kind of jade is the wearing items of human, which is mainly made by turquoise, talc and agate. Another category is used for various political or God ritual occasions, mainly including handle shaped device, dragon shaped device, Gui, Zhang, Ge, Tomahawk and perforated machete, Qi, Bi etc.. Noticeably, the function of ritual jade play a very important part in military and political life. The finding of Xia Dynasty jade provides some band new and irreplaceable historical materials to restore the history of Xia Period objectively.