Archaeology Magazine - November/December 1983 - 36

A modern carved vase of Xiuyan jade .
This translucent , apple-green variety
of jade is much worked in China today.
self as a precious material to be
placed in burials, and the development of iron battle armor. In one
sense, the jade suits can be seen as
the ultimate expression of the
intimate association between the
supposed spiritual properties of
jade and the human afterlife that
many believe emerged as a feature of
a distinctly Chinese mortuary tradition as early as the prehistoric
era. While the specific beliefs certainly changed from Neolithic to
Han times, preservation of body and
soul undoubtedly remained a fundamental motivation behind the jade
cult in funerary practice throughout the Han, period.
Of immediate chronological and
typological relevance to the Han
jade suits are finds of jade veils in
several aristocratic burials of late
Eastern Zhou date (770-256 b.c.)
at Zhongzhou Lu in Luoyang. These
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ARCHAEOLOGY

veils consisted originally of cloth
shrouds on which jade slabs cut
into shapes approximating eyes, eyebrows, lips, and so on had been
sewn in anatomical position. Long
after the cloth had disintegrated,
the jades remained in roughly facial
configuration. Recent excavation of
an early Western Han tomb at
Zifangshan, Xuzhou has turned up
a similar veil. While such veils
thus precede the emergence of the
earliest known jade suits by at
least two hundred years, they appear
to have continued in use for some
time after the suits were first made.
But it is not to traditions in
jade that we must look for prototypes of the Han suits. Their closest
affinity is to the iron battle armor
that came into use during the time
of the late Eastern Zhou. Although
actual finds of armor from this
period are quite rare, their use and
general appearance are testified
to by historical accounts and pictorial and sculptural art, particularly since the discovery of the
terracotta army guarding the tumu-

lus of the First Emperor of Qin
(reigned 246-210 B.c.). Liu Sheng's
tomb actually contained a coat
of iron armor as well as his jade suit.
Interestingly, his armor displays
a more advanced design, known to
Chinese archaeologists as "fishscale" armor, than the jade suit,
which follows a by then archaic type.
Little as yet is known about
the all-important social realities behind the manufacture and bestowal
of the jade suits. On the basis of
the histories and the nature of the
burials in which they are found,
however, the suits were certainly an
exclusive privilege of the Han
aristocracy, and their bestowal was,
strictly speaking, a prerogative
of the emperor. In terms of the administrative organization of the
Han court, responsibility for producing the suits should properly
have belonged to a workshop in the
division of the Artisans of the
Eastern Enclosure (Dong yuan
jiang ), under the jurisdiction of the
Privy TVeasurer (Shao fu). Craftsmen in this division were charged
with making all imperial tomb furniture and burial goods.
Although there is no record of
actual manufacture of suits by these
artisans, there is some evidence
from the suits themselves that may
reflect a common origin in a centralized workshop. Some of the jade
plaques show relict designs from
other types of jade that were presumably discarded and recycled
as raw material. Plaques from Liu
Sheng's suit, for example, reveal
traces of a disc-like jade known as
6/, among other types. This recycling of material is taken by some
archaeologists to testify to largescale, undoubtedly imperial, workshops involved in the production
of a wide range of jades, as well as
the necessary metallurgical skill
required to produce the gold, silver
and copper thread.
Plaques from the Beizhuang
tomb, also believed to belong to a
ruler of the Zhongshan Kingdom,
have traces of the two characters for
"Zhongshan" written on them. It
is possible that the plaques were so
identified to distinguish them
from suits destined for other nobles
also being manufactured within
the same workshop. Another possible reflection of imperial massproduction comes from Tomb #40 at
Dingxian, the resting place of yet
another Zhongshan ruler. Here,

Archaeology Magazine - November/December 1983

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - November/December 1983