China, late Neolithic, Liangzhu period, ca. 2500 BCE. A stunning, large jade cong, made of brown, black, and grey nephrite. Nephrite in its purest form is white, and iron darkens it to the colors seen here. Carved using awls, drills, and abrasives, this cong has a wide, tubular center and a cuboid exterior that has been ground down to have smooth, narrow linear bands that run at regular intervals around each corner. The center of each side of the cube has been lightly ground down to form a narrow, shallow rectangular trench. This decorative motif is a series of highly stylized masks with bar-shaped mouths, designed to be viewed facing the corners. The texture of this piece is marvelous, with each corner lightly smoothed, and it invites you to run your hand down its length, feeling the cool jade underneath your palm. Size: 3.3" L x 3.3" W x 7.1" H (8.4 cm x 8.4 cm x 18 cm)

Chinese art has incorporated jade since the Neolithic period; quarries for nephrite, the formal name for one type of jade, have been found in modern-day southern Mongolia that date to ca. 4000 BCE. The stone was prized for its hardness, its beautiful coloration, and its durability. By the third millennium BCE, we know that jade had also come to be associated with immortality. Despite its hardness - a testament to the craftsmanship of early Chinese artisans - jade was used to make everything from everyday household objects and decoration to the ceremonial suits in which emperors were buried – with the belief that jade would preserve the body and the soul for eternity.

The Liangzhu people formed city-states in modern China's southeastern provinces of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, encompassing modern Shanghai. These city-states were centered around religious and administration functions, and a major innovation of the period was the development of jade worked into ritual implements and weapons (instead of just burial suits). This included the cong, which is defined in later ritual texts as a symbol of the earth. Archaeologists have excavated hundreds of Liangzhu burials, ranging from many small graves containing few burial goods to a limited number of high status graves located in in large chambers below mounds, with hundreds or even thousands of burial goods. For example, at the Fanshan site, a large earthen mound that contained eleven tombs, archaeologists found over three thousand pieces of carved jade, in addition to stone and pottery items. The cong shape was so powerfully symbolic that archaeologists have proposed that some of the Liangzhu burial mounds themselves are shaped like the ritual implement when viewed from above - a round, central earthen altar with four axially located burial grounds, surrounded by a square moat.

See a similar example at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2004.52).

Provenance: private R.D. collection, Long Beach, California, USA collection, acquired over twenty five years from various major galleries.

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Some light surface wear and scratching, with very minor encrustation in lower profile areas.