Liangzhu Round-Holed Rectangular Jade

Round-holed rectangular jade is a tube-shaped jade utensil, generally with a round interior and rectangular exterior. Carved on four sides with immortal beings and divine animals, it was an important ritual object in China's remote ancestry, which was occasionally buried with the dead. The earliest such jade utensils, dating back about 5100 years, were unearthed in the third phase of Xuejiagang Culture in Anhui Province. Round-holed rectangular jade articles of the late Neolithic period appeared in large numbers in the Liangzhu Culture of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, the Stone Gorges Culture of Guangdong, and the Pottery Temple Culture of Shanxi. Among all these, the jade utensils in the Liangzhu Culture are the most representative and are the greatest in terms of the number of excavated items.

Faith in divine beings was common among primitive people, and necromancers needed to make various magical instruments to offer sacrifices to divine spirits. According to historical records, there were six kinds of jade articles used as ritual instruments in ancient times, each with a different meaning and each for a sacrifice to a different god. Among these, the jade articles with large sizes and unique patterns are most eye-catching. It was believed among ancient people that round-holed rectangular jade utensils could serve as a communicative link to ghosts and divine beings. As a result, their configurations possess intense primitive elements of witchcraft.

In 1986, a round-holed rectangular jade was unearthed in Fanshan Mound of Yuhang, Zhejiang Province. With patterns of divine figures and a super length, it is exquisitely crafted and has been regarded as the king of its kind. Slightly flat in its rectangular shape, it has eight sets of divine emblems cut out in relief, which were speculated as the gods worshipped by Liangzhu people. Details are left out in their configurations, and the gods are represented with abstract symbols. Their faces take the shapes of trapeziums, and their feet of birds' claws. Their most protruding bellies resemble the complexions of animals with widely opened eyes. Their broad noses and large mouths look most awe-inspiring. The patterns of a mythical ferocious animal frequently occurring on later bronze pieces probably had evolved from these images of local body parts. On both sides of the animals' complexions, there are distorted patterns of birds, by which fact it can also be speculated that Liangzhu people took birds as their totem.

The high achievements of Liangzhu jade objects are represented in the techniques involved in their making processes: the polishing, bass-relief, and fine lines cut in intaglio.