Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T11:40:52.788Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Shifting materials: variability, homogeneity and change in the beaded ornaments of the Western Zhou

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2015

Peter Hommel  and
Margaret Sax
Peter Hommel
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX12PG, UK (Email: peter.hommel@arch.ox.ac.uk)
Margaret Sax
Affiliation:
The British Museum, London WC1B 3DG, UK (Email: msax@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Academic interest in the elaborate bead assemblages recovered from graves of the Western Zhou elite has grown in recent years. Beads and beaded ornaments have been seen as both markers of external contact and evidence of change in the Zhou ritual system. Recent study of these bead assemblages, however, indicates that they may also have reflected shifting political circumstances. The use of different bead materials and forms suggests a trend to centralised production and control of manufacture, particularly from the later tenth century BC. The authors correlate a move towards readily manufactured materials with evidence for widespread elite intermarriage, and consider a possible tension between production and the socio-political strategies of the Zhou court.

Keywords

ChinaWestern Zhoubeadsgrave goodselite tombscarnelianfaiencetixingpai
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 88 , Issue 342 , December 2014 , pp. 1213 - 1228
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ACSAC (Aurora Centre of the Study of Ancient Civilizations). 2010. Yu guo yu qi. Beijing: Wenwu.Google Scholar
Beijing BCR (Bureau of Cultural Relics). 1995. Liulihe Xizhou Yan guo mudi. Beijing: Wenwu.Google Scholar
Braghin, C. 1998. An archaeological investigation into ancient Chinese beads, in Sciama, L.D. & Eicher, J.B. (ed.) Beads and bead makers: gender, material culture and meaning: 273–93. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Brill, R.H., Barnes, I.L. & Joel, E.C.. 1991a. Lead isotope studies of early Chinese glasses, in Brill, R.H. & Martin, J.H. (ed.) Scientific research in early Chinese glass: 65–91. New York: Corning Museum of Glass.Google Scholar
Brill, R.H., sTong, S.S.C & Dohrenwend, D.. 1991b. Chemical analyses of some early Chinese glasses, in Brill, R.H. & Martin, J.H. (ed.) Scientific research in early Chinese glass: 31–64. New York: Corning Museum of Glass.Google Scholar
Chen, S. 2012. Multicultural China in the early Middle Ages: 119–56. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Chen, Z. 2009. Cong qingtongqi mingwen kan liang Zhou yi rong huaxia de ronghe. Gu wenzi yu gudai shi 2: 329–62.Google Scholar
Debaine-Francfort, C. 1995. Du Néolithique à l’Âge du Bronze en Chine du nord-ouest: la culture de Qijia et ses connexions. Paris: Editions recherche sur les civilisations.Google Scholar
Gening, V.F., Zdanovich, G.B. & Gening, V.V.. 1992. Sintashta: arkheologicheskie pamyatniki arijskikh plemen Uralo-Kazakhstanskikh stepej. Chelyabinsk: Southern Ural Press.Google Scholar
Guo, B. 1964. Junxian Xincun. Beijing: Kexue.Google Scholar
Hommel, P., Rawson, J. & Sax, M.. 2013. V Kitaj/Iz Kitaya; proizkhozhdenie i rasprostranenie bus v period Zpadnogo Chzhou, in Tishkin, A. & Seregin, N. (ed.) Sovermennye resheniya aktual’nykh problem Evrazijskoj arkheologii. Barnaul: Altai State University Press.Google Scholar
Huang, T. 2012. Wenhua—Jiyi chuanji xinshiqi shidai zhi Xizhou shiqi yuhuang ji zhushi. Paper presented at the 4th International Conference on Sinology, Taipei, 20–22 June 2012.Google Scholar
Hung, L. 2011. Pottery production, mortuary practice, and social complexity in the Majiayao culture, NW China (ca. 5300–4000 BP). Unpublished PhD dissertation, Washington University in St. Louis.Google Scholar
Institute of Archaeology. 1980. Yinxu Fuhao Mu. Beijing: Wenwu.Google Scholar
Kakudo, R. 2008. Difference and change in burial rituals: a study on Baoji Yu cemeteries. Bulletin of the Department of Archaeology (University of Tokyo) 22: 41–76.Google Scholar
Khayutina, M. 2010. The tombs of Peng state and related questions. Paper presented at Chicago Bronze Workshop, Chicago, 3–7 November 2010.Google Scholar
Khayutina, M. In press. Marital alliances and affinal relatives (sheng and hungou) in the society and politics of Zhou China in the light of bronze inscriptions. Early China 37.Google Scholar
Kupryanova, E.V. 2008. Ten’ zhenshchiny: zhenskij kostyum Yepokhi Bronzy kak ‘tekst’. Chelyabinsk: Avto Graf.Google Scholar
Kuzmina, E.E. 2008. The prehistory of the Silk Road. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Li, F. 2006. Landscape and power in early China: the crisis and fall of the Western Zhou 1045–771 BC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Li, Y. & Hwang, M.. 2013. Archaeology of Shanxi during the Yinxu period, in Underhill, A.P. (ed.) A companion to Chinese archaeology: 376–86. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Linduff, K. 1996. Art and identity: the Chinese and their ‘significant others’, in Gervers, M. & Schlepp, W. (ed.) The Shang, cultural contact, history and ethnicity in Inner Asia: 12–48. Toronto: Joint Centre for Asia Pacific Studies.Google Scholar
Lu, L. & Hu, Z.. 1988. Baoji Yu guo mudi. Beijing: Wenwu.Google Scholar
Matarasso, P. & Roux, V.. 2000. Les perles en cornaline Harapéenes: pratiques, techniques et techno-systeme, in Roux, V. (ed.) Cornaline d’Inde: 413–38. Paris: Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.Google Scholar
Pfaffenberger, B. 1992. Social anthropology of technology. Annual Review of Anthropology 21: 491–516. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.21.100192.002423 Google Scholar
PKU & Shanxi IA (Peking University & Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology). 2000. Tianma-Qucun (1980–1989). Volume 3. Beijing: Kexue.Google Scholar
Rawson, J. 1996. Mysteries of ancient China: new discoveries from the early dynasties. London: British Museum Press.Google Scholar
Rawson, J. 1997. The reuse of ancient jades, in Scott, R. (ed.) Chinese jade (Colloquies on Art and Archaeology in Asia 18). London: School of Oriental and African Studies.Google Scholar
Rawson, J. 2008. In search of ancient red beads and carved jade in modern China. Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 2008(17): 1–15.Google Scholar
Rawson, J. 2010. Carnelian beads, animal figures and exotic vessels: traces of contact between the Chinese states and Inner Asia, ca. 1000–650 BC, in Wagner, M. & Wei, W. (ed.) Archäologie in China, Volume 1: bridging Eurasia: 1–42. Berlin: German Institute of Archaeology.Google Scholar
Rawson, J. 2013a. Ordering the exotic: ritual practices in the late Western and early Eastern Zhou. Artibus Asiae 73: 1–76.Google Scholar
Rawson, J. 2013b. Miniature bronzes from Western Zhou tombs at Baoji in Shaanxi province. Paper presented at the Shang and Zhou Archaeology, Art and Culture Conference, Taipei, 4–5 January 2013.Google Scholar
Salviati, F. 2002. The language of adornment: Chinese ornaments of jade, crystal, amber and glass. Paris: Myrna Myers.Google Scholar
Sax, M. 1991. The composition of the materials of first millennium BC cylinder seals from western Asia, in Budd, P., Chapman, B., Jackson, C., Janaway, R. & Ottaway, B. (ed.) Archaeological sciences 1989 (Oxbow Monographs 9). Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Sax, M. 1996. Recognition and nomenclature of quartz materials with specific reference to engraved gemstones. Jewellery Studies 7: 63–72.Google Scholar
Sax, M. 2001. The materials of the seals, in Collon, D. (ed.) Catalogue of the western Asiatic cylinder seals in the British Museum, cylinder seals V, Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods: 18–34. London: British Museum Press.Google Scholar
Sax, M. & Ji, K.. 2013. The technology of jades excavated at the Western Zhou, Jin Marquis cemetery, Tianma-Qucun, Beizhao, Shanxi province: recognition of tools and techniques. Journal of Archaeological Science 40: 1067–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2012.08.041 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sax, M., Meeks, N.D. & Collon, D.. 2000. The introduction of the lapidary engraving wheel in Mesopotamia. Antiquity 74: 380–87.Google Scholar
Sax, M., Hommel, P.N. & Ji, K.. In preparation. Technology and tradition of beads from the Jin Marquis cemetery, Tianma-Qucun, Beizhao, Shanxi province.Google Scholar
Shang, T., Sun, Q., Li, X. & Ma, J.. 2001. Tianma-Qucun yizhi Beizhao Jinhou mudi diliu ci fajue. Wenwu 2001(8): 4–21.Google Scholar
Shanxi IA (Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology). 2006. Shanxi jiangxian Hengshui Xizhou mudi. Wenwu 2006(8): 4–18.Google Scholar
Sun, Y. 2006. Cultural and political control in north China: style and use of the bronzes of Yan at Liulihe during the early Western Zhou, in Mair, V.H. (ed.) Contact and exchange in the ancient world: 215–37. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar
Sun, Z. 2008. Craft production in the Western Zhou dynasty; a case study of a jue-earrings workshop at the predynastic capital site, Zhouyuan, China (British Archaeological Reports international series 1777). Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Thorp, R.L. 1980. Burial practices of Bronze Age China, in Fong, W. (ed.) The great Bronze Age of China: an exhibition from the People’s Republic of China: 64. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.Google Scholar
Usmanova, Y.E.R. 2010. Kostyum Zhenshchiny Yepokhi Bronzy Kazakhstana; Opyt Rekonstruktsij. Lisakovsk: Lisakovsk Museum of History and Culture.Google Scholar
Woodward, A. 2002. Beads and beakers: heirlooms and relics in the British Early Bronze Age. Antiquity 76: 1040–47.Google Scholar
Zhang, Z. & Ma, Q.. 2009. Faience beads of the Western Zhou dynasty excavated in Gansu province, China: a technical study, in Gan, F., Brill, R. & Tian, S. (ed.) Ancient glass research on the silk road: 275–90. Singapore: World Scientific.Google Scholar
Zhang, C., Wen, G. & Jing, Z.. 2007. Zhangjiapo Xizhou yuqi. Beijing: Wenwu.Google Scholar
Zhao, F., Wang, X. & Lei, X.. 1996. 1995 Nian Liulihe yizhi muzangqu fajue jianbao. Wenwu 1996(6): 16–27.Google Scholar