Monograph No. 64
MEMOIRS OF NARA NATIONAL CULTURAL PROPERTIES RESEARCH INSTITUTE NUMBER XIII ANCIENT CHINES FUNERARY JADE OBJECTS（2002）
ANCIENT CHINES FUNERARY JADE OBJECTS
ENGLISH SUMMARY
RESEARCH REPORT OF NARA NATIONAL CULTURAL PROPERTIES RESEARCH INSTITUTE No.64
2001
Independent Administrative Institution National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Nara
ANCIENT CHINESE FUNERARY JADE OBJECTS
MACHIDA Akira
People in pre-modern societies prized minerals that are hard to come by, rare in value, and suited to appreciation for their beauty: using them to decorate their persons, to ward off evil ghosts who steal up to the living unawares, or as charms for quelling the deities that squirm about in the surrounding environs. In China, minerals falling under the general term of “jade” have been extraordinarily popular from ancient times, with various types of jade objects rich in local variation being made, and developing as prestige goods which made visible the authority of the regional chief. These prestige goods were taken to the afterlife, and apparently shown off as one‘s treasure to the spirits of the other world.
The custom of putting jade objects in the grave as personal ornaments and charms was passed down through the ages with increasing frequency, and large amounts of superb jade objects from graves of the Shang and Zhou periods are found in every region.
I
At some point in time, people came to believe that jade objects had the power to preserve completely the bodies of those who wore them. Among the jade objects placed around the corpse were a good number of items held to share this quality. The mortuary outfit made of cloth covering the face, to which a layer of jade scales was sewn, appeared not in the Shang period but in the Western Zhou, and was a funerary item unique to the Western Zhou period which did not draw on the traditions of the preceding Shang.
As the shape of the face made with the Western Zhou jade-scale face-covering cloth is not human but that of a monstrous animal, it was probably intended to dispel evil ghosts which crept into the grave, dug deep into the earth. Older types of the jade-scale face-covering are found in capital region of Zongzhou and Fenghao, whereas newer types are uncovered in the royal tombs of the Jin and Kuo Dynasties. From this it is inferred that in the first part of the Western Zhou period the jade-scale face-covering was funerary jewelry used only in mortuary rituals of the Zhou royal house, and had not extended to the nobles and feudal lords who served as their retainers. By the mid Western Zhou period the jade-scale face-covering had spread to the tombs of important retainers in the region of the royal family's residence, and by the latter Western Zhou to the royal tombs of powerful feudal lords of the Ji clan.
Permitting powerful nobles and feudel lords to use these precious items, which had been the exclusive treasures of the Zhou royal house and not previously allowed out side its portals, was probably a drastic measure hoped to bolster its weakened royal authority.
II
Unable to withstand the pressure from different races of peoples pushing in from the northwest, the Zhou royal house withdrew the capital to Zongzhou (Luoyang). This was the beginning of the Eastern Zhou and Spring and Autumn periods. The tombs of the Eastern Zhou royal house that were built in Luoyang are as yet undiscovered, but numerous small and medium graves of those who served the royal house have been excavated. In these precious stone-scale face-coverings made in the shape of the sensory organs are relatively common, showing that the use as grave goods of funerary jewelry, which traditionally had been limited to the high nobility, had extended as far as the level of lower officials. In other words, this demonstrates that funerary customs which had been practiced in close secrecy between the Zhou royal house and powerful nobles were popularized, and were spreading to the officials.
By this time there appears to have been a change in values, with great attention being given to- the jade scales sewn as funerary jewelry to the mortuary robes which clothed the dead in large-scale tombs of the high nobility, and no examples to be seen of jade scales sewn to the part of the cloth which covered the face.
III
In the Warring States period, among the feudal lords and high nobility, as the custom of sewing jade scales to the mortuary robes clothing the dead became increasingly popular, the jade scales showed a tendency to reduce in size. Among the class of officials in the Eastern Zhou (Luoyang). precious stone-scale face-coverings continued as in the previous period to find great use.
In the middle and latter parts of the Warring States period, jade hi (ring-shaped discs) which had been used until then as ritual items also came to be used extensively on the occasion of funerary rites. Large-scaled items covering the deceased, and incised with designs of birds or the faces of beasts appeared, in concert with the growth from this time of philosophical interest in the afterworld.
The soul or spirit that dwells in the flesh drifts from the netherworld to the heavens, but really desires to reach Mt.Kunlun where immortality is assured. It is the Lord of Heaven who commands them, and their movements at his will from the heavens to earth and back is probably what comprises the designs on the jade bi, of beast faces and monstrous animals and birds.
IV
In the Qin and Han periods, the philosophy of the afterlife which had been achieved during the Warring States period was fused with real social realm, and funerary rites came to be regarded as a critical support for state rule. The construction of royal tombs began in the Western Han, and the imperial house came to interfere openly in matters of funerary rites of feudal lords and vassal kings.
For that reason, funerary jewelry, which came into direct contact with the corpse, became standardized. For jaded garments and jade bi, bestowed by the emperor on the occasion of death to feudal lords, the high nobility and powerful local families, jade bi that were used as ritual items in rituals of heaven conducted by the imperial house in Changan were diverted and re-utilized. This was without doubt the systematization, through the sharing of common ritual goods, of the affirmation and strengthening of bonds of solidarity and consanguineal community between the Liu imperial house and the various feudal lords.
In the Eastern Han period, the tole of various funerary jewelry made by the imperial house to symbolize the struggles among compering factions came to the fore. Namely, discoveries of jaded garments are numerous in the capital of Luoyang, and these are moreover large-scale items that appear to be ready-made goods, and while jade bi were still being made as personal ornaments, those with designs of birds and the faces of beasts gradually disappeared. The wearing of jaded garments was no longer as a means for achieving immortality, but were regarded as funerary effigies in the same way as jade and carved stone items, and it appears that people at that time did not really believe that one could attain immortality through the use of jaded garments.
Through this process, at the end of the Eastern Han period and the transition to the Three Kingdoms period in 222, through the refusal by the Wei emperor to have jaded garments used at his death, funerary jewelry lost its social mission.
2002年3月25日 発行
研究論集 XIII
奈良文化財研究所学報 第64冊
