Feb., 191 2. Jade. 35 



have been intended for a votive offering to a temple of the Thunder- 

 god who was more worshipped in early days than now ; but this supposi- 

 tion is not supported by any Chinese text. Another celt in the Bishop 

 collection bears the inscription Hua-shih sheng ch'un, "May the Hua 

 family flourish like spring! " This inscription looks very suspicious and 

 is certainly a recent additional improvement. Bushell calls these 

 miniature celts by a Chinese name yao ch'an "medicine spades." l 



The new material here submitted consists of two groups from two 

 different localities; first, a collection of fifteen jade implements made by 

 me in Si-ngan fu and illustrated on Plates II — VIII, and secondly, a 

 collection of twelve stone implements originating from Ts'ing-chou fu 

 in Shantung Province. The former lot has come to light from ancient 

 graves in the province of Shensi, all situated west of the present city of 

 Si-ngan along the road to the old town of Hien-yang. These graves 

 are justly considered by the Chinese living in that locality as belonging 

 to the period of the Chou dynasty (b. c. 1122-249), an d the aspect 

 of these implements found in them points to the same period, so that the 

 internal evidence corroborates the historical tradition. They are all 

 made of beautiful qualities of jade, highly polished and of most exquisite 

 colors, such as is no longer mined, the supply having been exhausted 

 long ago, but such as was found on the very soil of the province in that 

 epoch to which these objects must be referred. 



The stone hammer of dark -green jade, without perforation, repre- 

 sented on Plate II, Fig. 1, is of particular interest, because only the 

 blade is polished, while all other parts, also the lateral sides, are inten- 

 tionally roughened to afford a firm grip to the hand clasping the ham- 

 mer in using it. On the face shown in the illustration, the polished 

 blade extends only 5 cm in length against 1 2 cm on the opposite face, 

 while the total length of the implement amounts to 14.5 cm; its width 

 over the back is 5 cm, over the blade 6.5 cm; its thickness is 2.5 cm 

 near the butt and reaches 3.5 cm in the middle. Above the polished 

 portion on the face visible in our plate a slight depression will be ob- 

 served, apparently used for resting a finger in; there is another on the 



1 In the June number of Man, p. 81 (Vol. XI, 191 1) there is a brief article by 

 R. A. Smith on The Stone Age in Chinese Turkestan, illustrating on a plate twenty- 

 four worked stones collected by M. A. Stein in the Lop-nor desert. Two jade celts 

 and three arrow or lance-points are the only implements in this lot. The material 

 is not such as to allow us to establish any historical connections, and is doubtless 

 not associated with Chinese culture. — In the July number of T'oung Pao (191 1, 

 P- 437). Chavannes reviews a paper by Torii Ryuzo on his archaeological explora- 

 tion of southern Manchuria (in Japanese, Tokyo, 1910); he discovered prehistoric 

 remains on the peninsula Liao-tung where he excavated stone axes and arrow-heads, 

 fragments of pottery decorated with various geometric designs, stone weights and 

 bone awls for the use of fishermen. I regret I have not yet had occasion to see this 

 important paper. 



