ioo Field Museum of Natural History — Anth., Vol. X. 



(1111-1117 a. d.), 1 the Imperial Court was anxious to hunt up bronze 

 vessels of the San-tai period (the three dynasties Hia, Shang, and Chou). 

 Ch'&ng T'ang who was Collector of Taxes on Tea and Horses (TH tien 

 ch'a ma) of Shensi, and Li Ch'ao-ju who was Intendant of Grain (Chuan 

 yiin) of Shensi, despatched a man to Feng-siang fu (Shensi Province) 

 to break up the grave of Pi Kan of the Shang dynasty 2 where he found 

 a bronze plate of more than two feet in diameter, with an inscription 

 consisting of sixteen characters on it. He further found jade slips, 

 forty-three pieces, over three inches in length, in the upper part rounded 

 and pointed (». e. shaped like a Gothic arch) , in the lower part broad and 

 angular; they were half a finger in thickness. The color of the jade 

 was bright and lustrous. These objects were all widely different 

 from those buried as substitutes for human sacrifices (sun tsang)." 



Under the name chang (Giles No. 400) a series of jade tablets is 

 comprised which are explained as representing the half of the tablet 

 kuei divided in its length from top to bottom. 



The tablet chang is mentioned as early as in the Shi king (ed. Legge, 

 Vol. II, p. 306; ed. Couvreur, p. 223) : "On the birth of a boy, a jade 

 tablet will be given him to play with," as an emblem of the dignity 

 with which he is hoped to be invested when grown up. Thus, the word 

 lung chang "one playing with the chang" has come to assume the 

 meaning of a new-born son. The girl, according to the same song, 

 will receive a tile, "the emblem of her future employment when, on 

 a tile upon her knee, she will have to twist the threads of hemp" 

 (Legge). Prof. Giles, alluding to this passage in his valuable notes on 

 "Jade" (Adversaria Sinica, No. 9, p. 312, Shanghai, 191 1) justly com- 

 ments on its sense as follows: "It has been too hastily inferred [from 

 this passage] that the Chinese have themselves admitted their absolute 

 contempt for women in general. Yet this idea never really entered into 

 the mind of the writer. The jade tablet, it is true, was a symbol of 

 rule; but the tile, so far from being a mere potsherd implying discour- 

 tesy, was really an honorable symbol of domesticity, being used in 

 ancient times as a weight for the spindle." 



In the Chou li (Biot, Vol. II, p. 525), three kinds of chang are dis- 

 tinguished regulated according to length at nine, nine and seven inches, 

 respectively, and called great (to), middle (chung), and side (pien). 

 According to K'ung Ying-ta, as quoted by Biot, these three chang are 



x The art-loving Emperor Hui Tsung reigned at that time (1101-1125). 



2 Put to death by the last emperor of that dynasty. See Chavannes, Se-ma 

 Ts'ien, Vol. I, pp. 199, 203, 206-7. Se-ma Ts'ien (also Shu-king, Ch. Wu-ch'eng, 3) 

 informs us that a tumulus was placed over the grave of Pi Kan, so that it was very 

 possible to identify his burial-place. A photograph of this tomb is reproduced in 

 the journal Kuo suet hio pao, Vol. V, No. 1. 



