Feb., 1912. Jade. 217 



2. The Development of the Girdle-Pendants 



The ancient girdle-pendant composed of seven jade carvings, a 

 characteristic feature of the culture of the Chou period, is no longer in 

 existence in China. For reasons which escape our knowledge but which 

 we shall try to develop hereafter, it did not possess vitality enough to 

 survive for any great length of time after the downfall of the house of 

 Chou. While possibly still alive during the time of the Han as a result 

 of the revival of the ancient classical traditions, it must have sunk into 

 oblivion shortly after this period, being already displaced by other 

 fashions during this transitional epoch from antiquity to the middle 

 ages. The overthrow of a dynasty and the establishment of a new 

 regime usually was in China also the signal for a change of culture, not 

 always radical, but ushered in by modifications of costume, style, orna- 

 ment, and subsequent new developments of taste and art. While 

 neither the whole nor any single component of the classical girdle- 

 pendant was perpetuated, a new style of girdle-ornament gradually 

 came into vogue under the Han, doubtless connected with the far-reach- 

 ing revolution then affecting all domains of taste. This new fashion, 

 curiously enough, developed, according to the views of Chinese archae- 

 ologists, from that ornament of the Chou dynasty for which we should 

 have predicted the least chance of an extensive popularity. — the gloomy 

 half-ring kiieh which originally meant separation, banishment, nay, even 

 capital punishment; or, what could not appeal either to the people at 

 large, the decision in literary disputes. But this entire symbolism 

 must have died out during the Han period; for then these objects seem 

 to come into general use, carved into graceful designs not pointing to 

 any serious disaster for the wearer. It is useless to raise here a question 

 of terminology, and to argue that these ornaments differ from the ancient 

 half-rings and may have developed from another type which may have 

 even existed in the Chou period under a different name. This may be, 

 but the brutal fact remains that the long series of these objects is desig- 

 nated kiieh by the native archaeologists, and that in some of them the 

 type, and above all, the designs of the kiieh, — and these are presumably 

 the oldest in the group of the new kiieh, — have been faithfully pre- 

 served. These ornaments finally end in neat carvings of animal figures, 

 quite in the style of the Japanese Netsuke, purely decorative, with no 

 other object in view than to afford esthetic enjoyment to the wearer 

 and the lookers-on. Also these plastic subjects are styled kiieh. It is 

 true, in this case the Ku yii t'u p'u (Ch. 64, p. 4) objects to this name by 

 saying: "The kiieh is a broken (or incomplete) sort of disk which is 



