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



shape and treatment of the perforation perfectly identical with the 

 specimen in jade. 



While it becomes obvious from the peculiar character and technique 

 of these perforations that those objects could have served no other 

 purpose, this fact is set beyond any doubt by two actual finds of Han 

 cast-iron swords in our collection which are provided with bronze 

 guards of exactly the same description. As a minor evidence, I may 

 mention that also the antiquarians of Si-ngan fu recognized and defined 

 these bronze and jade specimens as sword-guards (called hu-shou "guard- 

 ing the hand"). 



Figures 1a and b of this Plate XXXV exhibit, as stated, the front and 

 back of the jade sword-guard (5.6 cm X 1.8 cm). On the one side 

 (b), a hydra is shown in full figure, undercut and almost standing out 

 freely from the surface, raising its head with open jaws, as if ready 

 for attack. On the other face (c), a mother hydra and its young one 

 are laid out in flat relief. 1 The jade is light-gray in color and filled with 

 white clay matter; in the middle of the hydra's" body in Fig. 1a, we 

 notice a black spot in the illustration which is bright brown in the jade 

 and surrounded by ivory-colored patches. 



Five specimens of jade sword-guards are in Wu Ta-ch'eng's collec- 

 tion and here reproduced in Figs. 1 7 7-1 81 ; each being represented twice 

 as seen from above and below. While the outward shapes of these 

 somewhat differ from mine, the way of cutting out the perforation is the 

 same. Figure 177, as the legend attached to it says, is a piece of "reddish 

 jade with earth spots;" that in Fig. 178 of "uniformly white jade with 

 a spray of red mist on the lower side;" those in Figs. 179 and 180 of 

 "white jade with reddish dots;" that in Fig. 181 of "green jade with a 

 black section in which reddish dots are interspersed." As regards orna- 

 mentation, our author has not commented on it; it consists, on the 

 whole, of spiral formations in low relief equally brought out on both 

 faces, except in Fig. 181 where the back is unadorned. The decoration 

 on the front is curious ; the drawing must be held upside down to recog- 

 nize in it a hydra with raised right fore-paw and head looking backward. 

 The double spiral forms the monster's tail. This design is perhaps 

 symbolic of the action of the sword. 



In the "Book of Songs" (Shi king), this verse occurs: "The jades 

 at his scabbard's mouth all gleaming" (Legge, Vol. II, p. 383; com- 

 pare also p. 485). Two kinds of jade ornaments used for the decora- 

 tion of scabbards are pointed out, — the one called peng (Giles No. 



1 A frequent motive called either "pair of hydras, child and mother," or "the 

 mother watching the cub." There is, accordingly, an appropriate symbolism 

 brought out on this sword-guard, attack on the one side, and defence on the other. 



