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



649 a. d.) of the T'ang dynasty had obtained it after the pacification 

 of Kiang-nan, and that it had been sent as tribute from Khotan. Now 

 in fact it is on record that a girdle of jade was offered by Wei-ch'ih 

 Wu-mi, king of Khotan, in the year 632 (Chavannes, T'oung Pao, 1904, 

 p. 4), *. e. during the reign of T'ai-tsung, so -that the account of the Ku 

 yu t'u p'u deserves credence, and it is quite possible that this or a similar 

 girdle is the one then sent from Khotan. 1 



This girdle consists of twenty-four green jade plaques unadorned 

 with the exception of the two central plaques, the upper one of which 

 shows a figure of the full moon, and the lower one the crescent. "At 

 the time of the Sui dynasty," adds the Sung Catalogue, "the waxing 

 and waning of the moon corresponding to the aspect of the moon on the 

 fifteenth and last of the lunar month was a symbol of the rise of splen- 

 dor." This interpretation is unnecessary, for if this girdle was de- 

 spatched from Khotan, it is likely that the lunar designs had also orig- 

 inated there. 2 In glancing back at the preceding girdles, we now become 

 aware of the fact that they are all modeled on exactly the same principle 

 as this one, and that even the rectangular, square and pear-shaped 

 plaques appear there in the same rotation. Consequently, if this girdle 

 was made in Khotan, the others are simply imitations of it, as girdles 

 of this type had been unknown in China before. Then we are also 

 justified in deriving from Khotan the Persian floral design on the girdle 

 in Fig. 191. Finally, this type of girdle itself goes back to Persia where 

 it is still in use. 



Of the last girdle in this book, only the two central plaques (Fig. 195) 

 are reproduced, as this girdle presents exactly the same shape as the 

 preceding one. All plaques are plain except these two filled with a 

 design of hills. It is therefore designated as "a court -girdle of ancient 

 jade with a design of natural hills." The jade is pale-blue and crystal- 

 clear. The Ku yii t'u p'u compares these hills with the sacred mountains 

 of China, and remarks that their wonderful summits and superposed 



^he jade of Khotan is mentioned in the Annals of the T'ang dynasty (T'ang 

 shu, Ch. 221) where it is remarked in the description of that region that the natives 

 observe during the night the spots where the reflection of the moon-light is intense, 

 and do not fail to find there fine jade, also that they utilize jade for the making of 

 seals (Chavannes, Documents sur les Turcs occidentaux, p. 125). — The tribute sent 

 by Khotan consisted in jade, and at certain times, it seems to have been an obligatory 

 tax. At least, we read in the Annals of the Yuan dynasty (Yuan shih) under the 

 year 1274 that the people of Khotan were relieved from the burden of collecting 

 jade (Bretschneider, Notices of the Mediaeval Geography, p. 226). — As a tribute- 

 gift from Turkistan (Si yii), the Ku yii t'u p'u (Ch. 97, p. 11) figures a neat bird-cage 

 of green jade, and a wine-vessel in form of a dragon sent by a king of Khotan in the 

 period 1023-1031 (Ch. 90, p. 5). 



2 This crescent-design is not Mohammedan in origin, but Sassanidian. For the 

 Persian analogies on textiles after the bas-reliefs of Takht-i Bostan, see J. de Mor- 

 gan, Mission scientifique en Perse, Vol. IV, pp. 325, 327 (Paris, 1897). 





