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



passing through the hole on the one side was wound around a molar 

 tooth on the left, and the other attached to a molar on the right side 

 of the mouth. The color of jade is dark-gray. 



The pieces in Figs, i, 2 and 3 of the same Plate XXXVI are explained 

 also as tongue-amulets (ya she), though they are rather modeled like 

 teeth l and give the impression of being tooth-protectors. The three 

 objects show the same shape and the same design of meander slightly 

 engraved into the surface; they are made of the same material which 

 is a light grayish jade, and differ only in thickness which is 1, 4 and 3 

 mm respectively. 



They are perforated near the base, and there is a notch cut into the 

 lower edge just facing the perforation, another notch on the inner 

 concave side, and two notches opposite on the convex side, so that the 

 thread passing through the perforation must have been reeled over these 

 notches. This peculiar method leads me to think that pieces of this 

 type could have been tied to a single tooth only, and that, taking their 

 shape into consideration, they rather served for the preservation of the 

 teeth. The commentator Kia Kung-yen of the eighth century remarks 

 that the mouth-jade supported the posterior molar teeth on both sides, 

 and that, in the case of an emperor, it was in the shape of the circular 

 disk pi, though on a smaller scale (Biot, Vol. I, p. 125, Note 7; p. 492, 

 Note 3). Both these statements are improbable for technical reasons. 

 The Chinese were and are practical people, and would not have com- 

 mitted themselves to the technical blunder of placing a circular object 

 between the teeth; this opinion is, besides, such a late reflection that, 

 also for this reason, it does not deserve much credence. 2 There is a 

 more trustworthy view on hand uttered by Cheng Tung of the first 

 century a. d. The chief of the imperial jade factory (yilfu) of the Chou 

 dynasty made, besides the tongue-amulet for the deceased sovereign, 

 also an angular pillow for the support of the head of the corpse, and an 

 angular spatula (kio se). Cheng Tung annotates that this spatula 

 had seven corners, and that, according to the / li, it is used to support 

 the teeth of the dead, whereupon the mouth- jade is placed on the 

 tongue (Biot, Vol. I, p. 125, Note 10). Our three specimens in Figs. 

 1-3 of Plate XXXVII which are indeed spatulas come very near to 

 this description and might be identified with these objects. 



For the preservation of the eyes, a pair of oval pieces carved from 



1 Their similarity in shape with implements to loosen knots (Figs. 148, 149) 

 will be noted. 



2 His statement that the mouth-jade of the Chou emperors was in the shape of 

 the disk pi is doubtless suggested by the new regulation of the K'ai-yiian Code of 

 the T'ang dynasty where it is stipulated for the first time that the disk should form 

 the mouth-jade of the officials of the first, second and third ranks (see De Groot, 

 The Religious System of China, Vol. I, p. 278). 





