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



milk-white in color, rounded on both sides, flattened at the ends which 

 are perforated, and on the whole half -circular in shape. The jade in 

 Fig. 4 is light-gray in color, that in 5 buff-colored. Some kind of mon- 

 ster is apparently intended; the tail is rolled up in a spiral, and 

 the head is turned backwards; it looks, judging from the trunk, 

 like that of an elephant or tapir. 1 The same carving is brought 

 out with accurate agreement on both sides of this piece, and the 

 work of engraving is very fine. This piece has only one perforation; 

 it is 2 mm thick. 



Figure 7 is a carving of gray jade with a few reddish specks; the fish 

 intended is possibly a carp. The gills are indicated by cross-hatchings, 

 and the scales by spirals, both sides displaying identical designs. 



The two objects on Plate XXXVIII in Figs. 8 and 9 are added here 

 only for the reason that they belong to this group from a typological 

 viewpoint; it is doubtful whether they served the same purpose. It 

 will be recognized that the design of the monster in Fig. 8 exactly tallies 

 with the one in Fig. 5 of the same Plate, and that Fig. 9 exhibits a 

 squatting monster of a similar type also with a curled-up spiral tail and 

 elephant-head looking forward (not backward as in the two others); 

 also two feet are delineated in this carving. The two pieces show 

 identical designs on both faces, and are of a dark-green jade not iden- 

 tical with the modern Yunnan, Burmese and Turkistan green jade; they 

 have been buried underground for a long period, being coated on their 

 lower sides with a thick hardened layer of an earthy matter which 

 through the action of some mineral has assumed a brownish -red tinge 

 affecting partially also the upper face. They are 4-5 mm thick. 



The three round objects represented in Figs. 6-8 on Plate XXXVII 

 were used to be placed on the umbilic of the corpse (ya tu-tsH). The 

 symbolism with reference to this part of the body is self-evident. The 

 piece in Fig. 6 of this Plate, of whitish jade with black veins, is a knob 

 fiat on the lower side, bearing a relief design in the centre which I take 

 to be a symbolic representation of the navel itself, encircling the well 

 known ornamental form of the character shou "longevity," which so 

 frequently appears in connection with the dead, also nowadays painted 

 on the coffin or embroidered on the draperies covering the catafalque. 

 The piece in Fig. 7 is of gray jade interspersed with brownish specks 

 (dark in the illustration). The central portion is slightly raised over 

 the outer zone which is occupied by five engraved double spirals; four 

 of these are grouped around a quadrangular figure; the same arrange- 

 ment of ornamentation is applied to Fig. 8. Also in the piece in Fig. 1, 



1 Representations of both animals are frequent in the Chou and Han periods (see 

 Chinese Pottery pp. 152, 170, 171, 207). 



