IX. JADE OBJECTS USED IN DRESSING THE 



CORPSE 



Before post-mortem rigidity {rigor mortis) 1 set in, it was necessary to 

 place the corpse in the proper position for burial, to dress it with the 

 grave-clothes, and to see that all parts of the clothing were in suitable 

 shape and remained unchangeable. A number of objects have there- 

 fore been devised to act as weights on the limbs, and as special care was 

 taken in keeping the long sleeves in order, such pieces were especially 

 made to be placed on the sleeves of the shroud, and are therefore desig- 

 nated by archaeologists in Si-ngan fu ya-siu, i. e. objects pressing the 

 sleeves. These objects were turned out of pottery, bronze, and jade. 

 I had occasion to publish a piece of pottery of this kind, 2 without being 

 aware, at that time, of its proper use. During my second expedition 

 to China I obtained two other specimens of the same type, but of differ- 

 ent ornamentation. They are here figured on Plate XXXIX. The 

 one (Fig. i) is a rather flat hollow disk of thin gray clay unglazed, with 

 a diameter of 9.5 cm. The decoration is moulded in slight relief and 

 arranged in concentric zones, on both sides identical, but with this 

 difference that on the one side the star-figure in the inner zone is com- 

 posed of eight triangles and that in the outer zone of nine, while on the 

 opposite side the inner star-figure has only seven, but the outer twelve 

 triangles. Also on the piece referred to there is a similar star having 

 six points on the one and seven points on the other side, so that this 

 difference must be intentional and have some meaning. The triangles 

 of these stars are filled with dots arranged in the figure of a pyramid, 

 while the triangles arising between them are each occupied with a design 

 familiar to us under the name triskeles. The circle in the centre is 

 filled with a three-leaved rosette. A large four-leaved rosette is the 

 main ornament on both sides of the other ya-siu (Fig. 2) which is 12 cm 

 in diameter, high in the centre (5.3 cm) and gradually sloping towards 

 the edge. Both these pieces originate from graves of the Han period. 



During the Chou dynasty, as the actual finds from the graves teach 

 us, these weights for the corpse were of a much different shape and de- 

 sign. There are two beautiful specimens in our collection, both from 



1 An evanescent stiffening of all the muscles of the body occurring shortly after 

 death and affecting the neck and lower jaw first, then the upper extremities, and 

 finally reaching the lower limbs. 



2 Chinese Pottery of the Han Dynasty, Plate LIX, 2, where the note on p. 173 

 due to misinformation, has now to be cancelled. 



306 



