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



Plate XLI, represents such a modern carving of white jade showing a 

 fish surrounded by lotus-flowers (9.8 cm long, 4 cm wide). The con- 

 trast between this modern and the two ancient pieces in design and 

 technique is evident. 



The butterfly carved from white and brownish-yellow jade (Plate 

 XLII, Fig. 1) is a unique specimen among mortuary offerings. It is 

 alleged by those who found it that it originates in the grave-mound of 

 the famous Emperor Ts'in Shih (b. c. 246-211) near the town of Lin- 

 tung which is 50 li to the east of Si-ngan fu. I am not fully convinced 

 that this is really the case, though any positive evidence pro or contra 

 this assertion is lacking; but there is no doubt that, judging from its 

 appearance and technique, this is a burial object of considerable age 

 and unusual workmanship, such as is likely to have been buried with a 

 personage of high standing only. It is a flat carving (12.6 X 7-6 cm, 

 0.5 cm thick) both in open-work and engraved on both faces, the two 

 designs, even in numbei of strokes, being perfectly identical. The 

 work of engraving is executed with great care, the lines being equally 

 deep and regular. We notice that a plum -blossom pattern is brought 

 out between the antennae of the butterfly ; it is the diagram of a flower 

 revealing a certain tendency to naturalism, which seems to bring out 

 the idea that the butterfly is hovering over the flower. We further 

 observe four designs of plum-blossoms, of the. more conventional char- 

 acter, carved a jour in the wings. The case is therefore analogous to 

 that illustrated on a Han bronze vase ("Chinese Pottery of the Han 

 Dynasty," p. 283). 



It is known that in modern times the combination of butterfly and 

 plum-blossom is used to express a rebus (met tieh) with the meaning "Al- 

 ways great age" (W. Grube, Zur Pekinger Volkskunde, p. 139). l It 

 is difficult to say whether, in that period to which this specimen must 

 be referred, this notion was already valid, though the possibility must 

 be admitted in view of the early rebuses traced by A. Conrady (preface 

 to Stentz, Beitrage zur Volkskunde Siid-Schantungs) . It would, 

 however, be erroneous to believe that the rebus in all cases presented 

 the prius from which the ornament was deduced, for most of these 

 ornamental components are much older and may even go beyond an 

 age where the formation of rebuses was possible. The rebus was read 

 into the ornaments, in well-nigh all cases; while other single ornaments 

 were combined into complex compositions with the intention of bringing 

 out a rebus. It is not the rebus which has created the ornaments, but 

 it is the ornament which has elicited and developed the rebus ; the rebus 



1 There is also the interpretation hu-tieh nao met " the butterfly playfully fluttering 

 around plum-blossoms" alluding to long life and beauty (Ibid., p. 138, No. 15). 





