Cong vase

The jade cutter worked this cong vase from a light-green jade with milky and brown opaque mottling, veins, or flaws in most areas. This typical representation of a Western Zhou cong style has a slightly tapering square for the outer body and a round inner aperture showing two openings. The drilling from two directions meets at a circular seam in the inside aperture.

Unlike the massive numbers of Liangzhu cong in the southeast, northern jade cong were scattered in late Neolithic sites in the Central Plains and the northwest. At the beginning of the Bronze Age, fewer jade cong were made, and they were no longer decorated with elaborate details on the surface. A form with a squared aperture and a plain body has been unearthed mainly from Western Zhou sites in Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Shandong. Shaangxi cong used green jade especially often (Zgyqqj 1993, vol. 2, plate 207; Liu 1996, plate 266).

The piece shown here closely imitates the Western Zhou cong form, but the quality of the material is so poor that the jade cutter had to do something to cover up the flaws. The microscope reveals areas pitted with artificial as well as natural pockmarks, which were all evenly filled with brown material.