A Jade Rope

Emerald carving by ancient Chinese craftsman, a collection of Forbidden City Museum.

COMMENTS FROM MINDS

March 17, 2020

Eric
It looks like a piece of rope dyed green. But remarkable work with the praying mantis.

All Things Chinese
A fake transformation from stone (earth) or plant (wood). It might result in something imperishable but eternally lifeless.

It’s like someone wishing to jump from 2008 (an earth rat year) to 2444 (a wood rat year) directly, but it will only bring an artificial new civilization.

Humanity will need to go through 2020 and 2032 to reshuffle and reshape in order to renew.

Emerald carving by ancient Chinese craftsman – a collection of Forbidden City Museum.

A 400-Year-Old Jade Cup

An exquisitely carved jade cup was produced in the late Ming Dynasty.

An 800-Year-Old Banana Leaf-Shaped Plate

The highly transparent jade plate measuring 18.7cm long with gilt-edge is made out of a single piece of crystal quartz and was unearthed in 2008 from underground storage at a North Sound Buddhist temple in Nanjing.

COMMENTS FROM GOOGLE PLUS

Mile HsiangYang Lee:
800 Years Old? 😮 Did Humans have The TECHNOLOGY That Back? 😮

All Things Chinese:
Of course. I posted a Chinese wine cup made of a single crystal 2,500 years ago during the Warring States Era.

Mile HsiangYang Lee:
Yes. You Did. And I’ve Seen That. But What was THAT TECHNOLOGY Used? 😮😮😮😮😮

All Things Chinese:
It shall involve arc grinding and polishing technology.

The key to grinding and polishing machine is the quality of the stone roller which mainly depends on its material.

According to the Mohs scale, crystals hardness is about 7, while diamond is 10.

A More Than 1,000-Year-Old Liuli Cup

This Tang Dynasty relic was discovered from underground storage of the Buddhist temple Gate to Markic Laws (famen si) in the 1980s.

Liuli is a glass containing 18%~24% of lead, which increases the toughness of the material and allows for various colour tones.

A 1,000-Year-Old Jade Statue

China historically has four major locations with a rich reserve of high-quality jade, which are Xinjiang in the northwest for Hetian Jade, Shaanxi in the central north for Dushan Jade, Liaoning in the northeast for Youyan Jade and Hubei in the central south for Green Jade.

A jade of this size is very unusual, which is why Chinese would build a temple to house it with the name of the temple after the jade statue.

A 2,000-Year-Old Jade Suit

This jade suit, made in the Han Dynasty (206BC – 220AD), is stitched with copper threads with stitching holes just 1mm in diameter.

According to the ancient documents (Book of Later Han), during the Han era, jade burial outfits for the emperors would be sewed with gold threads, while other royal family members would have the jade clothes put together with silver or copper threads.

This copper thread jade suit was discovered and unearthed at a stadium construction site n 2004, with a total of 2,257 jade pieces collected. It took two months for the relic restoring specialists to resemble the garment for public display.

A 2,500-Year-Old Jade Relief

Unearthed from a tomb in Zhejiang, this decorative piece of jade was produced during the Spring and Autumn Era when Confucius and Lao Tzu lived.

Measuring 7.1cm long, 7.5cm wide and 0.2cm thick, it has the dragon pattern all over with two little holes at the top and the bottom.

A 2,500-year Old Crystal Cup

Don’t get it wrong. It’s not your everyday glass cup but a cup made of crystal during China’s warring states period (475BC-221BC), when King of Wu’s consultant Sun Tzu in Suzhou wrote the Art of War, and King of Yue in Shaoxing crafted the Swords of Goujian, one with metal and one with jade.

This crystal cup is 154mm in height, with the lip of the cup measuring 78mm in diameter, and the cup’s bottom 54mm in diameter.

The cup was unearthed in 1990 from Hangzhou, near the site of the Yue Kingdom

A 3,000-Year-Old Jade Deer

A deer carved with one piece of jade, unearthed from a tomb dating back to the West Zhou Dynasty (1122 BC – 1046 BC).

A 5,000-Year-Old Short Sword Made with Green Jade

The artifact was unearthed from an ancient tomb dating back to the Liangzhu Culture era (3400 BC – 2250 BC), the earliest cradle of Chinese civilization located in the Yangtze Delta region around Taihu Lake centred with Hangzhou, Shanghai, Suzhou and Changzhou.

Archaeological evidence confirms during that period Chinese had already developed advanced technologies in paddy rice cultivation, irrigation system, classic city structure and flood prevention mechanism, with the main industrial products including silk, jade, ivory and lacquer.

8,000-Year-Old Jade Jewelries

 Jade relics were unearthed from Xinglongwa Cultural site
Jade relics were unearthed from the Xinglongwa Cultural site

Jade culture based on a well-developed precision craft technology is a distinctive traditional Chinese culture, while the discovery of the archaeological site of Xinglongwa Cultural, dating back to 8,000 years ago during the so-called Neolithic Age, is further proof that the vast land beyond China’s Great Wall was inhabited by ethnic Chinese until around 2.500 years ago when nomadic tribes including Huns and Mongols from further north pressed southwards and turned farms and workshops into grazing lands for their cattle.

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