Ornamental Strings

Unearthed in the No. 14 tomb in Huchang village, Xihu town, suburbs of Yangzhou city in 1996, this is a set of 28 necklaces worn by the female occupant during her lifetime. These strings are composed of beads, pendants as well as miniature tubes, pots, beasts, chicken, ducks, etc. made of gold, jade, agate, amber and tortoiseshell, each with a super-thin piercing, demonstrating the ingenious design and highly advanced carving techniques of jade and gold during the Han dynasty (202 BC-220 AD). The two gold pots, which are already very small, are further adorned with beaded dots and inserted with gems through high-level techniques, characteristic of the goldware of ancient Rome. The ingenious skills of the Han-dynasty craftspeople are also embodied on the accurately-modeled miniature agate beast named “Bixie”, an auspicious mythological animal that is believed to have the power of fending off evils, and on the tortoiseshell chicken and ducks whose feathers are illustrated via the natural grains of the material.