The Use of Jade and Bronze in China

Jade and bronze were chosen early in China’s history as the materials for society’s most precious objects. The main reason for this is very straightforward Both materials are beautiful to the eye and. in the case of jade, also to the touch. Jade is a dense stone that can be ground to smooth, soft surfaces and glows in subtle greens, grays, and browns Bronze, an alloy of tin and copper, is a light, bright gold color when polished.

Jade was employed (c. 4500 B c ) for exceptionally elegant versions of utilitarian stone tools; bronze was the choice (c. 1650 B c ) for the highest-quality cooking pots Made in jade, the tools were not for daily use but for displays of status and power, and the bronze cooking pots were not for ordinary meals but were reserved for offerings of food and wine to ancestors. Jade and bronze were thus used for special ritual or ceremonial versions of standard everyday items.

The materials themselves were scarcer and required more labor to work than ordinary stone and ceramic. That this was the case must have been as clear in the past as it is today and must have marked the objects as in some way exceptional. Not only the materials but also the ways in which they were worked demonstrated their exalted functions Jade scepters (ceremonial objects of various shapes that were carried by influential people as symbols of authority) were ground more thinly than the stone tools they copied, such as axes or reaping knives. Had they been used to chop down a tree, they would have broken. Bronze cooking pots were made in intricate forms, with extra knobs and handles and dense decoration all of which would have been impracticable on everyday ceramics.

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