Chapter 1,370: Thousand-year-old jade turns into okra
Yellow is considered to be the color of sunlight and the earth. For example, Liu Xi's "Release of Names" of the Later Han Dynasty: "Yellow means dazzling, still dazzling, like the color of sunlight."
Xu Shen, a classical scholar and philologist of the Eastern Han Dynasty, wrote in "Shuowen": "Yellow is the color of earth."
It symbolizes the sunshine and land that can make all things grow, and is revered by people.
Unfortunately, with the evolution of the times, all of this is gone forever.
Let’s go back to the jade huang. This kind of jade ritual instrument has been a symbol of women since the early Neolithic Age, and was limited to personal ornaments to reflect the symbolic nature of her social status.
After entering the Liangzhu period, Cong, Bi and Yue began to transcend the scope of personal ornaments.
At this time, the jade huang became an important symbol of social power, marking the acceleration of the process of social complexity.
Of course, it also represents the status, rank and wealth of social members, and it also means that status differentiation has obviously intensified.
When cong and bi, which symbolize male power, became popular, the huang as a symbol of women still did not change much, indicating that women's status had been relegated to that of men.
With the decline of Liangzhu culture, whether it was Cong, Bi or Huang, they all disappeared with the disintegration of chiefdom society.
This shows that the social structure at that time had returned to a relatively simple state of hierarchical relationships.
Although the shapes and craftsmanship of some of these jades were later inherited by the complex societies in the Central Plains, their symbolic and social significance was no longer the same as in the Neolithic Age due to the emergence of bronze ritual vessels.
Of course, even bronze ware, a ritual vessel valued by ancient nobles and royal families, has become a treasure collected by modern people.
Chen Wenzhe couldn't get many bronzes in China.
Besides, he was very satisfied with the large batch he had obtained before.
Unexpectedly, this time he actually got some jade ritual objects among a pile of rough stones.
Although there are not many such jade ritual vessels here, they seem to have existed from the Liangzhu Culture, to the Warring States Period, and all the way to the Han Dynasty.
For example, the yellow jade pillar or yellow jade pig in front of you is a typical thing from the Han Dynasty.
This jade is very special, just like a thick wooden pillar, except that one end of the pillar has the image of a pig's head.
Especially the long mouth, you can tell at a glance that this is a jade pig.
However, its overall shape is indeed columnar!
I dug out all the small jade stones and searched carefully, and found that there were very few ancient jade articles.
In addition to the previous pieces, there is also a topaz horse, a topaz eagle pattern, an owl head pattern, and a topaz auspicious beast.
The yellow jade horse seemed to be from the new era. At this time, Chen Wenzhe didn't have time to study it. He just took a look at it and let it go with some simple information on the general level.
What he values more is definitely the ones with slightly more complicated shapes, such as this topaz eagle-patterned owl-headed kui.
The first is the texture. It is okra yellow, which is a transformation from other yellows.
Topaz ranges from light yellow to deep yellow, with colors such as chestnut yellow and okra yellow.
From light yellow to deep yellow, the color of "Yellow Steamed Pear" is definitely the best.
The jade quality of this piece is definitely not as good as the previous jade Huang.
However, it is a jade huang, and it is also a type of jade ritual vessel, just like the jade huang.
And it also has the most classic animal mask pattern among this kind of ritual vessels.
This Jade Gui is yellow with ocher color. Needless to say, it is another unearthed artifact.
The jade gui is generally flat and thin, in the shape of a semicircle.
The middle part of the straight side is concave with an animal face, and the eyes are in the shape of heavy rings.
It is raised from the eye contour to form a double relief, and a tube drill is used to drill out the double eye circles.
The outside of the eye rim is decorated with dense swirls, and the swirls are connected by multiple arcs.
The nose is rectangular and decorated with dense fringes.
The wide mouth is slightly open, with two fangs on each of the upper and lower teeth exposed outside the mouth.
It is decorated with dense linear patterns, with an animal mask pattern convex on each end.
In addition to the animal face pattern, it is also fully decorated with swirl patterns, moiré patterns, fretwork, etc.
The upper limbs connected to the animal's face are vaguely discernible, resembling human arms, and the back is engraved with negative lines.
This tool skillfully uses techniques such as protruding and pipe drilling.
The intricate decoration is rare among Neolithic jade wares.
As one of the four main colors of Hetian jade, topaz is crystal clear, soft as fat, delicate and moist in texture.
In one country, topaz is proud of its yellow color and smoothness like fat, which makes it valuable. It is rare and rare, and it is a treasure among jade.
If there are still good withers, the value will be doubled.
Speaking of topaz, many friends who know jade may feel that it is very familiar and nothing special.
Is there still a shortage of topaz in modern society?
Besides, I forgot so early in the morning that there is no dynasty, anything that anyone can play with, and nothing precious, right?
In fact, no matter what period it is, no matter what color it is, as long as it is of good quality, it is a rare thing.
This is not nonsense, even Chen Wenzhe's idea is a bit conservative.
The real situation is that yellow jade is very rare on the market.
Regardless of its quality, topaz, one of the four major varieties in Hotan, has never been abundant.
That has already been mentioned, why is it that there seems to be no shortage of topaz in the market?
After all, who has been playing with jade for a long time and hasn’t seen a few pieces of yellow “topaz”?
But the fact is just the opposite. Topaz is really rare, and most of the ones most people see are dyed.
The dyeing mentioned here is not necessarily fake, it may also be natural dyeing, such as Qin color!
Let’s talk about the jade pendant from before, it is okra yellow.
This color of topaz can be seen by an expert at a glance.
However, few people know where this okra yellow comes from!
If you are not a pure expert, you may not know that there is a saying in the circle of ancient jade collectors, which is "A thousand-year-old jade turns into okra".
What does it mean? In fact, the meaning is very simple. It should refer to the phenomenon of ancient jade pulping.
As long as this phenomenon occurs, the color of jade will inevitably change.
Of course, it doesn't necessarily turn into okra yellow, but it's not uncommon.
Friends who have eaten okra will remember that there is a kind of pulp in okra, which is smooth to the touch and slightly sticky.
This is very similar to the phenomenon of ancient jade spitting out pulp when it encounters water.
As long as you get started with ancient jade from before the Tang and Song Dynasties, you should encounter some, almost without exception, the phenomenon of spitting.
However, the phenomenon of jade spitting after the Ming and Qing Dynasties is not very obvious.
The phenomenon of new jade spitting pulp when exposed to water is even rarer.
Judging from the characteristic of spitting pulp, the saying that a thousand-year-old jade turns into okra is more appropriate.
But this does not mean that this sentence is the truth, because the different environments in which the ancient jade is buried will definitely cause the color change of the ancient jade to be different.
When Chen Wenzhe thought about this, he was naturally not concerned about why ancient jade turned okra yellow, but thought that jade, especially jade that had been left for a long time, would change color.
This directly determines that the number of topaz jades handed down is actually smaller, because a large part of them are not topaz at all.
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Chapter 1,370: Thousand-Year-Old Jade Transforms into Okra Free to read.