If Treasures Could Talk: The Beauty of Jade

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The 15th episode in CGTN’s special series “If Treasures Could Talk” features an intricate jade chain necklace dating from the Zhou Dynasty (1046 B.C. - 256 B.C.), around 3000 years ago.

It’s composed of 204 parts, each carved into a different form – creatures both imaginary and observed, including dragons and phoenixes, wild geese, fish and silkworms, as well as abstract shapes. Originally, they would have been linked by gold threads. But these rotted away, long ago.

In the “Book of Rites” it is recorded: “The man of rank, when walking, could hear the harmonious sounds of his pendant jade-stones.”

File of the Jade Chain Pendants. /Photo via Shanxi Museum‍

The Zhou dynasty was a strict hierarchical society in which jewelry denoted social status; the higher the status, the richer and more elaborate the jewelry. This long, intricate chain is believed to have belonged to the wife of an official of the State of Jin, which was part of Western Zhou.

The Zhou people set great store by jade. They treated it as a medium for communicating with the gods and one’s ancestors. They also imbued it with symbolic value, revealing a gentleman's character and testifying to a woman's beauty.

Whether as ritual objects or jewelry, what these carved jade pendants reveal to us is an appreciation of beauty, both physical and spiritual.