A symbol of Heaven? A Chinese jade bi disk
Bi disk, 3rd millennium BCE, Neolithic period, jade, China, diameter: 5 3/8 in. (13.7 cm), The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
(Photo: Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank , CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
This lovely jade disk is in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. It is a little over 5 inches in diameter, and was likely made in Neolithic China around 2500 BCE! In Neolithic China there were cultures who produced jade objects like this one. This object was probably made by Liangzhu culture, one of ancient China’s earliest jade producing cultures. Similar jade disks have been excavated from Liangzhu culture tombs in the Yangzi River Delta in south China (not too far from modern-day Shanghai).
Bi disk, 3rd millennium BCE, Neolithic period, jade, China, diameter: 5 3/8 in. (13.7 cm), The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
(Photo: Lauren Kilroy-Ewbank , CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Jade was (and is still is!) a precious, expensive material. This is because true jade, also known as nephrite, is a hard material to carve. The Walter’s disk probably took a year or more to make. Ancient jade carvers used quartz sand to carve jade, which is like trying to shape a really hard block of stone with a piece of sandpaper. Just think how hard it was to shape this disk into a perfect circle with perfect flat edges, and then carve a perfect circular hole in the middle!
Circular disks like this one were later called bi 璧 in Chinese. Like later Chinese bi disks, Neolthic disks may be connected to early Chinese views of the cosmos.
Learn more about the Walters Art Museum’s jade disk, its significance, and its possible connections to how early agriculturalists viewed the cosmos in this video!
Here is what the video covers:
0:06 Introduction to a jade bi disk in the Walter’s Art Museum
0:30 Introduction to Liangzhu jade-producing culture in Neolithic China
0:45 What does “Neolithic China” mean?
1:38 Why is jade, or nephrite, a precious and expensive material?
1:55 What did ancient jade carvers use to carve jade?
2:16 Translucent vs. opaque jade
2:45 What do you think the Walter’s jade bi disk was used for?
3:20 What do later sources tell us about the function of jade bi disks?
3:43 Possible interpretation of jade bi disks
4:03 Wrapping up
