A calcified jade axe, fu, Neolithic period, Shijiahe culture | 新石器時代 石家河文化 玉斧

Ku Ngar Antique Limited, Hong Kong, 1994-2002.

古雅閣，香港，1994至2002年

The jade quality and the white reticulated inclusion of this axe is close to the Shijiahe-culture jade excavated in Mashan, Jingzhou city, Hubei province. Compare a Shujiahe-culture jade ben ins the Jingzhou Museum, illustrated in Gu Fang, The Complete Collection of Jades Unearthed in China, Beijing, 2005, vol. 10, p. 38. A similar jade blade was excavated from the Daxi culture site near the sites of Shijiahe culture, see ibid., p.1. Refer the drilling technique to a rectangular jade plaque unearthed from a Shijiahe-culture site in Tanjialing, published in Shijiahe Yizhen: Tanjialing Chutu Yuqi Jingcui [Treasures of Shijiahe: Selected Jade Unearthed in Tanjialing], Beijing, 2019, p. 163. 

玉色乳白，質地溫潤，長邊一側猶見取料打磨痕跡，雙弧邊，短刃緩收，猶鋒利，雙穿圓孔。 

此斧玉質及白色網膜狀沁色靠近湖北省荊州市馬山鎮出土石家河文化玉器，參考荊州博物館藏一件石家河文化玉錛，見古方，《中國出土玉器全集》，北京，2005年，卷10， 頁38。石家河附近較早有大溪文化，亦曾出土類似玉刀，見前書，頁1。其鑽孔方式可以參考譚家嶺出土之石家河文化長方形玉牌，見《石家河遺珍：譚家嶺出土玉器精粹》，北京，2019年，頁163。