Hongshan Culture Jade Textile Ornaments with ‘Ox Nose’ Drilling

This collection of 30 beads, strung in a Victorian-era manner, comprises 29 ancient jade beads, and one bead that is a drilled iron nugget – possibly a meteor fragment.  The beads date to China’s ancient Neolithic Hongshan culture which was centred on the West Liao river basin in northeast China and dating from around 4,500 BC to 3,000BC. As such, these beads are around 6,000 years old.

Many are drilled with what is known as ox nose holes and these are exclusively associated with the Hongshan jades. As such, these beads were diagonally drilled from the same surface rather than being drilled straight through the bead, so that the two communicating holes give the appearance of an ox’s nose. It is believed that beads drilled in this manner were sewn onto textiles.

One bead – of smoothed iron ore – probably is from a meteorite – or was believed to be. It would have been seen as particularly magical and talismanic having come from the heavens and the abode of the gods.

Hongshan-related cultures spread beyond northeast China and sites have been found in an area stretching from Inner Mongolia to Liaoning. Hongshan culture is known particularly for its use of carved jade, probably because little else will have survived from that period.

During the Hongshan period, jade was not mined but was sourced from pebbles found in riverbeds. Accordingly, genuine Hongshan jade articles are never large and their shapes and sizes can be seen in the context of alluvial pebbles.

Manual drilling techniques were used in Hongshan culture to drill hard stone beads as metal drill bits had yet to be invented. A common method involved a drill, such as a piece of wood or bone, used with an abrasive slurry of sand and water. Beads were either drilled from both ends so that the hole would meet in the middle of the bead, or drilled from one end all the way to the other. The technique used on most of the beads here seems to be the latter unilateral perforation method whereby the hole is larger on one end than at the other and tapers between them. Many of the drilled holes too are particularly large to the point that they largely hollow out some of the beads. This too points to rudimentary drilling techniques, as does the fact that the holes have been drilled off centre.

The beads themselves have ample wear to the stringing holes and weathering to their outer surfaces. There are no tool marks evident. This is important – Hongshan people did not have metal tools that would have left a mark. The main technique employed by the Hongshan jade carvers was grinding and polishing. The beads are threaded onto old cotton twine, probably in the early 20th century.

See some jade beads attributed to Hongshan at Sotheby’s Hong Kong.

The strand here is from the collection of Walter Thomas Gaze Cooper (1895-1981). Cooper was a British musician and the founder of the Nottingham Symphony Orchestra. He was also a collector of ancient art, including ancient beads.