Jade 'Bi' Disk | Harvard Art Museums

Identification and Creation

Object Number: 1943.50.517
Title: Jade 'Bi' Disk
Other Titles: Alternate Title: pi
Classification: Ritual Implements
Work Type: disk
Date: possibly c. 4000 BCE - c. 2000 BCE
Places: Creation Place: East Asia, China
Period: Neolithic period
Culture: Chinese
Persistent Link: https://hvrd.art/o/204845

Physical Descriptions

Medium: Variegated apple-green serpentine with grayish white clouds
Dimensions: 1 x 14.4 cm (3/8 x 5 11/16 in.)
unspecified: 308 g

Published Text

Catalogue: Ancient Chinese Jades from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University
Authors: Max Loehr and Louisa G. Fitzgerald Huber
Publisher: Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1975)

Catalogue entry no. 6 by Max Loehr:

6 Pi Disk
Variegated apple-green stone with grayish white clouds. Sturdy, fairly smoothly polished disk of a slightly uneven thickness, flawed by a depression that has not been worked off. Imperfectly circular, conical perforation drilled from one side. Neolithic(?). An X-Ray diffraction test undertaken by Cornelius S. Hurlbut, Jr., revealed the material to be serpentine.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop

Accession Year

1943

Object Number

1943.50.517

Division

Asian and Mediterranean Art

Contact

am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

Permissions

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Publication History

Max Loehr and Louisa G. Fitzgerald Huber, Ancient Chinese Jades from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection in the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA, Fogg Art Museum, 1975)., cat. no. 6, p. 36

Verification Level

This record was created from historic documentation and may not have been reviewed by a curator; it may be inaccurate or incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at am_asianmediterranean@harvard.edu

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