Banded, Striped and Barred......

.....Banded Agates are  some of my favourite beads.
 

Necklace of ancient agate beads

 

This necklace is composed of ancient agate beads collected from all over Myanmar.

I especially love the 3 bow shaped beads with their abstract patterns and varying degrees of translucence. Looks like these 3 nuggets of beauty have been designed by the combined efforts of nature and man.




Nuggets of Beauty





 Two  of the bow shaped beads  are very translucent.

 

translucent agates



The upper bead has a porcelain white, natural band which shows up well in the translucent stone. The white band is gently V shape and covers most of the bead. This lovely bead may also be described as "purse shape" as it tapers to a sharp end resembling a small purse. The lower bead is enhanced by two white symmetrical stripes at both ends.

The  large bow shaped  bead  below measures 4.2cm and is embellished with interesting bands and color.  The stone appears opaque but when a light is shone on it the bands around the centre white portion are translucent and one can see clearly through the stone. I am not sure whether it should be classified as  agate or jasper

 

Is this jasper or agate ?



The rest of the beads in the strand are also  unique varying in shape, size, color,  banding stripes and swirls.   Some of the beads have uneven surfaces with quirky dings and dips, (possibly due to hand polishing)  which are wonderfully tactile.  Although age worn,   pitted and pored in many parts each one is still a treasure.

 

 

Each bead is unique





And here's a bracelet of banded agates  from the same source which I like to wear all the time.

 

 

Bracelet of banded agates

 

Now I just need a stripey orange and brown  longyi to go with them :)

 

Cicadas are Immortal......

......or have been immortalized by Chinese cultures from Neolithic times to the 21st century. Chinese man  have been intrigued by these strange  creatures who emerge from the ground after years of hibernation to sing their haunting songs. I think it is this sequence of burial and birth that gives rise to the image of cicadas as a symbol of rebirth and  immortality.

Cicadas feature in many forms of Chinese art including poetry, jade carvings, paintings and calligraphy. Here is a poem  by Tang poetess Xue Tao celebrating  the songs of cicadas :

 Hearing Cicadas  by Xue Tao

 Washed clean by dew, cicada songs go far

 and like windblown leaves piling up 

 each cicada's cry blends into the next.

 Yet each lives on its own branch. 

And here is an old picture taken of a mural from a Tang royal tomb depicting a scene of ladies watching birds catch cicadas.

Catching Cicadas Mural at Prince Zhang Huai tomb



But it is cicadas celebrated in jade that I find  the most enduring. Being a city dweller,  I have never seen or heard the sounds of a real cicada yet I too have been beguiled into  romancing and collecting the creature. I have quite a few jade cicadas in my collection which I will show. The first few  cicadas I show are at the pupa stage rather than the full grown insect.



Possibly a  Hongshan cicada pupa

The first  pupa  is a Hongshan (around 3500-2500BC)  hopeful. It  has a  thick, somewhat cylindrical  body with flattish eyes at one end and a series of three wide, shallow grooves at the other.  The remainder of the body is plain and tapers slightly towards the  end. The large perforation near the head is funnel shaped, drilled from both sides with tool marks  in it.  It measures 3.5 cm. with rust seepage over the green jade surface. There are many  examples in museums, reputable auctions and books of this pupa shape, form and color which have been attributed to Hongshan Culture.



Probably Hongshan cicada pupa

Here are 2 more pictures showing frontal view  and  flat base of this pupa.

front view

flat base

The next creature shown below is rather mysterious and raises many  questions and doubts. It is made from jixue (chicken blood) stone. Although carved and shaped as an archaic  piece there are some points that do not jell. The shape of the body, eyes, and grooves on its back resemble Hongshan style. However the  6 holes, 3 on each side of the body, presumably representing the 6 legs of a cicada and ending in a sort of base,  is  unusual for a Hongshan pupa. The chicken blood stone is also seldom seen on Hongshan  artifacts. Could this be a later copy ?

Is this a cicada pupa made from attractive chicken blood stone?

And  unusual too,  is the horizontal slit from the belly to the legs ending in the base, as shown below

Tool marks can be seen in the slit

To add another query, is the tiny quartz stone peeping out of  the extreme right hole may have been left behind in the drilling process and which may be taken as a sign of  antiquity or a sign of conmanship.

Quartz stone for drilling seen in hole on right

So taking all the pros and cons into consideration,  is this a very rare ancient early culture pupa or a modern day invention? Whatever the answer to me it is an enjoyable piece.

Next is this slightly arched and  subtly sculpted cicada pupa. It measures 2.5cm and the most distinctive feature is  the  prominient eyes. The stone looks like chicken bone (ji gu) white  jade  showing reddish stains. The Chinese like to relate their jade stone with the chicken hence ji gu (chicken bone) and ji xue (chicken blood) What is it about jade that gets it  mixed with chicken  from chicken blood to chicken bone ? I hear there is also ji you (chicken oil) but unfortunately I don't have an example of such a stone to show.

Slightly arched with 2 prominient eyes

 It has an ox nosed perforation, the hole leads from top of head and exits through the face see picture below.



Ox nosed perforation

The color of this incredibly smooth stone with its red stains is reminiscent of Liangzhu ( 3500– 2500 BC) artifacts

Liangzhu color beautiful piece



By the time of the Han dynasty (206BC-220AD) cicadas were used as tongue amulets as well as ornaments. There is a Chinese saying which goes like this

In life use as pei (ornament)

In death use as han (tongue amulet)

The 3 cicadas shown below  have wings and are no longer pupas. These cicadas are flat and  stylised rather than lifelike. For the left and right cicadas the wings and heads section are indicated by 3 sharp cuts and the eyes and mouths by 3 slits. The centre piece has only one dividing centre line. Wonder whether this is the Han badao or 8 cut style. All the surfaces show patina and weathering.



Han yu

A Chinese seller  did tell me that cicadas carved in this "simple" fashion are likely to be  recarved pieces. He's got a point there but there is  something solemn and amuletish about them and perhaps they may be genuine tongue amulets from the Han dynasty.

Besides jade used as Han yu, glass was also sometimes used in the Han dynasty. The next cicada I show is a  corroded specimen of a glass cicada.

glass cicada



And the side view

side view



The base is plain.

the base



2 more small  jade cicada beads shown below are beads pierced from head to tail end. These look like Shang - Xi-Zhou period (16thcentury-221BC) but hard to determine so I just enjoy them.

A pair of cicada beads



Another full grown and life like cicada from late Qing (19th - early 20th century) is shown below. It measures 4.2 x 2.2cm. The wings and body are decorated with line carvings and it is pierced at the nose for attachment as pei or girdle ornament.

Late Qing green jade cicada



To add variety, here are a couple of cicada snuff bottles from Heng's collection.



Snuff bottles carved as cicadas

The obverse side



Finally  a very large crystal bead decorated with 3 cicada carvings on the surface. The age is indeterminate but it was the fashion  from early dynasties to use cicadas as decoration on ornamental objects such as bis, plaques, congs, etc.

Large crystal bead with cicada decoration



It measures 3.5cm x 7 cm and is decorated with three cicadas

A side view showing 2 of the three cicadas



Continuing the love for cicadas into the 21st century are these three modern day cicadas. They are pierced at the head and can be worn as pendants or used as toggles for handphones or handbags.

Recently carved cicadas in green and white jade



   Cicadas Are Forever



Pyu Animal Farm

W e l c o m e  t o  M y

P Y U   A N I M A L   F A R M





Tiny Animals in the farm



These exquisite,  teeny weeny animal beads are from Myanmar. The seller said they were old so I am hoping they are from the Pyu dynasty (around 2nd century BC to 11th century AD ) but they have not been authenticated.

Animal beads of greenstone, agate,  carnelian, quartz and amethyst

Their sizes range from 1 cm to 2 cm but despite their smallness these wondrous creatures have been carefully carved and shaped. Their tiny but defined features can only be appreciated under a magnifier which gets me wondering at the magic fingers and super eyesight of  the maker. When I tried holding a piece between thumb and forefinger to look at through a  loupe, I was quite clumsy and  dropped it! Imagine, what it must be like to hold the stone and work it into these elegant birds, turtles etc.  Think they had super nerves too in the old days:)

In the group shown above, there are 7 bird forms, 1 flat rabbit, 1 curved, hump back turtle and 4 baby elephants. I will show closeups to capture the rich beauty of each animal. Click on images for larger pictures.

Starting from the top row, the  2 birds one of greenstone and the other of  agate look like some mythological bird from the past. Perhaps it is the mythological bird Hamsa.

Is this depicting Hamsa?

I also have a bigger version of this bird form and here they are pictured together as a cool threesome of Father, mother and child ancient birds ....

Cool Birds ! Are they Pyu ?

The next 2 birds below  look like ducks, one made of  flamingo red carnelian and  the other of brown agate.

No ugly ducklings these 2 best friends !

The next  pair of   birds may be carved out of rose quartz as the stone has  a pinkish tint. Bird on the left carved in the round, bird on the right is flat. Their wing movements in flight are beautifully captured.

.....you are the wind beneath my wings.....

The last bird in the group looks like a parrot, note the crest on its head,  and is a lovely lavender color. I am not sure whether it is made from glass or stone. If stone it could be amethyst but rounded edges seem to indicate it is glass.

lavender parrot

The  agate rabbit in row 3 is flat and small but the bunny ears, eyes and haunches are well defined. Like the birds in flight, this stone has also a pinkish tinge and could be rose quartz.

pink quartz rabbit

Next to bunny is an  agate turtle measuring 2 cm. It has an arch like shape,  with the shell rising up as a hump, head points down in front and the legs stretched out under the shell.

Arch shaped agate turtle

Although the shell measures a minuscule   1.2 cm a pattern of deep cross hatches have been painstakingly carved into it.



close up of the shell with deeply carved cross hatches

The last row shows 4 baby elephants in carnelian and greenstone carved in the Pyu tradition

Baby elephants measures from 1 cm to 1.5 cm



Besides these tiny creatures my Pyu Animal Farm consist of other bigger specimens which I'd show next.

Bigger animals in the Farm

This  group consists of four turtles and one frog  in various poses and positions.  The frog looks like its ready to jump, the black turtle has all its legs tucked in, the carnelian turtle's neck is uplifted its eyes looking out for insects, the jasper turtle looks like it is swimming and the biggest agate turtle, well guess its just meditating :)

Three more larger animal beads are shown in the picture below. One is a strange segmented piece made from ivory representing I don't know what animal. The segments are beautifully shaped and sculpted.  Bottom left is  a  beetle made of green stone or it could be malachite. The beetle's eyes are made out of  2 holes which have concave perforations. Under a loupe,  the concave perforations show ancient drill marks. Bottom right is a rather simple shell made from agate.

Segmented animal, beetle and shell

close-up of segmented animal

My last Pyu animal treasure is this  aggressive looking eagle with hooked beak and ferocious eyes. It is made of pink quartz and measures 2.4 cm x1.4cm. It is a flat piece with no perforation. The carving lines on its wing and body somehow remind me of Chinese jade carvings

Can he fly higher than an eagle ?

When the Horses come galloping in 2014.....

......Success will sure to follow so goes the old Chinese idiom Ma dao gong cheng.  With these words in mind  I post my 2 galloping steeds to greet Lunar New Year of the Horse 2014.

Ma dao gong cheng = SUCCESS

These two jade horses are also beads and can be used to make toggles for decoration around the house during the New Year

Horse toggles for Year of the Horse 2014

Here is a pretty horse pendant carved in jade

Horse pendant

Next I show my beautiful horse and rider agate seal from Yangon which must be centuries old. There are many examples of hard stone seals of Myanmar in the publicaton Ornaments from the Past: Bead Studies after Beck. In this book, a full chapter is devoted to Ancient hard stone beads and seals of Myanmar and I think my seal is from this era.

Ride a cock horse to Banbury cross :)

Agate seal with plasticine imprint

Borrowed from Heng is this vintage snuff bottle with horse theme. Made from bronze it depicts a horse and carriage scene from Han dynasty.

Old bronze snuff bottle with Horse and carriage scene in the time of  Han dynasty

2014 is the year of the Wood Horse and it is appropriate to show  my beautiful Burmese wooden horses from half a century ago.

Beautifully carved old wooden horses

Heng's zodiac animal is a horse.

These 3 horse look well together

2014 will also be the year of my first grandchild and so here is a little baby horse or pony seal to celebrate her birth.

Agate seal of pony probably Pyu

The last horse I will show is  Heng's golden horse which he received on his retirement

Heng's Golden Horse Award:) What a beaut !

Finally, Greetings to all Chinese collectors  with this horsy idiom for the Lunar New Year 2014

Ma dao gong cheng

Bu bu gao sheng !

Or

When the horses arrive, Success

With every step, Promotion !