![]() Scholars "are unsure of their exact use or meaning". ![]() 1046–256 BCE), bi disks belonging to the leaders of the defeated forces were handed over to the victor as a sign of submission. In war during the Zhou dynasty period (c. They were used in worship and ceremony – as ceremonial items they symbolised the ranks of emperor, king, duke, marquis, viscount, and baron with four different Guis and two different bi disks. Jade, like bi disks, has been used throughout Chinese history to indicate an individual of moral quality, and has also served as an important symbol of rank. Bi are sometimes found near the stomach and chest in neolithic burials. They were placed ceremonially on the body in the grave of persons of high social status. Function Bi disc with a dual dragon motif, Warring States periodįrom these earliest times they were buried with the dead, as a sky symbol, accompanying the dead into the after world or "sky", with the cong which connected the body with the earth. ![]() These objects were handled by shamans who were the religious leaders of Liangzhu society and the transmitters of cosmological knowledge. It is found that these objects testify to early stages of development of cosmological concepts that remained important in Chinese culture during the Warring States and Han periods: the notion of a covering sky ( gaitian) that revolves around a central axis, the cycle of the Ten Suns, and the use of an early form of the carpenter's square. Bi discs are consistently found with heaven and earth-like imagery, suggesting that the disk's circular shape also bears symbolic significance as this description explains: Later traditions associate the bi with heaven, and the cong with the earth. Neolithic bi are undecorated, while those of later periods of China, like the Zhou dynasty, bear increasingly ornate surface carving (particularly in a hexagonal pattern) whose motifs represented deities associated with the sky (four directions) as well as standing for qualities and powers the wearer wanted to invoke or embody.Īs laboriously crafted objects, they testify to the concentration of power and resources in the hands of a small elite. They were also made in glass.Ī bi is a flat jade disc with a circular hole in the centre. Later examples date mainly from the Shang, Zhou and Han dynasties. The earliest bi were produced in the Neolithic period, particularly by the Liangzhu culture ( 3400– 2250 BCE). ![]() The bi is a type of circular ancient Chinese jade artifact. Bi disc from the Liangzhu culture ( Museum Angewandte Kunst, 2006) A Western Han dynasty Bi, with dragon designs. ![]()
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