bronze technology.
The evidence therefore points to glass production starting in China around 800 BC but adapting local techniques. Does this suggest that Chinese artisans experimented using familiar technology to emulate this foreign product? But why would they wish to produce it? As discussed above, we see glass being produced for aesthetic and economic reasons. There is no reason to think that glass would have been cheaper to produce than the high-fired stoneware in China, although there might be an economic argument for producing it as a substitute for jade. The argument that technologies develop from aesthetics is an interesting one, made in a structuralist context by Cyril Smith, and might lead us to conclude that the human desire that was met by glass in Mesopotamia, Europe, and Egypt, for example, was largely satisfied in China by high-fired pottery.58
THE AESTHETICS OF GLASS
Why was glass produced? What set it apart from other available materials? Perhaps, as Smith suggests, it was “the desire for decorative objects” that led to the discovery of the materials, processes, and structures of faience and then glass technology.59 The invention of Egyptian blue was driven by an aesthetic desire for the deep blue pigment but possibly also by economic need. The aesthetic appetite had been whetted by the introduction of lapis but could never be satisfied given that the logistics and cost of importing the material from thousands of miles away ensured it would always be relatively scarce and expensive. Blue glass could substitute for the rare stone. Later in Southeast Asia translucent prismatic-cut glass beads appear resembling the beryl crystals found in South India.60 Beryl is often used in Buddhist relic chambers, representing one of the seven treasures of Buddhism, but glass is also found, possibly as a crystal substitute (see chapter 4).
In the early cultures of what is now China, jade became the most valued stone, representing imperial and religious power (see chapter 1).61 It was worked from Neolithic times into copies of weapons and tools, but also into forms that clearly had a ritual meaning. It is probable that much jade was imported two thousand miles from Khotan.62 This, and the skill and time required to work it, probably made it as valuable to the Chinese emperors as lapis was to the Egyptian pharaohs.
It is therefore not surprising that some of the early glass objects discovered in China, such as glass bi, seem to be emulating jade.63 Given the value but also the expense of jade, it might be expected that other materials that could simulate it would be sought. But while glass has some of the same qualities that were valued in jade, such as a certain translucency and hardness (glass is 5.5 and jade is 6 on the Moh scale of hardness), it is more brittle, and, perhaps more importantly for an aesthetic argument, has a different feel. Glass, as an amorphous substance, is warm to the touch, whereas jade, as a crystalline material, is initially cold but then slowly warms in the hand. The jade collectors of Khotan waded barefoot through the river, since they were said to be able to identify jade from its feel on their feet.64
As Hsueh-man Shen has observed, early Chinese cultures did not know where to fit glass in their taxonomy. This divided “stuff ” into the elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth. The elements of pottery were apparent: it was made from earth and transformed by fire. But the elements of glass were unclear to the Chinese for many centuries. Comparisons were made with pottery but also with metal, precious stones (particularly jade), and even water.65 This ambiguity is reflected in the terminology, with words adopted from outside. The term liuli 琉璃 came in during the Han period and was used to refer to glazes as well as to opaque glass and gemstones. Both Chinese characters making up liuli contain an element or radical for jade (玉). It possibly derives from the Sanskrit word vaiḍūrya, referring to blue and green stones, including lapis lazuli, as does the Chinese term boli 玻璃, which became the primary term for translucent glass.66 Its possible Sanskrit origin—sphaṭika—also referred to a crystal or quartz.67 Both terms almost certainly came in with Buddhism. We do not know what terms were used to refer to glass products prior to this.
Cecilia Braghin argues that glass technology remained a “marginal tradition in China” and that production “appears to have been encouraged by contacts with imported glass artefacts.”68 Was this also because the tradition, developed early in the cultures of China, for jade and ceramics covered the aesthetic range offered by glass, so that as a material it was seen to offer nothing new? Jade and ceramics were relatively plentiful, and the technology had been honed over thousands of years by the time glass was introduced into China. In Braghin’s scenario, the original impetus for glassmaking in China came from glass beads from West Asia. It was then revived by the arrival of Hellenistic vessels, as found in central China and, as in this piece, in a tomb on the southern coast. This is supported by the two references to glass in the histories of the Han period (206 BC–AD 220), which mention the emperor importing it from Central Asia and from the kingdoms in what is now southern China (see below). The third- to fourth-century alchemical text Baopuzi Neibian (Book of the master who embraces simplicity, inner chapters) also notes the process of glassmaking in the South while acknowledging that it was not invented in China and was also imported. Ascribing glassmaking to foreign craftsmen is found in the Chinese histories. For example, the Beishi (History of the Northern Dynasties; 386–581) notes the visit of a merchant from Central Asia in the mid-fifth century.69 The Suishu (History of the Sui dynasty; 581–618) contains a reference to a man called He Chou (540–620), described as a descendant of a Sogdian family who were specialists in technology of the region. He is credited with reviving glass technology in China at this time.70 Its appearance in tombs of the elite shows that, even if glassmaking never became central to the culture, glass objects were nevertheless valued.71
TOMBS OF THE SOUTH
The tomb where our bowl was found is in present-day Guangzhou in the far south of China and is dated to the Former Han (206 BC–AD 9). This area has an interesting history. Qin Shihuangdi (r. 246–210 BC), the “first emperor” of China, was originally ruler of one of the so-called Warring States who managed to conquer the other kingdoms and set himself up as the emperor of a united China in 221 BC. He expanded Qin rule southwards, into what was home to very different cultures from the agricultural heartland or the steppe to the northwest, collectively known by the Chinese as the Yue peoples. The region to the south of the Nanling Mountains was called the Southern Yue—or Nan Yue (Nanyue) in Chinese.72 The military commander of this region for the Qin was named Zhao Tuo, and at the end of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC) he declared Nan Yue a separate kingdom (in Vietnam—Yue nan—it is called the Triệu dynasty). The kingdom included a belt of land along the sea extending into present-day Vietnam, as well as modern China’s Guangxi and Guangdong provinces. The capital was in Panyu, modern-day Guangzhou, where royal tombs have been excavated.73 Zhao Tuo, his grandson Zhao Mo, and their three successors largely retained the kingdom’s autonomy until 111 BC, when an army sent by the Chinese Han dynasty managed to impose their rule. Although there were a number of uprisings—most famously that of the Trưng sisters in AD 40—these were unsuccessful, and the region remained under Han Chinese authority.
The brief published archaeological report on the 1954 excavation of this tomb dates it to the later part of the Former Han period, suggesting that it probably dates from after the fall of Nan Yue, but a legacy would have remained especially given the diverse population of the region. When the tomb of Zhao Mo, the second ruler of Nan Yue (d. 122 BC), was excavated nearby, the tomb objects showed influences from the cultures of the steppe, West Asia, Vietnam, and central China. There was a spectacular collection of jade, and, most notably, the corpse was dressed in a jade suit. This was a tradition developed in China and reserved for emperors and their families; it was believed to confer immortality. Zhao Mo’s jade suit was composed of 2,291 plaques, many of them reworked from other objects. But the tomb also contained glass beads and twenty-two blue glass plaques with gilt bronze frames, measuring ten by five centimeters. Five pairs had been wrapped and placed face to face in a bamboo container for burial. Two were discovered
