Hundreds of seals and clay sealings were unearthed from the two Chu prince mausoleums of the early Han period at Beidongshan and Shizishan respectively, Xuzhou. Among them 12 seals from the Beidongshan tomb involve counties of the Chu State; and 22 of the 205 seals and 90 clay sealings yielded from Shizishan, the names of places in the Chu territory. Toponomy of the findings and related historical texts suggest that during the early Han period, there were 50 counties under the jurisdiction of the Chu State. This result makes up a shortage of information in the relevant literary records.
This paper studies the evolutionary senation and meaning of the jade hook-and-cloud shaped implements-one of the diagnostic artifacts of Hongshan Culture-with the analytical methods of art study, the stratigraphic and typological methods of archaeology. It argues that the jade hook-and-cloud shaped implements can be divided into two classes according to their morphology: the rectangular and the narrow rectangUlar types. Their outer swirling leaves show similar twisting patterns, thus indicating that they evolved from the same" mother motif". its predecessor was the well-known jade hooked dragon recoverd from Sanxingtala. Its body evolved into the body of the whorl pattern, and its whiskers evolved into the whorl leaf of the outer circle due to artistic transformation. The dispersal of Hongshan Culture, and the burial objects uncovered from Hongshan Culture and Yinxu support this argument.
