Jade Cong

Height: 16.6 cm, Width: 11 cm;

Weight: 3918 grams

Unearthed in the Jinsha Ruins in 2001

The jade object which has a square column on the outside and a round hole inside was called cong by ancient Chinese. Jade cong was offered as a sacrifice to heaven in ancient China. Its shape reflected ancient Shu people's view of the universe - the sky was round and the earth square. Rulers at that time thought that humans could communicate with ancestors and gods through jade cong.

This jade object was evenly divided into four sections, with each one section decorated with neat and parallel beelines.

Stone Chimes

Chinese archaeologists unearthed two good-sized stone chimes, an ancient musical instrument, dating back to the Shang Dynasty (16th-11th centuries BC) in Jinsha Ruins in 2006.

The bigger one of the two stone chimes, which is about 110 cm long and the largest of all Shang stone chimes ever excavated, was found in the Jinsha Ruins. Small holes were drilled in the stone chime, which is in an elliptic shape, so that it could be suspended from a frame. The bigger one the two stone chimes is about 110 cm long and the largest of all Shang stone chimes ever excavated. The other smaller stone chime has two string lines. According to experts, the two stone chimes show that the Shang people had fairly complete rites and music system for the activity of sacrifice and the performance must have been quite spectacular because the size of the stone chimes is so big.

By Dong Jirong