Curated entry
Discover the history
Three thousand years is too much to hold at once. This page narrows it to what survives — and to what that survival tells us, and hides.
1 · Begin with what survives
The earliest Chinese ornaments in museum collections are mostly bone, shell and stone. Gold and silver appear later, and survive best in elite burials. Every account of “ancient ornament” inherits that bias.
2 · Follow the materials
A shift in material is often a shift in trade, technology or status. Jade was worked from the Neolithic; jadeite arrives only in the late Qing. Glass arrives along trade routes and is at first a substitute for stone.
3 · Move through the periods
7 of the site's 8 periods currently hold published objects. The rest are documented but not yet populated.
4 · Then read the arguments
Beyond cataloguing, there is interpretation — usually contested. This site keeps the disagreement visible rather than resolving it into a confident sentence.