Amulet in the Form of a Seated Figure with Bovine Head (c. 4700–2920 BCE): Art, History and Details

Amulet in the Form of a Seated Figure with Bovine Head (c. 4700–2920 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

With a bovine head and four horns, this seated figurine was a powerful ritual and shamanic symbol. Drill holes above its shoulders form two interconnected perforations for suspension, suggesting that the jade was originally used as a pendant, presumably by the shaman performing the tasks of journeying to and communicating with the supernatural realms.

Object facts

• Title: Amulet in the Form of a Seated Figure with Bovine Head
• Date: c. 4700–2920 BCE
• Culture: Northeast China, Neolithic period, probably Hongshan culture (4700–2920 BCE)
• Type: Jade
• Technique: jade (nephrite)
• Dimensions: 14.6 x 6 x 4.1 cm (5 3/4 x 2 3/8 x 1 5/8 in.)
• Collection: China - Neolithic
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1953.628

A detail from the museum

CMA daringly acquired this masterpiece without knowing exactly what it was. Only after Chinese archaeologists started excavating similar jades in Northeast China could it be attributed to the Hongshan culture.

Collection credit

Gift of Severance A. Millikin

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Schamenendarstellungen," Asia Major 1, 1 (1944): p. 62.
• Lee, Sherman E. “More Early Chinese Jades.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 41, no. 10, 1954, pp. 215–217.
• Consten, Eleanor von Erdberg. Das Alte China. Stuttgart: G. Kilpper, 1958.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.