Abstract
Jade, which is one of the most characteristic materials constituting Chinese artifacts, signifies cultural differences between ancient Chinese and western civilizations. One of the most important typical characteristics of ancient jade artifacts recovered through archeological excavations is color alterations due to human activity and natural weathering, which has led to an area of intensive research in archeology. “Alteration” refers to chemical component and structural changes in jade artifacts caused by human activity and natural weathering, which is different from the term in geology. In this study, Raman spectroscopy was used to analyze six color alterations on ancient jade artifacts unearthed from the Jinsha Site in Sichuan Province, a region famous for artifacts with colorful alterations. The colorful alterations were observed to originate from corrosion products of bronzeware. The green, black, yellow, blue, purple, and white alterations were due to malachite, tenorite, pyromorphite, azurite, diaboleite, and cassiterite, respectively. Meanwhile, organic matter and hypertoxic arsenolite were first found on ancient jade artifacts.
Highlights
Ancient jade artifacts, which are among the most characteristic relics of the ancient Chinese civilization, constitute a significant cultural symbol of C hina[1]
We use the word “alteration” to refer to chemical component and structural changes in jade artifacts caused by human activity and natural weathering, which is different from the term in geology
We focused on six color alterations of ancient jade artifacts unearthed from the Meiyuan Site of the Jinsha Site
Summary
Ancient jade artifacts, which are among the most characteristic relics of the ancient Chinese civilization, constitute a significant cultural symbol of C hina[1]. Research on jade items has become an active field since many impressive ancient jade artifacts have been unearthed throughout China. It has extremely improved China’s status in academia as well as its social influence in the domain of archaeology. We use the word “alteration” to refer to chemical component and structural changes in jade artifacts caused by human activity and natural weathering, which is different from the term in geology It is an important and typical characteristic of ancient jade artifacts recovered through archaeological excavations[4,5,6].
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