NORTHEAST CHINA, 1ST CENTURY BC-3RD CENTURY AD

This very rare plaque and a similar gold plaque found in Inner Mongolia and illustrated in a line drawing by Qi Dongfang, Tangdai jin yin qi yan jiu (Research on Tang Gold and Silver), Beijing, 1999, p. 240, fig. 2-81, are similar in concept, albeit more abstract, to one of larger size (4 in. long) of 3rd-4th century date excavated in 1990 at Horqin Zuoyizhong Banner, Jerim League, Inner Mongolia, illustrated by James C. Y. Watt et al., China: Dawn of a Golden Age, 200-750 AD, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2004, p. 129, no. 35. That plaque is cast in openwork as a female figure flanked by two animals. Watt links the design of the plaque to an earlier hardstone-inlaid gold pendant of ca. 1st century BC date excavated at Tillya Tepe, northern Afghanistan, illustrated p. 10, fig. 7, which depicts a more readily identifiable design of a clothed female figure with out-stretched arms flanked by two winged, gazelle-like animals with turquoise-inlaid manes.