Miharadajō site no.432 large hera-shaped pendant

ヘラ状垂飾

Source term: ヘラ状垂飾; hera-shaped pendant; spatula-shaped pendant; 玉錘 report label

ヘラ状垂飾 (hera-jō suishoku): 'spatula-shaped pendant'

Specimen no. 432 from pit 86 at Miharadajō in Shibukawa carries the third published label the Kanto cluster has collected: its report calls it a 玉錘, a 'jade weight.' Ten centimetres of serpentinite with a biconically drilled hole about five millimetres across near the top — and, uniquely in the group, a groove worn across the perforation itself, as if a cord had seated there under tension. Pendant, axe, weight: three reports, three functions, one repeated shape. A cord-channel worn across the hole of a thin suspended blade is equally at home on a loom weight and on an instrument swung hard in circles; nothing published decides it.

Particulars

Object

A serpentinite blade 10 cm long, pierced near the top by a hole about 5 mm across drilled from both faces, with a groove running across the hole itself; like the rest of its group of five, both faces carry slanting wear of nearly 45 degrees around the perforation. From pit 86.

Function

Published as a 'jade weight' (玉錘) where its cluster-mates are 'pendants' and an 'axe'; the cord-worn channel across its perforation is the specimen's distinctive fact.