Axe (yue 鉞) with handle, masks (taotie), and cicadas, early Anyang period, Late Shang dynasty, ca. 1200 BCE. Bronze with turquoise inlay and jade (nephrite) blade. H x W x D (overall): 21.3 x 7.9 x 2.1 cm. China, probably Henan province, Anyang. Purchase — Charles Lang Freer Endowment. Freer Gallery of Art Collection, F1941.4 © 2026 Smithsonian Institution

A ceremonial implement: The blade of mottled gray brown and white nephrite mounted in bronze closely inlaid with turquoise (four tiny bits missing); socket for vertical shafting; scattered malachite incrustations.

Provenance : Reportedly excavated in Anyang, Henan province, China 

From 1940 to 1941, C. T. Loo & Company, New York from November 1940

From 1941, Freer Gallery of Art, purchased from C. T. Loo & Company on March 20, 1941.

Note: Possibly inspired by a functional chisel or small spade, this ceremonial tool has a jade blade that is fitted into a shallow slot at the base of the bronze handle. Corrosion extending from the bronze onto the jade surface proves these two parts have been together since antiquity. The turquoise inlay is almost completely intact, another indication this ornate chisel has changed very little over several millennia.