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I posted this a few weeks ago and Bill H was kind enough to mention that stylistically it resembled a Makara. This sent me down a complete rabbit warren of researching and just last night I found what I think is a good clue.

I found several seal/signet objects made in bronze, jasper, jade, shoushan or other materials that resembled mine.

They all said something like '9 dragons of the imperial court' or '9 dragon beast' or 'nine dragon seal'

I haven't found a good source yet to explain the history but I'm still hunting.

What I would love if anyone can help me identify possibilities for what material mine is made from. I'm not seeking a value, I bought it because I like it and I also enjoy the hunting and researching. None of the ones I have seen are, I feel, carved as well or as detailed as mine is. It just seems like someone took a lot of care and time with this.

So any help on identifying material would be greatly appreciated. (bonus if anyone can help translate at least part of the chop)

jo

I think its cast resin, because the base suggests it is not a piece of stone that has been carved, as a seal ordinarily would be, and because the complexity with which the creatures depicted on its knop and the regularity and exactness of the relief on the sides is quite sophisticated yet the workmanship of the bottom of the seal seems seems quite imperfect. further, the inscription seems to be legible as is, which should not be the case unless you have thoughtfully already reversed the image to aid in reading it. and the script seems to be a modern exaggerated version of an archaic type. finally the characters on the base seem not flat to create a full impression but rounded (and therefore would yield an imperfect impression). so I think this is for decoration rather than use. all of which suggests to me that it's made of poured resin or something similar

Thank you for your replies. I do not believe it is resin. At 6" tall it weighs 3lbs 10ozs /1.668 kg
I also don't feel that it is jade because you can see the damage on one side and at the break it is a different color inside, a much lighter green. My guess is stone, however I've not seen Shoushan in this color so I was wondering if there are other stones that would take this detail of carving.

A little late to the party, but...

The link below is to a pair of similar spinach jade carvings.

Cheers,
Stan

URL Title :Jade Dragon Seals

I find this a very interesting object. First because the top and sides have been very expertly carved. I wonder what is on the side panel we haven't yet seen (the right hand side panel of picture 3). If it contains characters, it could provide date or origin, or the person who carved the base.

The second intriguing part is the text of the base, the printing face. The first five characters appear to be 朾下問童子. The first character is probably Ting, meaning a post or stake, or could be also pronounced zheng, meaning the sound of chopping. It has occurred to me that Ting Xie could be a person's name, and the rest of the characters could mean "ask (or asks) the children". The seventh character could be 師 'teacher', the tenth could be 古 'ancient', eleventh 只 'only' or 'but', the fifteenth 中 'middle or centre', and the eighteenth 不 'not'.

The style appears to be based on bronze script, and may be a quotation from a real sacrificial vessel, but the forms as written here aren't readily findable in my dictionaries.

To me, the base is of lesser quality to the top and sides, which makes the whole thing even more intriguing.

This is one of the 300 Tang Dynasty poems, 寻隐者不遇 (Missing the hermit whom I sought) by the Tang dynasty poet (monk) 贾岛

松下问童子，言师采药去。
只在此山中，云深不知处。

The only reason I could even know what the poem was because Mikeoz had translated the first 5 characters 朾下問童子 though I figured out the first one was 松 (pine tree) and from that sentence I remembered it as one of the 300 Tang Dynasty poems we had to memorize when we were young.

Honestly, the carving of the characters on this seal was really not that great, IMHO, that was why both Mikeoz and I had troubles in figuring out what they were. I do not believe the stone was made of jade either. I agree that the top carving was a bit better.

http://chinesepoemsinenglish.blogspot.com/2010/03/jia-dao-visiting-absent-hermit.html

贾島 Jia Dao: 尋隱者不遇 Visiting the Absent Hermit
The following translation (of a poem which I very much love) was done some 2 years ago and is now posted for the first time. I hope my English rendition is equally lovable.

Jia Dao (779—843): Visiting the Absent Hermit

1 Beneath the pine-trees, I ask of a lad I see.
2 Away is the master gathering herbs, says he,
3 Up in this mountain, but where? I cannot tell,
4 For there the clouds are deep and dense as (it can) be.

Translated by Andrew W.F. Wong (Huang Hongfa) 譯者: 黃宏發
17 March 2008 (revised 19.3.08; 7.7.08; 17.7.08; 19.7.08; 21.11.08; 25.11.08; 26.11.08)
Translated from the original - 賈島: 尋隱者不遇

1 松下問童子
2 言師採藥去
3 只在此山中
4 雲深不知處

Hope this helps.

Super

Dear Super,

Thank you. I can honestly say that I really dislike the carving, it is really bad. When you compare the construction of the characters with the records of bronze script, you can see how sloppy this carving is.

Thanks for recognising the poem. I regret that while my education was appropriate to my ethnicity, I missed out on the extraordinary depth of the classical education for Chinese students. It makes my feeble attempts to learn to speak Chinese that much harder. In fact, I have almost given up. But the study of the written form continues to fascinate me, and will probably do so for the rest of my life, even without the ability to speak.

Best wishes,

Mike

Mike, you did very well and I admired your Chinese calligraphy, and especially your ability in deciphering seal scripts, much better than mine. i would never be able to recognize most of these "scripts" on this seal without your helps. Believe me, when we were forced to memorize all these "boring" 300 Tang dynasty poems when we were young, we were not happy campers. Now when I got older, they amazingly came in handy.

Thank you! I am so pleased to know what it says and the translation is lovely. I've recently purchased a book and I am trying to teach myself to recognize characters. I expect to have some ability to translate text in about - oh say - 50 years... But I will still try :-)

Thank you again.

Joamuse: Luckily, English translations are available for most of the Tang dynasty 300 poems

To learn to speak Mandarian actually took about 3 months and to learn to read is not that difficult because you just have to memorize about 3,000 Chinese characters then you can start reading. In the long term it is actually easier than learning English, believe or not.

China sent a lot of their scholars to local universities (Confucius Institute)in many cities all over the world to teach local people Chinese free. You should check around.
You may also sign up some learning Chinese courses on the web with Chinese or Taiwan Universities. We have a white church member in our Chinese church who can read from a Chinese bible. Amazing.

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