Finding the Key: Tuning Keys Discovered from the Imperial Collection of Emperor Huizong (r. 1100-1126)

Abstract

Discovery and identification of the function of tuning keys from the Chinese late Bronze Age and the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220) was made by archaeologists during excavation of the tomb of Zhao Mo (趙昧; ca. 162 BC–ca. 122 BC), the second King of Nanyue, in 1983. However, collection of exquisite objects of this kind as artifacts in themselves first began much before this discovery. Iconographical evidence preserved in imperial catalogue of ancient bronzes by Emperor Huizong (徽宗; 1082–1135, r. 1100–1126), documents that Chinese started to collect tuning keys as treasured objet d’art as early as the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127), at least eight centuries earlier than their true function was ascertained by modern archaeologists. Misidentification of the tuning keys as cane handles in Huizong’s catalogue is more than simply an oversight of an Emperor or the compilers of the catalogue, and may be symbolic of a fundamental political and cultural Zeitgeist.