In Shang Dynasty,the jade瓒(zan),a ladle with a jade handle and designed to ladle wine,was used in 祼(guan),a ceremony during which wine was poured,served,or sacrificed.The dipper of zan is decorated with pieces of clam shells,or jade.The oracle bone character for zan was initially a pictographic character of jade zan.Later,it evolved into an ideographic character associated with other ritual vessels used in 祼(guan),and,after simplifications and variations,broke away from the original pictograph of zan.The character,裸(guan),is an ideographic character based upon 瓒(zan),示,or its radicals 口,酉 and手.Previously,in the inscriptions on bronzeware of late Shang and early Zhou,the character that refers to the name of a jade vessel was decoded as"璋(zhang)".It may be more appropriate to interpret this character as"瓒(zan)".
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