Date: Longshan culture (5000-4000 years ago), Neolithic Age
Measurements: Height: 15.5 cm, Width: 10.2 cm 
Provenance: Unearthed at a prehistoric site at Huangshan, Nanyang county, Henan province, 1958

Henan province boasts abundant nephrite jade resources. The emergence of the jade objects in the Central Plain derived from the Longshan culture of the Neolithic Age, including various jade products, such as axe heads, dagger-axes, and knives. The ceremonial jade axe head is rectangular in shape, narrow on the top and wide on the edge, with a perforation in the middle of the top. The blade is arc-shaped and finely polished. It demonstrates the superb jade-making craftsmanship of ancient artisans, and reflects the longstanding history of using nephrite jade in the Central Plain.

Numerous jade objects were unearthed at the Huangshan site of Nanyang in Henan province, of which various productive tools take on the highest proportion, amongst which the most representative is the jade axe head. The significance of the axe head reflects its importance in agriculture among the settlements of the time, as well as the practical and exchangeable value it held in the wider area, and other social attributes it gradually acquired. In the late Neolithic Age, as people's aesthetic sensibilities evolved and social structures continued to develop, all kinds of jade articles gradually transformed from primitive labor tools to symbols of power and status within the religious and political life of primitive society.