S925 Silver Thunder Talisman Ziwei Peace Buckle

A peace buckle is a plain ring with a hole in the middle, no carving. Two origins are given: one from the jade disc, one from the bronze coin, and both fit the shape. The advantage of a plain face is that it lies against skin without any edge to catch, however you turn it. Old pieces sometimes carry a key-fret band around the rim, which no longer counts as plain; people who care about such things prefer the plain sort. A plain buckle is judged on its curve: if the circle is uneven, light shows it at once.

The Ziwei in the name is the star Ziwei. The star's name was originally written with wei meaning tiny, and folk carving often writes it with the grass radical instead, while it still names the same star. In traditional astronomy Ziwei is the emperor star, and Taoism personifies it as the Emperor of Ziwei, one of the Four Sovereigns. Carving the word on a plaque takes the sense of a centre that does not move while the other stars attend it. The Ziwei enclosure is a region of the sky and the Ziwei star is a star; the two are not the same thing, and the plaque takes the latter.

The thunder talisman is another layer. In Taoist thunder rites there are secret names, written by taking a deity's name apart, curling it and hiding it, with strokes that ignore normal structure; to an outsider it looks like a knot of curves. By tradition such a name is not shown casually, and carving it on a plaque is a way of keeping the name inside the strokes. Someone who reads it knows which general it belongs to; someone who does not takes it for a pattern, which suits the purpose. Different schools write the same name differently, so two lineages may not match.

A peace buckle is best worn against the skin, on a shorter cord so it sits just below the collarbone. A silver ring has no corners, so sleeping in it does no harm. In summer, sweat dries on the wall of the hole and leaves a white ring that looks like scale. The hole is small, so do not use too thick a cord; a thick one wears a groove at the opening. The buckle sits at the centre of the chest, and shows as a round shadow through thin clothing.

Do not clean it with a stiff brush. Turn a cotton bud around the wall of the hole and use a silver cloth on the raised face. The talisman strokes are fine: once they go black, let them stay black, because picking at them rounds the edges of the strokes and the character blurs. There is no stone set in this piece, so water is not the problem; shampoo left in the hole and not rinsed out is. Silver oxidises, so when the face yellows, use a silver cloth, not toothpaste.