Shasha Long, Zhimin Li, Blythe McCarthy, Heinz Berke, Jiachang Chen, Qinglin Ma
ABSTRACT Purplish‐blue granular materials from the “Five Stones” set excavated from a grave‐quelling jar in Late Han tomb M17 at Sanmenxia (Henan, China) were analyzed by OM, SEM‐EDS, and micro‐Raman spectroscopy. The results identify, for the first time, Chinese Purple, Chinese Blue, and Chinese Dark Blue as artificial Cengqing in a mortuary ritual context. Associated quartz, witherite, barite, tenorite, covellite, and minor calcite constrain possible raw materials and reaction residues, whereas dispersed gold and tremolite indicate deliberate cultural additions. Multiphase assemblages and residual reactants suggest incomplete, nonequilibrium high‐temperature processing, providing archaeometric evidence for early proto‐alchemical pyrotechnology in China.