Song Dynasty (960-1279) stone carving of a warrior clad in armour and wielding a jian, which feature a guard in the shape of a stylized open lotus blossom plus a tri-lobe pommel. (As the upper half of the blade appears to have broken off or was heavily damaged, I have marked the tracing lines onto the pic to create a visual guide.) 

Flowers motifs representing lotuses were first seen on the fittings of Tang Dynasty swords; Tang poems describing about swords mention them often.

As for jian usage, these weapons were first issued to military units for combat action during the preceding Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period (907-979), quite unlike the earlier Tang Dynasty, where military units were issued only daos.

Jians alongside daos continued to be in use by the Song military right up to the last years of that dynasty... In size and shape, these blades most likely had greater widths and thicker cross-sections than their later cousins, the civilian jians of the Qing Dynasty, due to the battle-field requirements of engaging with heavily armoured opponents.