THE DISCOVERIES
OF POST LIBERATION ARCHAEOLOGY
WILLIAM
WATSON
ANCIENT CHINA
ANCIENT CHINA The
discoveries of post- Liberation Chinese archaeology by
WILLIAM
WATSON with an introduction
by Magnus Magnusson
New York
Graphic Society
International Standard
Book
Number 0-8212-0608-7 Library of Congress Catalog Card
Number 73-91129 Copyright
©
1974 William Watson No portion of
All rights reserved. this
book may be reproduced or
used in any form or by any means
without written permission of the publishers. First published in
by the
Great Britain 1974
British Broadcasting
Corporation, London.
Published in the United States of
America 1974 by New York Graphic Society, Greenwich, Connecticut 06830. Printed in England
5
Contents Introduction 1
Man, Peking Man
Lan-t'ien
and
7
their Successors
1
2
Neolithic
23
3
The Bronze Age
35
4 The Han Empire
55
5
The T'ang Dynasty
6
The Sung Dynasty
95
7
The Yuan Dynasty
101
Thanks
are
mission
to
(colour
due
Roman 15,
40,
5
84, j
1,
illustrations
referred
The
Peking:
in
to
Institute
I-IX,
of
1-4,
27-9, 33, 34, 36, 38, 57-62, 65, 66, 68-70, 72-6, 18,
17,
3.
56;
52,
Museum, Athens:
Benaki
85;
Museum:
Trustees of the British
16,
Gallery
Freer
are
numerals):
Archaeology, 13,
as follows for per-
reproduce
plates
77
22,
25,
43,
50;
44,
of Art, Washington:
23> 45-
The photographs used for 46-8, 55, 78 were the work of Werner Forman; Robert Harding supplied pictures for 8, 13,
60,
J
5> 2 7,
66,
68,
28,
3 2>
70,
33, 35, 40, 53. 59'
I-IX; and George
Rainbird Ltd for 1, 72, 73. The maps and diagrams were drawn by Hugh Ribbans.
The
Mr
author's particular thanks
go
to
Peter Campbell for his constant
care and help in designing the
and selecting the
illustrations.
book
•
%
^ D °Oo 0o
Wu-wei
O
Ke//ow
oxo
vOooOO
/-/Ver
D O
PEKING Chou-k'ou-tien
Man-ch'eng
J
KANSU
Yi-hsien» • Pao-ting i-ting
1
OOOv
HOPEI
SHANSI
SHENSI
SHANTUNG Yi-tu»
* Lan-chou
Wei-fang •
Anyang* Ch'ien-hsien
M Wei river .
.
Lin-chang *
Yi-nan
-
# p an . p F"-*»n9» . • Hsien-yang «SIAN
Loy'ang
Ch'ang'an'Lan-t'ien
-Peihsien
'Cheng-chou
HONAN ANHUI Nanking
HUPEI • Yang-tzu-shan
SZECHWAN
*
• Fei-hsi
Yangtze
4x i
•
Hangchow
riv
CHEKIANG fe> KIANGSI
Ning-hsiang
Lung-ch'iian •
• Ch'ang-sha
•
HUNAN
Kunming
• Shih-chai-shan
YUNNAN
200
100
_l 1 I
ftt
100
300 miles I
1 1
1
\
200 300 400 kilometres
Introduction
This book is the outcome of a pilgrimage
made on behalf of the BBC with Professor William Watson of to China
I
the University of London. Professor
Watson went
as
acknowledged
an
authority on Chinese art and archae-
ology;
went
I
was
as a novice. It
my
to China, his third.
first visit
But we both went there to
learn: to
about the advances that have
learn
been made in recent years in exploring China's past, and to report
two
on them
film documentaries that
in
is
no theft, no pickpockets. no poverty in China; every-
There
is
one
enabled to buy, very cheaply,
is
sufficient
food to
live
on and two
sets
of uniform blue or grey clothing a year.
There are no beggars in China. There no disease in China, no flies - indeed,
is
with health, and can boast one of the
The Royal
London - the first major come to Europe from China
in
And
been. There instance;
as the Puritans
England must have no crime in China, for
the Chinese are fanatically concerned
the magnificent exhibition of Chinese
Academy
same way
of Cromwell's
Our
reports were designed to coincide with
display to
in rather the
were be-
ing produced by Michael Gill.
archaeological treasures at
life, devoted to the ideals of revolution - the Communist Liberation of 1949 -
finest health services in the
That doesn't make least to a
European.
world.
paradise,
it
To
at
the western
eye, attuned to the lurid commercial-
ism of urban
life,
the cities of China,
to give these treasures of ancient
even Peking, appear drab and dusty by comparison. Instead of neon-lit hoard-
China a context in the new China of
ings there are only great posters pro-
today.
claiming a thought by Chairman Mao,
for nearly forty years.
was
It
our brief
was an unforgettable journey:
down
a
a revolutionary exhortation. Instead of
the glittering centuries
streets
jammed with
of China's imperial history, across the
streets
teeming with bicycles. There
journey
endless vistas of this
huge land
that
houses a quarter of mankind. China
makes an overwhelming impression on
are
there are
cars,
no privately-owned
cars in China,
and everyone goes by bike. Instead of frantic pace and presonly
official cars,
the visitor, of sheer size and numbers.
sure, there are crocodiles of school-
Some 800
children marching to school singing
million people in a country
the size of Canada, and curiously nice
people, too.
I
use the
because in the west
word
advisedly,
we have
so
many
ingrained prejudices about the Yellow Peril
and
all
that sort of nonsense.
The
Chinese people we met were earnest, friendly, nice.
dedicated,
and
essentially
Compared with westerners they way of
are almost puritanical in their
appropriate revolutionary songs.
There's
a
uniformity
westerner finds depressing.
that
the
It's a little
sad that this great nation that invented the art of writing and printing books
should today print only
Freedom of expression pressed, and there
is
'official'
books.
has been sup-
no point
to blink the fact. Perhaps
it is
in trying
the only
Introduction
way
which the much-needed Revo-
in
lution could have succeeded, but little
it is
a
saddening.
Even
existed
at
uncomfortably, too. In
vated.
it
forces
fact,
the most illuminating remark
I
think
I
heard
was the day we
All this immensely promising and
mid-1950s when Japan invaded China.
but
thing,
Watson
Professor
said,
'Wait a minute, you can't just leave that stuff lying there - you're not in
China now, you know.'
It
was
a sober-
ing reminder of the difference between
It
An-yang, was systematically exca-
Hong Kong. I was dumping our luggage where we
stood in order to go and buy some-
our
and
rewarding work came to an end in the
visit
China and reached for
onwards),
left
during our
all
BC
Bronze Age dynasty, the Shang (c. 1600-1000 BC) whose lost capital,
you to re-examine your own standards and values - a bit so,
6000
(c.
startling confirmation of a magnificent
civilisations.
was impossible to be unaware of
The next
ten years were a desperate
for
battle
fought
survival
as
invaders
the
the
Chinese
and
fought
amongst themselves. 'It was not until the victory of Chairman Mao and the foundation of the People's Republic 1949 that archaeology could come into its own again. The
of China in
Academy of
Sciences was re-formed
background as we travelled across China, from Peking up to the Great Wall, then by delightful steam train down to Canton
with
in the south.
and the most spectacular discovery of all - the fossilised remains of Peking
this
immensely
Archaeology
different
in
China
is
science.
The
first
made
until
the
a relatively
archaeological division.
a special
defeated Chiang Kai-Chek had
The taken
all
the
cultural
ancient China with
of
treasures
him on
his flight,
years after Heinrich Schliemann
had electrified - had unwar the world before the accountably disappeared; it had been
begun
dispatched
young weren't
to
excavations 1920s,
fifty
had open up the history of the
.Mycenean China the
civilisation first
of Greece. In
excavations were ama-
Man, the discovery
an
was formed
Academia
official
the a
war casualty somewhere on the way.
And
so,
in
ology had to
1949, Chinese archae-
start again.
And
it is
the
achievements of post-Liberation Chi-
had some con-
nese archaeology that were celebrated
It
spicuous successes during earliest stages
its
short
of Chinese
life.
civilisa-
began to emerge from the soil most notably the discovery of Peking Man, the revelation of a Chinese Neolithic stage that no one had suspected tion
in
became
to undertake serious, sys-
tematic excavation.
The
Sinica
safe-keeping
direction of America, but
teur and tentative; but early in the thirties
for
that
in the
Royal Academy exhibition. The republic was and is
revolutionary
closely concerned with the education
of
its
people; education in China has
always been regarded in terms of the past, in terms of a close attention to
Introduction
historical
and
cultural traditions. In the
he did for
tive, as
me
as
we
travelled
well sum-
together through the past into the
celebrated
present. Let
me
dictum, 'Let'the past serve the present'.
impressions
I
new China, this attitude is med up by Chairman Mao's
a
long
and honourable history; now,
after
Antiquarianism
1949,
was
it
China has
in
being
Panp'o
for six years
The
a village settlement of
all
it
China was
it
learned journals in China only
1972; but
orgy of destruction
Guards
as
occupied around 5000 BC. suburbs of the
in the
city
textile-
of Sian (population
2,500,000), the capital of Shensi pro-
was
It
when foundations for a new factorybeing dug were discovered in 1953
Today
Chinese
it is
one of the major show-
of Chinese archaeology, and
archaeologists had been hard at work,
pieces
and they had been ably supported by
with good reason. The excavated has been
what the publications refer to as 'the peasants, workers, and members of the Liberation Army'.
The anger about
demonstrations
it
site
from
raised passageways
round
of sculpted floors and
against
holes.
Archaeology
is
a landscape
pits
and post-
basically just a
imperial sites and treasures, but
hole in the ground; but at Panp'o the
had steadied and been channelled
hole has been brilliantly interpreted in
some it
roofed over to shelter
the elements, and visitors can walk on
the imperial past had spilled over into
threatening
was
Age
Stone
vince in north-central China.
Red
had been feared, there had silent years.
first
manufacturing
it
been an intense amount of creative
work during those
was
It lies
quickly became clear that, far from an
under the
New
people; radiocarbon dates suggest that
silent.
restarted publication in
the most spectacular neo-
right at the start of China. Panp'o
stopped, or
it all
seemed to stop. The Cultural Revolution burgeoned, and least
the
has been excavated anywhere in Asia, perhaps anywhere in the world. We went there right at the start of our journey, because it comes
scientifically
niques of archaeology pioneered in the
at
some of
lithic site that
brought up to date, using the techwest. Then, in 1966,
is
highlight
garnered.
into a
more constructive
visual terms, to recreate the sort of
attitude: that
the treasures of the past demonstrated
led
life
by these early Chinese farmers.
ing kaleidoscope of dynasties and wars,
Four museum pavilions tell the story site lucidly and vividly; and a on the reconstructed hut, based shadowy evidence unearthed by the archaeologists, allows you to feel precisely what it was like to live in
and
those times; to handle the fine pottery
the ageless
working
skill
class
and genius of the
who
had made them,
not the genius of the emperors
of the
who
had enjoyed them.
The
history of China
of weirdly
unspellable
places. In this
puts
it
all
is
a bewilder-
people
made in
book, Professor Watson
into authoritative perspec-
I
eye
the
the village, to sec in the mind's activities
of planting
and
;
10
harvesting, fishing and hunting, that
went on
too often, archae-
there. All
Introduction
Two
marvellous
archaeological
phenomena have come from
Han
the
ology seems to be about the dead, be-
dynasty: the jade suits of Man-ch'eng,
cause only the dead care about eter-
and the 'Flying Horse' of
you meet the living. Shang, Chou, Ch'in, Han, Ch'i, Wei, Sui, T'ang - the dynasties of China reel
The
past the untutored mind. In the end,
Sheng and
nity; at Panp'o,
for self-preservation's sake, to cling to only three - Ch'in,
T'ang.
The Ch'in was
decided
I
Han, and
a short-lived
dynasty, from 221-207 BC, but
two claims
to significance in
In the
place,
first
it
my
had
it
mind.
was the name from
which, by some quirk of history, the
name China
derives.
And
secondly,
it
was the first Ch'in emperor who, around 220 BC, more than three cenHadrian
before
turies
across
built
a
wall
north Britain, joined up the
jade suits
tombs
Hopei Province
in
They were
in their primary purpose of keeping the bodies from decaying -
nothing was
down the ages, working at a when thousands of their fellows
craftsmen
time
were dying of famine - and Liu Sheng, noted lecher and drunkard, was dying of luxury.
sculptures. It
mere seventy miles
of a horse
on
snaking and winding\up and
down
the mountains like a monstrous
stone serpent.
It
took 300,000
years to complete; and
building on earth, so visible
it's
it's
men
ten
the only
said, that
is
from the moon.
The Ch'in
didn't last long; in 206
BC
of Liu Sheng but a
left
few teeth. But they represent all the immemorial, matchless skill of Chinese
beside the Great Wall of China - a
earth,
prince
close kins-
men of the Emperor himself. They had
The
one of the most staggering projects
two
1968.
failed
period
The Great Wall must be
in
in
Tou Wan,
and princess of Chungshan,
China to create the Great Wall. Hadrian's Wall is contemptibly puny
3000 miles.
Chang.
the burial robes of Liu his wife,
various frontier walls in the north of
as against nearly
Mr
were discovered
Horse'
'Flying
of the
surely destined to
is
Han
become
one of the world's most celebrated
one hoof
is
a perfect representation
at full
(a
speed, balancing on
remarkable technical
feat
swallow
on the back of a During the Han dynasty the Chinese were obsessed with the need for good horses for
in itself)
surprised in flight.
their
cavalry
-
not
the
steeds of the northern
pony-sized
nomads who
harassed
them,
'Celestial
Horses' of the west, from
but
the
One emperor
great
big
they were overthrown by the founder
Afghanistan.
of one of China's most glorious dynas-
expedition 2000 miles to capture them
ties.
The Han
interruption,
lasted,
from 206
with a brief
BC
to
AD 220,
straddling the crucial era of Christian
and
Roman
Europe.
he succeeded, but only nearly
four-fifths
led a vast
at the cost
of his
army.
of
Mr
Chang, the occupant of the tomb from which the 'Flying Horse' came, was
II
clearly just as
horse-flesh Finally, I
good
appreciative of
and even better
come
art.
to the T'ang. This
Introduction
the
bolised again by horses, the magnifi-
it.
It
lasted
period
from
AD
618 to 906, the
when Europe moved out of the
first
Europeans to be invited to see
As we walked down the sloping passage towards the tomb-chamber past walls vividly painted with
itself,
animated niches
the robust centuries of Viking expan-
pottery,
What brought the T'ang period most to life for me was a visit we made to the tomb of the Princess Yung-T'ai.
irresistibly
It
stands in the middle of a royal burial
field
on
city
of Sian - China's equivalent of
the plains to the north of the
Egypt's Valley of the Kings.
was
It
here that T'ang royalty and their "high-
ranking
officials
were buried,
deep
in
subterranean chambers piled with
flat-
topped pyramids.
thinking
of the tomb of Tutan-
khamun. For Yung-T'ai's tomb, like Tutankhamun's, had been looted by
tomb robbers soon after the burial. The evidence was there to see when the archaeologists first came on the
A
scene.
survey round the pyra-
soil
mid revealed the tomb.
someone had sunk a ground near the base of
that
shaft into the
it,
Princess Yung-T'ai died at the age
glorious T'ang
myself
found
I
wall-
past
court-scenes,
crammed with
Dark Ages, through Charlemagne into sion.
it
wrong. Her tomb was excavated in i960, and Professor Watson and I were
was the Golden Age of China, symcent pottery horses of the T'ang tombs.
The informer had got
mistake.
The
archaeologists followed
digging their way
intruders had done.
down
The
just as the
shaft
brought
underground passage
of 17 in the year 701. She was the grand-daughter of one of the most
them
formidable old dragons ever to occupy
But at the bottom of the shaft they found a macabre sight - a skeleton lying on top of a heap of gold and jade and silver, his skull split open, and an
Dragon Throne of China - the Empress Wu, who ruled the empire with an iron, unrelenting hand in the
the
last
decades of the seventh century.
palace
informer
her
told
that
A
her
into the
near the ante-chamber of the
tomb
it-
self.
The
iron axe-head nearby. fallen out
when
thieves had
the robbery was
man
comhad
grand-daughter, Yung-T'ai, and her
pleted; perhaps the last
brother, had been heard whispering
been an informer, whose value to the gang was now over. He was left to
criticisms of the
government; and the
demanded
old Empress instantly
Yung-T'ai and
commit
suicide.
her
brother
Which
commander of
Rank of Imperial
at the
the Second
Carriages.
turned out, her death was
And, a
share the centuries of solitude with the
little
princess
who
had been
falsely
accused of treason.
they did.
Yung-T'ai was newly married time, to a
that
should
in
as
it
terrible
It
is
terror
stories
like
these,
stories
of
and tragedy, that bring Chinese
history to spectacular
life
man. Imperial China was
for the laya
place of
12
emperors and dragons and concubines.
When you Peking,
visit the
the
great
Forbidden City palace
in
complex
Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, one tends to remember the love-stories that took place there created by Kublai
rather than the wickedness of despotism.
The emperors, after all, were human. They lived, and they loved: they loved
life,
and poetry, and the
arts, as
intensely and passionately as sometimes
they loved their
women.
Mortimer Wheeler once wrote about archaeology that its business was to dig up people, not things. It is the people of ancient China that entrance the mind; it is the people that Chinese archaeology has brought to life again, with whatever disapproval of the sort Sir
of people they were.
MAGNUS MAGNUSSON
Introduction
:
Chronological Table
BC
Palaeolithic period:
about 600,000-7000
Neolithic period:
about 7000-1600
BC
Shang dynasty:
about
600-1027
BC
Western Chou dynasty:
1027-771
Period of the Spring and Annals:
770-475
BC
Period of the Warring States
475-221
BC
Ch'in dynasty:
221-207
BC
Western Han dynasty:
206
Autumn
1
BC
Technology
Kingdom
of Tien
Hsin dynasty (Wang Mang)
Han
dynasty
Period of the Six dynasties Central Asia, dynasties
Han
Sui dynasty
T'ang dynasty Five dynasties
Sung dynasty Liao dynasty
Chin dynasty
Yuan dynasty
8
about 3rd century 1
Eastern
BC-AD
to
st
century
AD AD AD
BC-
AD
8-23
24-220
220-590
T'ang 1
st
century BC-8th century
AD 581-618 AD 618-906 AD 907-960 AD 960-1279 AD 916-1125 AD 1115-1234 AD 1271-1368
AD
Cast of
the skull
and lower jaw-bone of
the
ape-man
found at Lan-t'ien, Shensi. The remains are dated geologically to
a time about 600,000 years
ago.
The
reconstruction shows eye orbits of unusually flattened
shape.
The projection of
pronounced
{see
also fig.
the eyebrow ridge is very
j) and- the low forehead
indicates small cranial capacity,
Lan-t'ien Man, Peking
and
For
years
fifty
it
their successors
known
has been
Man
that
one should notice
known
that he
man
was not the
half a million years ago, at a time cor-
first
responding to the middle period of the
cavations carried out under supervision
Age as it was experienced in Europe
Ice
and northern America, an early species of
man
inhabited China.
covery was of primitive
The first dishuman skulls
in the rubble filling fissures in lime-
stone
being quarried
cliffs
Chou-
at
k'ou-tien, about 25 miles south-west of
Peking.
The
were associated
skulls
type of
in China.
Ex-
produced evidence
in Shensi province
of a slightly more primitive hominid.
At Ch'en-chia-wo
village in the
Lan-
t'ien district a
human lower jaw was
found
and the following
in 1963,
Kung-wang-ling
at
trict,
in the
year,
same
bones and parts of right and
skull
dis-
a skull-cap, parts of the lateral left
with the broken bones of animals evidently food refuse - and with stone
tion,
implements,
highly and similarly fossilised, and so
longed to
proving that they
be-
toolmaker and were, there-
a
human. Yet physically he resembled, in some respects, the anthro-
fore,
poid apes.
The
two-thirds
of the modern capacity,
about
skull has only
with a low forehead and a jutting jaw, but
fleeting
brow ridge feature.
chin. is
The heavy
eye-
most noticeable
the
His height - about
would not be unusual
in
five feet
-
China even
upper jaws, with two molars
came
to
and
period
man have made from
Some
found
Chou-k'ou-ticn.
at
They
in-
clude both sexes and fifteen children; it
was the
first
time that any indication
had been found of the family palaeolithic
life
of
man. Even more decisive
human
indications of purely
were traces of lire-making
fire.
As
creature,
a
activity
tool-making,
Peking
ments, and the head, neck and shoulders reconstructed
one of the
human
family.
earliest
(fig. 1).
The wear of the molars age:
if
the
it
modern would be about
but the wearing of the teeth of
fossil
hominid would be more
rapid and the individual likely
is
therefore
to be nearer thirty years old.
Judging from the skull
suggests the
they belonged to a
size
of the teeth the
bones appear to belong to a
female, though this cannot be cjuite certain.
The morphological
features of
same general characPeking Man, Sinantbropus pekin-
the skull have the ter as
Man
{Sinantbropus pekinensis) was established as
deductions can be
a study of the skull frag-
forty,
The bones
sub-species.
not been found in close
association.)
broad nose are perennial characterisof about forty-five individuals were
same
(Different sub-species of palaeolithic
northern Chinese
of the Hast Asian races.
are
belong to the same
the
today, and his high cheek-bones and
tics
The bones
light.
are believed to
in posi-
members of
the
1
But before hearing more of his habits
'Thc skulls found at Chou-k'ou-ticn in 1928 were lost during the Second World War; but since 1966 another skull and several long bones of Peking Man have been recovered in systematic excavation.
i6
and the Ape Man, Pithecanthropus, known from bones found early in this
est
century in the Trinil beds of east Java.
glacial
easts,
The formation of the eye sockets is even more primitive than that of these two related species of men. The eyebrow ridge is long and heavy, forming a continuous bar,
and the eye
orbits
tend to a rectangular outline, the roof
of the orbit being particularly
and
flat,
the depression of the tear-gland missing.
The forehead
is
very low and
men
As much as a hundred thousand may separate Lan-t'ien Man from his follower, Peking Man. The most
the extraordinary
is
thickness of the cranial wall, which the greatest seen
of the period:
among
it is
is
the hominids
approximately half
as thick again as the skull
is
concerned
The
brain capacity of Lan-t'ien
Man
estimated as 780 cc, close to that of Peking Man. The conclusion is that is
the sub-species he represents
is
more
primitive than that of Chou-k'ou-tien
Man
and the Ape Trinil beds.
of Java from the
But he
is
paralleled ap-
proximately by another Java type, the Pithecanthropus robust us of the
beds.
The
Djetis
geological history of the
last
that
is
China before
the deposition of the loess, the yellow
had begun
earth,
in north-west China.
This fact serves to distinguish the
hominids from the
early horizon of
Asia,
when made
for
modern his
the
latter
was present
yellow earth.
was on
It
this
lennia later.
The
climate in which Lan-t'ien
lived
was probably not much
from
that
which prevailed
of Peking Man.
It
at the
contemporaries.
They suggest
wood. (The numerous small rodents vouch for the latter.) Horse, gazelle, hare, deer and a small wild ox point to grasslands; the rhinoceros and some species
of deer suggest comparative
wild boar would seem woodland glades as their
possible.
But
in
broad terms
is
not
the earli-
his
well-
wooded but not jungle terrain, with much open grassland and dense brush-
West, and therefore close comparison
two ends of Asia
time
judged from the animals that were
and marshes such
at the
Man
different
can be broadly
matched exactly with the sequence of geological and climatic events in the
man
fertile
were destined to flourish many mil-
abundance of water (probably
of
in
of the
farming communities
soil that the first
million years in East Asia cannot yet be
of the physical and cultural evolution
Homo
man,
appearance in east
China during the formation
of Peking
Man, and nearly twice the thickness of a modern human skull.
far as
both lived
important observation so
sapiens,
the Lan-t'ien skull
inter-
years
eyebrow ridge project even more sideways than is the case in Peking and distinct character of
at the
second great
as the
age in Europe.
period
One
V eking Man
and
China were living
in
same time
receding, and the outer ends of the
Java Man.
Man
Lan-fien
in
ponds
as are rare in the
region today); bear, porcupine and
of
this
may
to
require
habitat. All
suggest a climate rather
more equable than
that of inland
China
17
present time, with an average
at the
Lan-fien
yield
a
Man
and Peking
cutting edge.
straight
fairly
Man
temperature somewhat higher, but not
Presumably some
reaching the extreme of the tropical
lump took place, in order to determine more or less the shape of the desired flake. The flakes might
experienced in the inter-
interludes
The
of Europe.
glacials
woodland
grassland and
were preyed on by
species
the carnivores hyena, panther and lion. :
To
this
fauna the collection of ani-
flaking of the
initial
parent
then be retouched to thin
back or
down
the
All of this
refine the edge.
process presupposes a degree of fore-
mals recognised from Chou-k'ou-tien
thought which must already be a con-
adds the sabre-toothed tiger
siderable advance
also of the
Thames
and no doubt
(a
valley in
its
to
resistant
as
denizen time
the
very
larger
modern tiger). numbers of animal
varied climates as the
of the
Statistics
show
species
and
that both the Lan-t'ien
Chou-k'ou-tien
the
deposits
first
on
human
instrument
some seven inches long, tapering from a butt three and a half inches wide. The form
is
that of the classic hand-axe of
palaeolithic
man
Europe, such
in
between the two sites points 'to fairly rapid change in the animal population
though
of central China in
the inferior material,
of
the
fossil
Lan-t'ien
mammals
found
at
only sixty per cent were
present at Chou-k'ou-tien, while four species
known
apparently
to Lan-t'ien
become
Man had
extinct before the
appearance of Peking
Man. At Lan-
in the Chinese
flaking
is
Lan-t'ien
Man correspond to those of the Achculian
culture
of
Middle
France
and
al-
specimen the enforced by
it is
nonetheless
The number of Lan-t'ien Man's tools that
were found
any
final
Man
but Peking
skill,
not sufficient for
is
conclusions on his manual has
left
behind
evidence of technical rationality that ranks him between the Acheulian and
nearer to the
made by
is
carefully controlled.
region today. stone tools
as
lower gravels
less regular, as
Neanderthal
The
in the
of the lower Thames valley, and
only 37 per cent of the animals represent species which survive in the t'ien
heavy point
a
is
found frequently
Thus
The
tool-makers.
belong to the middle (Pleistocene) period of the ice age, but the difference
this period.
methods of
the
men
of the west, and
latter.
Thus he
is
ac-
quainted with pressure-flaking - pressing
oft",
narrow
rather flakes
than
striking,
long
inwards from the edge
southern England. Since only vein-
of such tools as hide scrapers. This
quartz and quartzite were available,
secondary flaking intended to com-
and not the cleanly-breaking
flint
of
Europe, the Chinese tools look coarser in
comparison. The smaller tools con-
sist
of squarish flakes struck
pieces of the stone,
oft"
larger
and contrived
to
plete the shape of a tool
larger
flake,
which
worked on
itself
purposively struck from
has
is
a
been
a larger core.
Another piece has a carefully worked tang which makes it suitable as a
i8
Man
and Peking
Kwansi, the main features which
javelin point.
From
Man
Lan-t'ien
dis-
Chou-
tinguish the contemporary races of east
deposits where pieces of workmanship were recovered human (locality 13), through the most popu-
Asia were already present in China
to the upper level
south, the Mongolian and the East
the lowest level in the
k'ou-tien
lous level (locality
1)
15), there is a
of habitation (locality
improvement of technique. The single piece from the earliest gradual
deposit does not yet
above,
described locality
show
Asian Tungusic types were already differentiated.
The
date of
Upper Cave Man should
from
of the present day. Between his time
common with
and the emergence of farming and the full neolithic way of life in the Yellow
those
being struck from
a core pre-
many
river valley,
other stone-using
viously prepared to yield the desired
cultures of hunting and gathering
shape in the detached fragment. Peking
munities appear in China.
Man was
nately the topography
gregarious, a hunter
who
was
returned to a permanent habitation.
able than that of western
He
preserving
his
split
bones for their marrow, kept
dead near the hearth, and was their habitat
there
established,
of
distinct types
mediate
are
is
less well
number of
a
man which
between
Peking
are inter-
Man and
modern man. The remains come from Kuantung, Hupei and Mongolia, dating
to
middle and
the
Pleistocene,
initial
late
and belong to individuals
more advanced in development than the more primitive representatives of the Neanderthal men of Europe and
Homo
Finally
western
Asia.
emerges
in the so-called
Man
discovered also
tien,
who
less
favour-
Europe
for
Bone-
handiwork.
their
com-
Unfortu-
carving and wall-painting do not survive as they do in France and northern
probably a cannibal.
Although
i.e.
probably be put within 50,000 years
the best Neanderthal work, the large flakes
loess,
the typical Chinese of the north and
skill
while
have points in
1 5
the
during the deposition of the
sapiens
Upper Cave
Spain. But the general trend of technological evolution
is
manual
skill
world
increased the
chert flakes were
narrower
China to
similar in
that in other parts of the
made
flint
:
as
and
smaller and
('blades'), until the
average
composed of mounted in a bone or
knife had a cutting edge several flakes
wooden
handle,
measured only
and
arrow
points
or
two
at the
time
a centimetre
across.
This evolution occurred
when
the yellow earth was
still
form-
Chou-k'ou-
ing as a deposit of sand blown by
physically the equal of
powerful winds into north-west China
Judging from the skulls and other bones from the Upper Cave, and from some other roughly contemporary finds made in Szechwan and
from the colder regions of inner Asia. At the same time the plateau which is
modern
is
races.
at
now
Inner and Outer Mongolia was denuded of loose soil and lost its
19
On
vegetation.
uplands
bare
these
collections of the stone tools often
on the of
surface, but
human
Man.
ture of Peking
the bow was well
without the traces
which
activity
lie
fill
in the pic-
It is certain that
now the chief weapon, and
suited
hunting
to
the
rapid-
moving game of the grassy uplands. The earliest evidence on the construction of the
bow comes from
Siberia,
and belongs to the time when farming
was
beginning
China,
in
although
farther north the old palaeolithic
The
continued.
Siberian
bow was
life
built
Man
Lan-t'ien
fluviatile plain, its
Man
and Peking
and then, by breaking
banks, to flood widely and even-
tually
even to change
when
the
principal
its
happened
course. (Just this
in
1852,
mouth changed from south
of the Shantung peninsula to north of it.)
The
flood-plain
marshy,
was
covered
thickly
probably in
places
with low and impenetrable vegetation.
With the discovery of farming and which as in other parts of the world broadly coincided with the invention of pottery, weaving and cattle-raising,
the process of stone-polishing,
new
of several parts, of which the bone
value was set on the possibility of
plaques lining the inner side survive in
settled life
burials.
'compound bow' was
This
social
and the creation of larger
groups.
On
the loess, as the
destined to be characteristic of China
account given in the next section of
and the
this
of East Asia until the
rest
introduction of firearms.
We
have imagined the habitat of
Man
Lan-t'ien
and
book
shows,
obstacles in the
palaeolithic
his
put
nature
way of
few
revolu-
this
tionary process. But east of the loessic
zone settlement and communication
successors to be relatively open terrain
must have been much more
of woods and grassland. After the deep
and probably man did not colonise the
loessic soil
east
and
had formed
in the north-
China
central
(attaining
depths of two and three hundred feet in places) the vegetation
ably was
growth of
cover prob-
sparse, with
still
forest.
no dense
But we cannot con-
clude that the vast region lying either side of the lower reaches of the
river
was ecologically
Yellow
similar.
Here
the soil consists of a mixture of reloess
and variously sorted
gravels, loams
and sands. From what
deposited
we know of the recent history of the river we may conclude that even in early times
it
bed above the
was inclined to level
raise its
of the surrounding
difficult,
eastern flood-plain before the neolithic
way of life was
well established farther
to the west. In the
meantime
to the
south, in the basin of the Yangtze,
methods persisted, with on the hunt and fishing. Here the usual association of neolithic techniques is broken, for even after the making of pottery was palaeolithic
exclusive
learned,
tion
reliance
it is
turned
farming.
unlikely that the popula-
immediately
to
settled
z 1
iew of the limestone bill where tbe remains of
Tan-fien man were found clay,
28
in
a deposit of reddish
miles from Sian in Shensi.
As
in other parts
of Asia
numerous
man
and Europe, primitive
favoured a
limestone
shelters in caves
and
in
China
which provided
environment clefts.
ms^^f^S
3
Top view of
tbe skull-cap
of Lan-t'ien
man
showing
the extraordinary development of the supra-orbital ridge.
Tbe bone
is clearly
the deposits under which it
deformed by pressure from
was
buried,
and
the surface
partly eroded. Nevertheless a comparatively accurate reconstruction
proved possible.
Tacking
the
superior flint used by primitive
man
elsewhere in Asia, the earliest inhabitants of China resorted to chert
and quart% for
These stones are more
difficult
chipping. This qnart^ tool with
served as a knife or scraper.
their implements.
than flint
to
shape by
a sharp lower
edge
5
Three views of a chert tool {a knife or
made by Peking Man. Part
scraper)
of
the
cortex
remains,
edge
was
carefully
Two hand-axes shaped Ting-ts'un, Shansi.
early
to
The
tions along
it.
from
Such deliberately shaped
pieces were, however,
of
alternating posi-
a small proportion
total of stone
the
broken by the
sharpened by
inhabitants of the cave at Chou-k'ou-tien.
from iS cm
Flint hand- axe of the Early Acheulian
in
chert
larger is
long. It closely resembles
made by
left
The greater part of
give a good grip. the
being
removing flakes
a similar
Palaeolithic
man
tool in
culture,
found at
gravels
in
superior
control
Europe, differing from European speci-
material
is
mens mostly by reason of
working
of the
the coarser
grain of the stone. The hand-axe was
an all-purpose weapon and
tool,
being
fig.
6.
to
the base
Thames
the
of
a
of the middle valley.
The
finer-grained
be contrasted with the
The upper
Tittg-ts*tm
tools
in
end, the grip, retains
some of the original
flint cortex.
The
supplemented only by small scrapers,
broad flakes removed from the right
and
edge have been struck off with wood.
spherical
hammer
stones.
Red
pottery
design.
The
vase
decorated
with
black
painted
clay has been burnished before the pig-
ment was applied; above 1000° C.
it
The
was fired at a temperature rosettes
of nine roundels are
painted in white. Geometric ornament with reticula-
tion
and
spirals
was
the chief resource
of the neolithic
potter in north-west China. The vase was shaped by
Found at Lan-chou. Height 18.3 cm. Late 3rd millennium BC.
hand.
Neolithic
The most complete remains of a food-
Chinese painted neolithic pottery with
producing, neolithic village ever exca-
similar potteries in south Russia
and
vated are to be seen preserved under a
the
was once argued
that
an east suburb
the
wide roof
in Pan-p'o,
of Sian,
in
Shensi
The
province.
Near
East,
it
reached China by migration over a great
seventy thousand square metres of the
distance. This has
settlement are not exceptional for the
by
neolithic
communities which formed
along the middle course of the Yellow
and along
river
its
western tributary,
the Wei. In temperate size
unheard
is
Europe such
a
of, for there the peri-
odic exhaustion of the
tilled
land
com-
even much smaller bands of
pelled
farmers to
move
on.
The Chinese
vil-
The
question that arises
first
the
been
finally refuted
now backed by
discovery,
carbon-14 datings, that the pottery of central
China
older than that to the
is
north-west, which the supposed migration should have reached theless there
first.
is
how
Neversudden-
a puzzle in the
is
ness of the adoption of farming in
China, as the archaeological
now shows
It is
it.
its
bed even
in the
record
possible that the
movements of the Yellow
were more permanent.
lages
had
culture
neolithic
earliest
river across
upper reaches has
the fertility of the soil was maintained.
destroyed the trace of older and simpler
The Yellow
neolithic communities, or buried
and deposit
a fresh layer
of
over the plain, as did the Nile.
Its
odically soil
river did not flood peri-
flooding was, in any case, confined for the
most part to the lower course
of the river, east of the
initial neolithic
The answer seems
area.
nature of the
to be in the
the yellow earth
Under the action of water,
itself.
which the are
salts
loess,
capillary fertilise
loess retains well, mineral
brought to the surface by action,
and so tend to
the upper layer.
It is
re-
clear that
the neolithic farmers were aware of this
value of their land, for
special
during the
earlier part
of the neolithic
deeply
so
have
they
that
The excavated
notice so far.
them
escaped village
represents a culture which lasted ap-
proximately from 4500 to 3000 BC.
Some hundreds of
villages resem-
bling Pan-p'o, but the majority of them
much
smaller,
were located on
terraces
along the river Wei, beginning with the second terrace above the present flood-plain.
The
terrain
not condu-
is
cive to the formation of
many
small
streams, and the supply of water for the
irrigation
which
long
the
dry
summers must have needed cannot have been easy. The loess banks tend
spread
to be high
and
beyond the margin of the yellow earth, and therefore kept fairly close to the
enough of
the staple crop, millet, was
great river and did not pass eastwards
dred people to
beyond the middle of lonan province.
this
period
their
villages
never
1
On
the
basis
of comparisons
of
produced
vertical. Nevertheless,
to enable four or five live in
would seem
of irrigated
fields.
one
place,
hun-
and
to require a system
Irrigation
demands
I
Bronze ting for holding of
vessel,
sacrificial meats.
with three legs or four,
is
This type
one of the com-
monest of the ritual bronzes deposited in tombs of the
Shang dynasty. T'aot'ieh monster masks are
placed at the top of the
Shang art towards
the
geometrical ornament
is
legs.
The bird motif
purely decorative in
Height 2 1. y cm. 12th- nth century BC. See pp.
37 ff.
enters
end of the dynasty.
The
intent.
II
Detail of a painting on silk
from
Ma
Wang
Tui,
Marquess of T'ai near Ctfang-sha, Hunan. The frog and hare which inhabit the moon are seen at the top left, the lady Ch'ang-erh who also the
tomb of
lives in
the
a palace in the moon
is
shown riding through
space on the wing of a dragon. Other parts of the
painting show further spirits of the heavens and the underworld, a scene in the
life
the ceremony of her wake.
of the Marquess, and
Height of
this
approximately 22 cm. Early 1st century BC. See pp. jjff.
detail
26
and
a special degree of social cohesion
comparative
from
security
warlike
Other signs of cooperative living noticed by the excavators add to the
One
part
is
forty-six in
by a ditch
the other hand the easier to
it
frame
conical roof
which need not be over-
large in order to give reasonable head-
We may
and well-
room.
any length was already
difficult to find
divided into three parts.
in the central plain. It
may only be
occupied by the houses,
is
On
lowered floor made
The whole
prosperous
of a
organised tribal settlement. village area
partition walls.
the walls with timber and to build a
raids of neighbours.
picture
Neolithic
number, and
is
surrounded
metres deep, which was
six
guess that timber of
a
coincidence that these sunken floors are intermediate
buried
ly
between the complete-
houses
of
heavily
the
intended to collect the run-off during
wooded region north of the Amur, and
heavy rain rather than
the houses raised
as a defensive
was not backed by a stockade. Beyond the ditch was set aside an area for burials and another
feature, for
for
the
it
pottery
Among
kilns.
the
is a larger, square one, whose ground plan implies a skilful timbering of the roof, and which was probably a
houses
village
chief's
dwelling,
or,
the
as
excavators prefer to interpret
it,
a
on
stilts
which are Yang-
the earliest traced south of the tze,
and continue
in
use
today in
South-east Asia and the southern lands.
is-
Although the Pan-p'o houses
had earth walls and roofs covered with a
mixture of clay and straw, their is entirely of wood. them the beginning of the
bearing structure
We
see in
wooden
pillar-and-beam architecture
communal meeting-place. Two oblong
which continued throughout Chinese
foundations of buildings which lack
history until recent years.
and other tokens of human
practised
occupation are believed to be houses
Japan, to
fireplaces
which
for the domesticated animals,
show
the abundant remains of bones
to have been principally pigs and dogs.
A curious feature of the houses
is
the
lowering of the floors two or three feet
time.
below the ground Considering
rain water
on
the
level
of the of
lingering
a dusty loess surface this
It
is
still
Korea and especially which it was exported more in
than a thousand years ago.
Hunting with the bow and arrowwas still an important, but not a crucial, supplement to the food supply at Pan-p'o, as is shown by some hundreds of bone arrowheads found scattered through the village. The chief quarry were species of deer, water-deer and
arrangement had a distinct disadvant-
sika,
age, and
eaten as a delicacy in parts of south-
in
it is
not surprising to find that
every case the entrance of a house
divided from the Interior by
a
is
low-
and the bamboo-rat (which
east Asia).
But of equal
if
is still
not greater
importance was fishing, with which,
threshold surrounding the door and
on the evidence of designs painted on
sometimes forming
potterv, supernatural ideas were asso-
a short
lobby with
27
A
dated.
frequent motif of the potter-
was
artist
a circular
and diagrammatic
Neolithic
a matter of dragons
symbolising elemental forces.
human face, with ears which sometimes turn into
Near
fishes.
to
On other pots
variously schematised. large
fish
also a fish
it is
a
painted alone, and the
is
and other monsters
Except for two cases of two and four persons buried together, the Pan-p'o burials are single. This practice rather
against the theoretical claim
tells
made
introduces us to a habit of Chinese art
by the excavators that the neolithic society was matriarchal, for it is
long history in
generally argued that multiple burials
the bronze age. Behind these drawings
of families or septs of a clan related
geometric transformation of
that
was to have fisherman's
lies
the
increase
a very
magic,
catch, the
representing perhaps a ly
with
concerned
shape
its
intended
human
god
this
to face
through the female
line
social organisation centred
indicate
a
on women.
particular-
The Pan-p'o graves are orientated with
branch
the head to the west or the north-west,
of
and
fertility.
custom
this
is
observed through-
deep storage-pits, in which grain was
out the region of the Yangshao culture to which Pan-p'o belongs. A group of
kept against the winter needs of the
pots, fairly consistent in the choice of
human and animal populations. Clothing was woven of coarse fibres and
shape
Around
the houses were scores of
(judging from the large
number of
stone scrapers and pottery rubbers)
included leather garments.
The pottery,
hand-made and not turned, is likely to be women's work, though one supposes that the building and firing of the kilns would fall to the men. Temperatures around iooo° C could be reached, and pottery made of choice clay was baked to the greatest hardness
all
which
is
possible in earthenware.
A (tart from
the decoration of the
painted pottery there
is little
at
Pan-p'o
(a large jar,
and one with round
and one with pointed base), is placed with the corpse, which is regularly
Again we
supine.
anticipated:
grave
gift
number
of
belong to more
important
wooden
were
coffins
a
different
which seem to
In the graves
vessels.
custom
bronze age the
of bronze vessels was also
regular
fairly
see a later
the
in
used.
persons
Some
simple stone beads and ornaments of cut shell appeared here and there, and the
most elaborately decorated pieces
are pottery bracelets.
examples
There were two
of crescent-shaped
stones
which suggests concern with unseen
which may have had particular mean-
powers: there were no pottery idols or
ing, for such things persist through-
obvious talismans. In
out the later neolithic period and sur-
supernatural
seem
to
of the villagers
have resembled those of China
in later ages,
tions of
beliefs
this respect the
when no
gods were
felt
clear representa-
to be necessary,
and religious iconography was mainly
\
ive into the
jade.
bronze age to be made of
Eventually the written tradition
informs us that these objects symbolise the heavens.
The
neolithic aire of Past
\sia
is
28
Neolithic
same 'nuclear
divided into three broad cultural tradi-
precisely the
tions corresponding to the valleys of
that case there
the Amur, Yellow river and Yangtze. In
concede even an admixture of extrane-
the central zone which
ous cultural elements in the genesis of
is
thus defined,
where the Yangshao (Pan-p'o) culture is
equivalent to the earliest stage of
settled farming, the
we know
as
first
it
Chinese tradition
took root. The
middle stretch of the Yellow with the adjoining
Wei
river,
tributary,
is
Chinese
men
area'.
would be no need
civilisation,"
the culture of the
presents an improbably narrow view of the formation of a national culture all
Honan and
progress diffusing from
Shensi - but builds on tenuous evi-
dence of stratigraphy and typology.
from which phases of change emanated in the later evolution and spread to
most
other parts of China. In historical times
ment
the
same area retained prime political significance.
The Yangshao by
the
military
Lungshan
ranged over the whole central plain in the third
and early second millennium
BC, although
it
north-west.
the
pottery
never penetrated into
Lungshan
Superior
burnished-black,
is
The Lungshan
wheel-
culture develops
characteristic
forms, in
pattern, pottery
its
settle-
and agriculture,
in the eastern coastal zone, including
that part of the
was followed neolithic, which
culture
to
of Han. This theory not only
reasonably described as a nuclear area
and
In
Yellow
river valley
which consists of yellow earth mixed with loams and gravels as the result
of river action.
Some Lungshan
traits
connect with the far north-east and the Siberian
neolithic,
others
with the
south. In contrast with the Yangshao,
and possibly wheat were
millet, rice
Of necessity the
turned, and specialises in shapes which
cultivated.
have a metallic look in their sharply
often
angled profiles, although bronze-cast-
flood-plain,
settlements
sought out knolls above the
and could not be so popu-
Honan
the
lous or enduring, and archaeologists
exposed
ing was not yet known. In
in
have not reported any of the features
shows Lungshan Yangshao and immediately succeeding preceding the Shang bronze age. Around the relation of Yangshao and Lungshan turns an argument
symptomatic of the large cooperative
which has ideological overtones, for
neat perforation replace the pillow-
of
succession
excavations
it
involves
deposits
often
views
of the
historical
community, such as were seen at Panp'o. People were buried with their heads to the east or the north-east, and flatfish,
shaped axes of Yangshao. Nevertheless some features of Lung-
unity of Chinese culture, extending
even
as far
back
as the neolithic period.
rectangular stone axes with a
shan
life
- for instance, the custom of
reading the future from heat-cracks
The official Chinese opinion is that the Lungshan culture is merely the later outcome of the Yangshao, having
in
developed
shan pottery shapes provide the
its
characteristic
traits
in
bone - were passed on
bronze-users, and a
to the
Shang
number of Lungstart-
29
some highly individual Shang bronze vessels (the ting tripod and the p'ati footed dish, for
Neolithic
ing point for
was the scene of
a flourishing bronze-
types of
using civilisation.
Not long afterwards
We
the
southern territories were incor-
are thus forced to the
porated into the Chinese political state
conclusion that the main development
which had expanded from the middle Yellow river in all directions.
example).
of
Chinese
through an
material
culture
passed
Lungshan
stage,
What, then, has become of Marxist
characteris-
theory in the Chinese interpretation of
of the eastern neolithic
neolithic culture? Until the late 1930s
essential
which incorporated into tic
features
unknown
tradition
it
'nuclear
the
in
In the northern zone of East Asia
beyond the
Amur
and in the southern area comprising the Yangtze valley
river,
and the rolling country to the
south of it, neolithic culture understood.
It
was
certainly
its
cultural evolution can
all
be explained in
strictly local terms,
so
no external influence, or migration, may be invoked in accounting for
that
change. After the Second World
War
well
the general philosophy of prehistory
impover-
was modified. In any given cultural entity a need might arise, in the course
is
less
ished and uninventive in comparison
with
Soviet archaeologists mostly expressed the view that
area'.
southern neighbours.
The
arts
of evolution, that
is
met by adopting
a
of pottery and stone-polishing do not
tool, or
combine here with agriculture and animal husbandry as they do in Yangshao and Lungshan. In Siberia the appearance of the bow and arrow is
nique such as agriculture, from another
through
its
taken as the conventional criterion of
cultural
group can
neolithic culture,
zone
it
is
and
in the
Yangtze
the production of rough
varieties of pottery. In north
and south
hunting, fishing and gathering retained
a
custom, or a tech-
social
cultural sphere with
which contact has
been made. Before the need has arisen independent experience, no learn
by the ex-
ample of its neighbours. Asian history
abounds
in
examples of impassable
cultural frontiers
which are made
intel-
way. Currently Chinese
ligible in this
importance until the eve
theorists accept a
view of
of the bronze age and even afterwards.
fusion, as distinct
At
on the
from local evolution, European model,
their basic
a date archaeologists
finally
determined,
have not vet
rice cultivation
was
introduced in the south. As a sporadic crop, a
known
to a few communities and
few favoured
terrains, rice
may be
as
traditional
without formulating the nature of the resistance
which such diffusion meets.
They invoke
the theory of unaffected,
independent evolution only for the
ancient in this zone as millet farther
nuclear area in
north, but agricultural technique suffi-
derive from this region
cient to establish settled
communities
cultural dif-
of economic
Honan and and
Shensi, and
all
cultural
the signs
advance
of any size on the rice yield was prob-
which are observed elsewhere
ably not achieved until central China
Chinese
territories.
in
the
9
ABOVE
IO
Excavation Pan-p'o
in progress at
near
Sian
in
the
neolithic
Shensi.
The
village
rectangular
depression is the floor of a house sunk
ancient
ground
level.
were excavated in the position of
Various loessic soil.
below the
domestic
fixtures
Holes marking the
timbers aided the reconstruction
building on the lines shown in fig.
of
n.
of the
BELOW
Drawings of a
stylised
human face and fish
decorating
a pottery bowl excavated at Pan-p'o. The ears of the face are separately.
shown as fish, resembling
Some examples show
beyond recognition but the face insistence
on fish
may
reflect
intended to increase the catch.
the
the fish latter
drawn stylised
is little altered.
The
a fisherman's magic
II
ABOVE
12
Reconstruction of a large square house at the neolithic village
of Pan-p'o. The disposition of thicker and seems
thinner pillars structure.
Under
to
indicate
the outer covering
a sloping roof of the roof {reeds
or millet stalks) was a layer of clay.
measures about
11
by i$ metres.
The room
BELOW
Reconstruction of a round house with sunken floor
at Pan-p'o neolithic village. The lowering of the floor
made
roofing easier,
flooding
by
but made the house liable
rainwater.
The raised threshold was
intended to keep the interior dry. here
off centre
since
to
the
The
fireplace is
middle of the floor was
occupied by the main roof pillar.
13
Pottery bowl ivith stars showing in white on a pink
stage of the Neolithic.
ground, found at P'ei-hsien, Kiangsu. Such painted
or
Height i8.j cm. l^ate 4th
3rd millennium BC.
pottery is rare in east China, falling in the middle
14
15
Fragments village,
of pot
rims from
neolithic
with symbols scratched through the paint
to the clay beneath, referring
makers.
Pan-p'o
They
cannot
be
perhaps closely
to
owners, or
connected
Chinese writing as established later,
with
but the idea
of the ideograph may be present. 3rd or early 2nd millennium BC.
FACING
Pottery jug of the type called k'uei, made of whitish clay,
from Wei-fang, Shantung. This
type is confined
to the east coast, its sculptural quality anticipating
the
design
of the later bronze
sacrificial
vessels.
Height 2 p. 7 cm. 3rd or early 2nd millennium BC.
i6
Bronze ceremonial axe, yueh, as found placed in
Shang graves at
mask
suggests
the edge
of the burial chamber. The
human physiognomy, but
in general is
assimilated to the t'ao-t'ieh monster. Such axes were
used in beheading the
human
victims placed in royal
tombs, and in sacrificial pits connected with religious or
ceremonial
buildings.
Museum. 14th- 12th
Height
century
BC.
2j
cm.
British
3
The Bronze Age The Chinese bronze age
differs
from
the equivalent periods of history in the
Near East and Europe
in
one remark-
able way. It seems to spring
the
ground
nologically:
fully-fledged
its earliest
from tech-
bronze-casting
shadowy way the Chinese have known the site of the last Shang capital, which in literature is called Yin-hsu, 'The Waste of Yin', Yin being an alternative name for the dynasty. But the exact location was In a
always
demonstrates a
forgotten, and to the literary-minded
which
anticjuarians
skill and sophistication Europe equates with the culture of La Tene in the first millennium BC, and in the Near East would be matched to some extent, but not surpassed, by work of the mid-second
in
millennium BC.
It is just at this
time,
about 1 700- 500 BC, that the begin1
ning of bronze metallurgy in China dated.
Before then,
however,
is
there-
was not, as one finds in Europe and Near East, a long period of rudimentary bronze-working, in which
the
technique
is
gradually improved to the
in
could not be ignored. In the
and bone came to
toise-shell
is
ap-
in China, the fifth
China iron was slower displacing bronze. The tardiness of
BC, although in
and fourth century
in
they passed only into the hands of apothecaries as 'dragon bones', to be gr< >und as
a
medicine. Then Wang I-jung,
member in
of the Imperial Peking,
in 1900
when
foreign troops occupied
the capital, but the
news spread, and
the learned began to collect the bones for scholarship
and the unlearned for make by their
sale.
West. The explanation
vessels
At
monopolistic tendencies of rulers in the
local
which China was soon split - the control of bronze was one source of their power - and partly in
them.
city states into
the near-starvation livelihood of a vast
whose
purchasing
inert
peasantry
power
for metal, or any manufactured
goods, was minimal.
the
what they were: the earliest-known form of Chinese writing. Wang committed a patriot's suicide
the Chinese Bronze Age from the economic evolution of the partly in the
Academy
recognised
the profit they could
lies
light out-
modern village of Hsiao-t'un, Anyang in north Honan. At first
the general adoption of iron also distinguishes
two
side the
near
inscriptions for
date of the latter event
last
sands of fragments of inscribed tor-
iron begins to displace bronze as the
The
such
years of the nineteenth century thou-
resident
proximately the same in the West and
in
things did not matter: only inscriptions
advanced standard attained by the time leading metal.
long-standing
the
Chinese tradition exactness
Hsiao-t'un
marvellous
bronze
were also dug up, mostly by villagers who had devised a
means of using a long probe to locate These came through dealers into collections in China and abroad, but it was not until 191 that Lo Chen5
vu raced the bones to their true source, 1
and
realisation
dawned
upon
the
learned world that this place could be
Ill
A
decorative bronze plaque depicting
attacked by two hunting cheetahs. the
tail
bronze
of
is
the
upper
assailant.
plain, suggesting that it
flat surface.
Such
realistic
art
A
a wild boar
snake
is biting
The back of the was mounted on a
is characteristic
of the
kingdom of Tien in ancient Yunnan. Length iy.i cm. 2nd or early 1st century BC. barbarian
See pp. jjff.
IV White porcellaneous bowl covered with
The
ornament imitates the jewels
clear gla^e.
and medallions of
Iranian art, while the petals of the base derive from the lotus frequent in Buddhist art. the
beginning
of a
long-lived
porcelain manufactured in
Han-sen-chai,
From a tomb See pp.
77
f
near Sian,
dated to
AD
Such pieces mark
tradition
of white
north China. Found at Shensi.
667.
Height
2}
cm.
Bronze
or,
lethal
Age
38
no other than the Waste of Yin,
weapons were introduced
into
it,
the endless internecine carnage against
the city of Great Shang. Scientific in-
which philosophers, Confucius among
as the inscriptions themselves called
vestigation of the site
taken until 1928.
By
was not undertime
this
the
protested in vain.
first,
Among weapons
much
came
first
was known of Shang culture from the study of the inscribed bones and the
bronze
bronze
mainstay of the Shang army.
vessels.
The Shang dynasty begins
a cycle
of
bronze-age civilisation which evolved without interruption or revolutionary
change from about the sixteenth until the third century BC. For some three
Shang kings ruled Cheng-chou in from China
centuries at least central
Honan, then moved of Anyang. Their domain comprised the eastern part of what had been the realm of the Yangshao north
the
to
vicinity
neolithic.
The end of 1027 BC when
the
dynasty
halberd,
arrow and the fighting
war.
The
warriors of the western high-
land zone were ultimately the supreme victors,
and
whole of China
the
today.
By
by
principalities,
and the Yangtze. Many of these 'feudal' states were very small. The greater ones soon forgot their east coast
theoretical allegiance to the
and began
The
to
Chou king
war among themselves.
variety of alliances and patterns
of warfare and
territorial
exchange
which constitute Chinese history the unification of 221
BC
until
indicates
no
great change in the social order or the
economic
basis
of
life.
Improved
we know
it
is
and initiating a new centraland a new social order. Chinese theorists interpret the Shang age, and
and increasingly well recounted in history, the broad pattern
which extended to the
Ti
seen as closing a phase of bronze-age
'slave-owners'
the country into
as
Huang
emperor of
the iron age, but the Ch'in victory
of political history are immensely com-
The Chou divided
Shih
first
this date China had entered
isation
of events was monotonously simple.
BC
in 221
of Ch'in became the
society
plicated
Much
about 500 BC, a short bronze sword was adopted, and soon afterwards the cross-bow and the long iron sword were decisive in the fortunes of
was over-
it
in
the
chariot,
later,
an invasion from northwestern China headed by the house of Chou. Thereafter, although the details
came in thrown
the
bronze-tipped
the
sequel
its
down
to 475
state',
BC,
which
is
as
the
followed
a 'feudalism' lasting until the revo-
lution of 191
The
civilisation
logical
2.
picture
we have today
owes more
work than
incomplete
of Shang archaeo-
to
to the accounts, so
and
moralised,
survive in written history.
which
The most
and informative excava-
Characteristic
tombs and of chariot burials. One of the former was inShantung Yi-tu in vestigated at tions are of 'royal'
province in 1965. lar shaft, 8.25
10.5
metres
A
central rectangu-
metres deep and
at the
15
by
surface, descends
with slightly inward-sloping walls to a step near the base,
below which the
agriculture led to an explosive increase
wooden funeral chamber had been built
and periodically more
over a protective layer of charcoal.
in population,
39
The timbers framing decayed leaving no
chamber had
the
trace,
but some of
Shang Below the
Bronze
Age
bolic jade objects (the crescent repre-
heavens and a halberd
the typical features of a great
senting
tomb
blade), cowrie-shell
were
preserved.
arrowheads, sym-
vessels, spearheads,
the
money, and,
at the
pits,
edge of the step around the funeral
the deepest containing the skeleton of
chamber, two massive bronze axeheads. These last were symbols of office - the sign of the axe is well known in Shang inscriptions - and
chamber were three other
funeral
a
human
funeral victim, buried in a
seated position and wearing a
bone
pin in his (or her - the sex was not established) hair. This a
sacrifice,
of
spirits
was the
propitiation
of the
the
underworld.
There
followed, in smaller pits a the
body of
meat for of
a
little
his food,
and the supine body
victim
we
legs
clan.
The
and sump-
scale
many people
accompany
sent to
their
dead- master, must indicate royalty, or
membership of
a small ruling group.
latter case
half of the dynasty, great shaft graves with cruciform approaches from the surface are certainly the tombs of
broken
are
powerful
tuous furnishings of the tomb, with so
In Anyang, the capital of the second
can assume that he was buried the
alive:
perhaps simultaneously the emblem of a
this
lacking
thoughtful provision. In the also
higher,
dog, buried with some
human
a
basal
first
and a
wooden
post of which traces were
kings, their rich contents of bronze,
found
interpreted as serving to
jade
is
man down. Further human victims, wooden coffins and so
tie
the
this
time in
perhaps of
superior status, were buried on the step above the funeral chamber.
From
and slaughtered victims exceeding
even what was found at Yi-tu. The shafts of all these tombs are filled
with thin layers of hard-rammed-
earth. (At Yi-tu layers of
loamy
sandy and
soil alternated for greater
cohe-
The same method was followed
the latter, cuttings led to the surface
sion.)
towards the four cardinal directions
in
though, according to the rule, only the
temple and palace complex in Sector G at Anyang). It is curious that sun-dried
southern approach went quite to the
bottom of the shaft, providing the main entry. Where this debouched into the space of the funeral chamber twentyfour
human
skeletons,
and thirteen human
skulls
all
of young
buried in three layers,
been slaughtered
men, were having evidently
in situ to
Of
ticularly the heavier
comparatively
kind of timber, in
short
Chinese central plain,
supply it is
in
the
less surpris-
ing that burnt brick was not employed.
The Shang
oligarchs were literate,
or their scribes and diviners were, us-
the principal occupant of this trace
was found. The funeral
chamber had been robbed
at least three
times in antiquity, but there
mained
brick was never resorted to, in the Near Eastern fashion. With fuel, par-
mark the
occasion.
tomb no
building walls (for example, the
fragments
of
ritual
still
re-
bronze
ing ideograms which began as abbreviated
by
pictures
indicator
much
in the
and were developed
and punning phonetic
manner of Egyptian and
Sumerian writing.
Already the Ian-
4°
Age
Bronze
guage seems to have had many words spoken alike, as the modern language descended from it has to a still greater
supreme bronze-age arm,
degree. Today, for example, the three
the wealthy subjects to the bulwarks of
words pronounced reside,
a post,
to
%hu,
meaning to
pour, are differentiated
ing tactical advantage. status
It
swiftly giv-
also conferred
the typical contribution of
as
the state.
The design of
chariot
surprisingly close to that of
is
known
the Chinese
western Asia and
by combining with the same ideogram
chariots
the additional indicators 'man',
'tree',
the Caucasus about the middle of the
part of these
second millennium BC, 50 the sugges-
words, a symbol always read ?(hu or something approximating to that,
hand that somehow the invention was communicated to the valley of the Yellow river. While no
The phonetic
'water'.
it stands alone means 'master'. Shang kings consulted the spirits of their ancestors, and other divinities such as Ruler of the Four Quarters, Western Mother, and Shang Ti the supreme god, offering animal and human sacrifice to them and putting
when
on the acceptability of the and some more practical matters. The question was written on tortoise-shell, or more often on animal
tion
close at
is
can
contacts
account for
loessic
not
by the diviner
list
ture of the
Shang
help to
fill
state. It is
Shang and Model is the
the
not an un-
less interested in
divination, a small class of city-based
warriors lording
it
correct term here.
over submissive
land-tied peasants.
In west and cast the chariot was the
The
process which preserved the shape that
which was
is
exploited by the
first
excavators of the Sutton
Hoo
ship
in
East Anglia. Surrounded by an even-
China the
loess), the
soil (in
in a pic-
re-
later chariots.
parts of buried objects
one to anyone acquainted with the ancient history of Mesopotamia. Ur of the Chaldees was a city-state ruled under a kind of theocracy comparable of Shang, no
have
textured
familiar
to that
to the nature of the
archaeologists
wooden
the mention of frontier enemies, crops, all
Thanks
soil,
is
transmitted to history, and
royal journeys,
difficult to
ot kings
recorded in the oracle sentences confirm the
is
covered some exact models of both
shoulder bones (these are the supposed
these were read
this,
But the Chinese chariot has some distinctive features, the most striking being the skilful structure of the wheels.
now known. The names
that
absolute independ-
accept.
sacrifices
how
demonstrated
be
ence of the two vehicles
questions
dragon bones!), and answer sought by cracking the bone with fire. The oracle indicated its wishes or advice by determining the shape of the cracks, though
in
replaced,
as
they decayed
were
away, by
of the soil, Which subsemore than the surhardened quently liner particles
rounding least
filling
of the burial, or
at
retained a distinct appearance.
Thus the excavators needed only to remove the unwanted tilling to reveal the shape of the wooden structure by a
ghost answering to
its
every
detail.
Burial of chariots complete with their
two horses and w
ith a
the dri\er
second man
sometimes
was an established
custom under the Shang, and more than half a dozen well-preserved ex-
41
amplcs have been excavated
Anyang
Some of
capital.
at
the
these were
temple area, part of a consider-
in the
able spread of buried military victims,
amounting
it
would seem
to an
army
Bronze
Age
human
of
sale slaughter
victims had
ceased. In great tombs, however, a
few
might be placed to accomtheir master to the Yellow
retainers
pany
Han
Springs, and until
times bronze
vessels continued to be the chief grave
unit.
The
latest chariot
place in 1972, also at
excavation took
Anyang,
just
south
gifts.
Variously apportioned to meat
and grain
offerings,
and the wine libamain source
of the village called Hsiao-min-t'un.
tion, these vessels are the
The
of our knowledge of Chinese
stout shaft of the vehicle
is
half-
art in the
They remain one of
joined to the centre of an axle of similar
pre-Han period.
weight, and over this crossing the
wonders of the world for the splendour of their ornament and their techaccomplishment. The Shang nical
fenced driver's platform was laid on a rectangular frame. Harnessing was by
means of yokes resting on the horses' necks and bands passing around the necks, so that the lines represented by rows of decorative bronze rondels in the grave are likely to mark reins rather than traces.
include
axle-caps,
The bronze parts mounts on the
yokes, an ornament for the rear end of the shaft protruding just
the
method of
casting
continued for some
in
piece-moulds
five
hundred years
Then one-piece moulds made by encasing a wax model were
afterwards.
adopted, a technique universal, in the ancient Near East and Europe, but
mysteriously
lacking
in
the
earlier
phase of the Chinese Bronze Age.
The warfare of the last few centuries Chou era, the Period of the War-
beyond the
box; but no trace was found of nails or
of the
crampons, and it is to be concluded that
ring States, at last resolved itself into
the main
members of the structure were
held together by keying and lashing
with perishable materials. In this grave
was buried stretched and supine, whereas a prone position of the corpse was usual in formal Shang burials of every class (a custom surviving in central the charioteer just
behind
his box,
China from the neolithic period). Both driver and horses had been covered
with
mats of some kind.
they had
all
been
the chariot itself
Evidently
laid in position
before
was lowered into the
The custom of burying chariots persisted for some five or six centuries (
Ch'in,
tze
of
and much to the north and south In 221 BC Ch'in was finally
it.
victorious,
and the whole of China
was united under a single ruler for the first time. The Great Wall was completed on the northern frontier, and a civil service was
a despotic
When
and
organised to administer
government.
efficient
the founder of the
Han dynasty
dismissed the second Ch'in emperor
pit.
after
two great kingdoms: whose power was based on the western highlands; and Ch'u, which had long controlled the middle Yangthe struggle of
the end of the
)racle-taking by
lire
Shang dynasty. and the whole-
206 BC, he at once
set
in
about organi-
sing a bureaucratic state on foundations provided
by
his predecessors.
FACING
18
17
Bronze
vessel,
ting, for holding sacri-
Tripod bronze
vessel,
chia,
intended
ficial meats, excavated at Ning-bsiafig,
for wine used in religious libation.
Hunan. This
it the design
is
the only piece
kind decorated with human
may
of
faces,
allude to victims of the rite.
On
inside are cast the ideographs for ta '
This means but
it
person
'large grain'', or 'great
may or
its
which the
ho.
crop\
name of a The ting was found
also denote the clan.
south of the Yangtze,
and marks
the
southern limit of the territory in which
Shang
rule
and culture extended. Height
38.7 cm. 14th-! 2th century BC.
is
On
of the t'ao-t'ieh monster
dissolved into scrolling, leaving only
the eyes immediately visible.
The func-
tion
of the capped pillars rising from
the
lip
is
unknown,
possibly
they
served to raise the chia by means of tongs
when
the wine it held
Excavated at
Fei-hsi,
was
heated.
Anhui. Height
/ 3. / cm. 13th- nth century
BC.
20
BELOW
The Vr^ewalsky Shang
chariots.
horse,
an Asian steppe breed similar
This animal belonged
to
a herd on
to
the estate
the horses which
of the
drew
Duke of Bedford.
1
9 LEFT
Earth-cast of a chariot recently excavated at Hsiao-min-t'un, near Anyang, Honan.
Some bronze
harness parts
and ornaments remain
over the horses' skeletons.
The
yokes which rested on the horses' necks when they were harnessed appear at the forward end of the shaft, capped by bottle-shaped bronze ornaments. The structure of the charioteer's box, the large hubs and fine spokes are typical of Shang chariots; the charioteer was killed at the funeral and his body placedjust behind his vehicle, rjth-rith
century
BC.
21
A
set
of ox scapulae laid
The marks
visible
in order as
a buried archive, after their use in oracle taking.
on the surface are (a) incisions made with a
chisel, (b) alongside
each incision a burnt patch where the bone
was touched with a red-hot bronze point.
On
to the oracle
some of the scapulae the question put
was
inscribed alongside the
The majority of these concern the conduct of sacrificial rite, but others demand answers to more mundane questions. The answers were read, by a method incisions.
unknown
today,
from cracks produced by
bone. 1 2th- nth century
BC.
the heat on the other side
of the shoulder
22
FACING
Jade ornaments of the Shang and early
Chou
All
dynasties.
are
The white bird
thin plaques of jade.
on
the
worked on
appears frequently
right
in
Shang art as an emblem of some kind, possibly
an animistic
denoting
protector of the royal house.
bird on the
deity,
The smaller
a stylised swallow,
left,
another frequent design in
is
Shang. The
remaining pieces belong to the loth-Sth centuries
known
fish is
with the
BC. The cormorant with a The dragon
ending in another head is
its tail
point
only in jade.
a
of departure for
new
formulation of the animal ornament.
Length
of
large
the
1 2th- 8th century
BC.
bird
British
cm.
13
Museum.
23
Ceremonial halberd consisting
of an
engraved jade blade set in a bronze haft.
The
latter is decorated with designs
of
dragons and formal motifs of the kind
found
also
The work
cast on the ritual vessels.
inlaid with
is
malachite.
Length 34.3 cm. ijth-iith century BC. Freer Gallery of Art, Washington.
24 Musical stone from
tomb at
the royal
y
Wu-kuan-ts un, Anyang, Honan. The stone
was intended
cord and struck.
to be
suspended by a
(By about
;oo
BC
complete chimes of such stones were in use, sounding
a
scale
notes rising in tones
of nine or thirteen
and semitones and
combining in fourths and fifths.) Length Si cm.
1 2th-
nth
century
BC.
25
Bronze halberd blade and knife,
the
Shang warriors. The halberd on a haft feet long
was
the regular
charioteer, whose chief
armament of three or four
weapon of infantry.
arm was
The
the bow, carried also
a knife, whose decoration {here an ibex head) falls outside the usual range of
20
and 22 cm.
Museum.
Shang
i2th-uth
art.
century
Lengths about
BC.
British
27 Bronze
vessel,
kuang, for mixing
wine, cast in the i oth century
BC, at
the beginning
of the Chou- dynasty. The jawless t'ao-t'ieh mask, and the dragons related'to
it,
provide most of the ornament. Stylised birds fill the lower %one. The friendly monster into which the lid
of the
with a peacock's
tail.
vessel is
shaped begins as a bull with snail-like horns, and ends
Height ji.6 cm. Excavated at Fu-feng, Shensi. 10th century
BC.
26
FACING
Plan of the Shang tomb at Yi-tu. Beheaded victims line the approach to chamber. The latter was constructed of timbers over a basal sacrificial pit
the burial in which
a
dog was placed. The axes placed at one edge of the tomb shaft were probably used in the course of the bloody funeral,
ijth-uth
century
BC.
28
Bronze wine poorer, ho, combining ancient motifs with some the
RIGHT Bronze mask and 29
side
derives
handle.
The whole
and of
the early
The
design on
motif.
The newer
ring
from
the
wooden door of a
burial chamber built at the bottom of a shaft. In this case the casting
was preceded by an exact wax model,
the shape
of spout and
in contrast to earlier
methods using piece moulds. The
is alien to the official
art of Shang
mask revives
of the t'ao-t'ieh, composing
Chou
of the
and
ornament
ideas.
from a dragon
elements are the bird lid
formation
new
in its
period,
animal
Excavated at Fu-feng,
and heralds a
style.
Height
Shensi. pth century
trans-
$8 cm. BC.
entirely
the idea
it
of
new elements: serpentine dragons, a plumed
bird of prey and new geometric detail. The dragons of the ring are represented as encircling
Yi-hsien, Hopei.
century
BC.
Length of
the
it.
Excavated at
mask 4; cm.
jth
3o
Fragment
lacquer-painted
of
wood
depicting a tamer of dragons. Subjects of this kind, first
in
4th
the
appearing in Chinese art
BC,
century
relate
to
a
mythology more fully represented in the
Han
period, which
of Taoist
lore.
wings below his
of an
was part of a body
The dragon-tamer has arms and the emblem
immortal on his head.
This
iconography breaks completely with that
of the Shang-Chou tradition of hieratic art, as seen in the sacrificial bronzes.
Excavated at Hsin-yang, Honan. 4th century
BC.
3i
In
BC
221
the first
emperor of the
house of Ch'in conquered the whole of China and united it under his rule. One
of his first tasks was
extend and
to
complete the walls erected to protect the northern Chinese states against the
inroads of nomadic invaders.
and
repair
elaboration,
With
this
is
later the
Great Wall of China, here seen at its eastern end north of Peking. Camels
had
their
routes
use
until
along recent
the
northern
{Photo
times.
A. Brankston) 32
FACING
The tomb of Shih
Huang
the first Ch'in emperor,
Ti, is the most impressive
surviving in China.
It
was plundered
shortly after the funeral but has not
been excavated since.
and
burial
The main mound
chamber
were
anciently
reported to contain vast and amazing treasure.
On
periphery
the
precinct, about half the
of the a kilometre from
mound, there appear
have been
to
chapels furnished
offering
with
such
pottery figures of servitors as this one.
The realism and
mark a new sculpture.
century
dignity of the pose
departure
in
Chinese
Height 64.J cm. Late $rd
BC.
33
Bronze figure of a horse flying past a swallow. The Chinese military intervention in central
end of the 2nd century
BC
made
Asia at
the
contact with the
Persian empire, and among other things obtained a breeding stud of the tall
and fast
Sogdiana and Ferghana.
These were celebrated by
horses native to
poet and artist horse {see
known
fig.
20).
—
as, in contrast to the earlier
to the Chinese,
it
stumpy
well deserved to be
This outstanding example of a new
realistic sculpture
comes from the tomb of a general
excavated at Wu-wei, Shensi. Height 34.J cm. 2nd century
AD.
The Han Empire The Han empire can be compared in many ways with its' part-contemporary,
Roman
the
Autocratic em-
empire.
much of
portrays
ordinary
reject-
life,
ing the impersonal conventions of the
predominantly decorative
of the
art
and
perors ruled from capitals at Sian in
past.
Shensi and Loyang in Honan, con-
ideology of barbarian neighbours,
ducted campaigns of 'pacification'
were in the course of assimilation and
in
Thirdly,
the
art
diverse
who
the outlying regions of China proper,
annexation by the Chinese, can be
and sent expeditions against neigh-
contrasted with the metropolitan cul-
bouring peoples
as far as the
borders
ture.
This aspect
is
shown
ideally
in
of Persia in the west and the Korean
bronzes excavated in the south-western
Han
province of Yunnan, belonging to the
peninsula in the east. Southwards
power extended into the territory of Annam, the modern North Vietnam.
kingdom of Tien. The most informative of recent
Well-constructed roads were built to
coveries shows us the domestic appur-
meet military needs. The organisation
tenances
of frontier troops, with veterans' colo-
1968
and
nies
systems of signalling
efficient
and reporting,
Roman model,
recall the
and methods of taxation were
as pro-
ductive and as uniformly applied as in
On
the West.
Chinese
the other hand,
efforts to repress the
the
growth
of an imperial prince.
an
the People's Liberation
was
found
legal
development of
system gave to the Chinese em-
trade.
perors did not experience even the restraints
vestigial
which survived
on personal
Roman
in the
rule
empire
from the days of the Republic. Archaeology throws aspects
of the
light
culture
on three
of the
Han
period. In the earlier half of the dynthe
asty,
Western
Han,
an
aristo-
cratic tradition survives in the ruling class
and prolongs the
time.
comes
Then
in
the
art
first
AD
century
a dramatic change,
of realism in pictorial
of pre-Han
art,
and straight
a large
passage.
The
near
report runs:
one hand and gun
fighters
jumped
in the
into
the
hollow and moved along the tunnel.
It
was cold and dry. As they went along they saw broken tiles on the ground, and skeletons of horses and remains of chariots by the
side.'
The
carriages
number.
The
soldiers reconnoitred this tunnel,
com-
proved to be
six
in
ing to a place where two branches led to either
side at
right
angles,
their
farther ends lost in the darkness. In
front was a large chamber, ten by thirteen metres, and six metres high, on the floor of
which were spread
in order
scores of bronze and pottery vessels,'
rise
stone figurines and parts of chariots.
now
In the far wall of this 'middle chamber'
with the
which
the
hill
hollow
below, leading to
man-made
low
a
five-metre-deep
other
Roman
dig-
Manwhen a
ging a tunnel in
the dictates of political theory, con-
the
of
Army was
ch'eng in Hopei, near Peking,
'Flashlight in
with the encouragement which
In
platoon
engineering
of merchant wealth, in keeping with
trast
dis-
56
(as it
proved to be) was
door con-
a
of two massive stone
Han Empire
wearing
a jade suit, the lady
Tou Wan,
slabs.
wife of Liu Sheng, was buried. She
These were negotiated by climbing
had followed her husband into the
sisting
through a
above them, and
free space
mountainside about ten years after
his
opened from the inside. The inner chamber was found to be built also of
death.
stone slabs, with a slanting roof, part
that the 'jade cases' and 'jade garments'
The
of which had collapsed.
covered with similar lay
slabs,
floor was on which
dead vegetation apparently
fallen
from the roof. When this rubbish was cleared away a white marble platform was revealed, whereon lay fragments of wood and lacquer paint which were all that remained of a sumptuous coffin. Under and among this debris was a suit consisting entirely of jade tablets, made to encase a man from head to toe, not omitting a handsome codpiece.
Liu Sheng, an elder brother of the
emperor
Wu Ti, who bore
the
King Ching, holding land Ching-shan (which
Hopei
had not previously been
of
in fief at
the district of
is
which the tomb
in
title
is
situated),
realised
of historical texts were perhaps closely fitting suits like
ch'eng.
those found at
Applied to garments,
cence in general. But funeral superstition about jade
China,
was very ancient
beginning
in
the
period with the placing of symbolic jade rings in graves.
At the beginning
Han period, with the resurgence, particularly among the members of the of the
and
ruling
of
classes,
Taoist tradition, the practice arose of
providing a buried corpse with nine jade objects designed to stop the nine orifices
of the
human body,
a cicada
being intended to lay on the tongue.
The theory put forward by
Taoist
accrue thereby to the deceased
his
grave
gifts
were not
The entrance
to
the
the
magical beliefs that form part of the
wine and women. The many wine
among
in
neolithic
Just
vessels
'jade'
to them, or referred to their magnifi-
and had died in 1 1 3 BC. The historian attributes no important role to him, but comments that he was fond of
inappropriate.
Man-
might have indicated ornaments added
othcial
on some of the bronze identified this tomb as that of
Inscriptions vessels
It
pundits, however, was that jade pre-
vented the putrefaction of the corpse.
what advantage was thought
made
clear in
literature,
is
to
not
any surviving Chinese
which
is
uniformly reticent
evi-
on the subject of the afterworld. The articulate and literate classes at least
dently was the spoil from the tunnel
professed reverence and love towards
tomb was
located on the hillside near
to a heap of
digging.
broken rock which
One hundred
metres to the
north a similar heap was noticed, ami this
proved to be the entrance to an-
other
similar
tomb,
in
which, also
the dead, observing the pieties of com-
memoration and simple
offerings
of
incense and food.
They mostly
ign< ired
of
underworld
spirits
Taoist
tales
57
be
waiting to
Even
placated.
Buddhism, with
the arrival of
after
its
talk
Han Empire
metal curtain barring the entrance. is
It
thanks to this most effective sealing
of paradise, hell and judges of the dead,
that the contents remained inviolate.
they did not care to formulate precise
The most prominent among them
about what awaited them on
beliefs
cloud
the other side.
Liu Sheng and
wife went to
his
are
gilded and inlaid bronzes, such as the scroll bit (fig. 36)
and the four
leopards which served to weigh
down
extremes in having their whole bodies
the corners of a silk pall long ago
encased in jade. Such ostentation was
fallen to dust.
uncommon among
perhaps not
Han
gentry, though
previously
the
had not been
it
archaeologically.
verified
His suit divides into thirteen parts and
composed of respectively. The
hers into twelve, being
2690 and 2160 tablets arc
tablets
measure
a
mostly
few
and
rectangular
centimetres
across,
attached by gold wire passed through perforations at the corners. His gold
wire amounts to 1100 grammes, but only to 700 grammes, for the
hers
tablets
of the female bodice were held
in place
by
gummed When
piping
silk
to a
backing of heavy cloth.
were found, the jade the
ed,
corpses
suits
frames, the suits are
impressive Historical
had collaps-
perished
Reconstituted
traces.
exhibits
they
to
few
a
on aluminium now the most of
Peking
the
Museum.
which were
ture,
now
cosmic strucattracting the
attention of the educated class.
Below
the cosmic mountain which forms the
apex of a 'vast mountain censer' the
White Tiger, the
tail
of the
spirit
of the west, bites
Red
Bird, spirit of the
south. It was the emperor Wu Ti (140-85 BC) who most actively pursued the policy of territorial expansion. Towards the end of the second century BC he was engaged in putting down a rebellion of tribes on the south coast of China. In 109 BC, when this was
completed, he turned his attention to the Tien people of
modern
city
Yunnan, who
lived
name near the of Kunming. The Tien-
around the lake of
that
were suspected of having given
assistance to the recent rebels, and de-
now
van-
served to be chastised. But their king
wooden building roofed by
tiles,
made
tombs had contained
ished
in Taoist theories of the
ians
In each case the middle chambers of the
Some of the ornamental
parts of these objects reveal an interest
a
his
submission to the emperor
from which seepage was drained away by a rather elaborate system of
before the expedition against them set
channels and holes cut in the rock
known
floor.
Both tombs were closed
same
way:
rammed
between
earth
was pouted
to
two
or brick
in
the
walls
of
molten iron
form an impenetrable
off.
Until a few years ago nothing was
of the culture of the
Yunnan
beyond the brief record given by the historian Ssu-ma Ch'ien, barbarians
\\
ho wrote shortly
tion.
He
after their capitula-
describes
them
as
semi-
Han Empire
nomadic
many
of
raisers
divided into
cattle,
whose
tribes,
claimed
king
descent from the ancient Chinese kings state, and whose was consequently based upon
of the southern Ch'u culture
that of China herself.
In 1946
Dr N. D.
Kunming and
in a
Fraser of the
shop noticed some
interesting ancient bronze being bro-
ken for melting down. The pieces
which
he
acquired
(i.e.
a century later than the Shih-
Tien
The
skill
of the
artist lay in relating his
people
together dramatically and in natural poses. His genius for realism goes even farther in representing animals,
Mission to Lepers was in
Scottish
BC
chai-shan bronzes).
and
afterwards
Museum
presented to the British
re-
were multiplied
own
or
sake,
in
which
bronze for their -
placed
awkwardly
enough from a practical point of view - on axes and daggers. In animal combats leopards attack a more docile or domestic species. The theme is one well known in the art of the nomads
vealed a decorative art and bronze
inhabiting the steppes
technique distinct from those of Han.
no direct connection between the two cultures can
when Chinese
In 1952
archaeologists
conducted extensive excavations on the
hill
of Shih-chai-shan,
site
of the
thousands of
miles to the north, but
vet be established.
Enough
material originating
necropolis of Tien kings from which
central
China was present
Dr
tombs
to
Fraser's bronzes possibly came, a
wealth of material was revealed, and
immense
gifts
with the Chinese was
Tienian products point culturally in
are
bronze
large
intended to stand
drums, with the striking surface upwards, originally
which had been converted into containers by sealing the bottom. These were found
of cowrie
full
form of currencv which had
shells,
On
the top surface of the
most
cases,
a
circulated
thousand years
itself a
in
earlier.
drums was,
attached
circular
a
bronze plate on which the scene of a battle or a village festival or is
that trade or the ex-
whole of southwas put on the map.
Most intriguing
China
Tien
show
frequent. In contrast to this, the native
the early history of the
in
from
significance for
a culture of
east Asia
change of
in the
ceremony
represented by small separate figures
cast in bronze.
The motive behind
the
compositions - careful portrayal of scenes of real
life
-
is
one rare
politan China before the
in
first
metrocentury
two opposite
directions.
and
axes
battle
The weapons,
halberds,
resemble
types which were in use in China
some
eight hundred years earlier, although it is not clear where the tradition can
have been preserved
The drums, on
in the interim.
the other hand, stand
at the fountain-head
of a tradition of
and ceremony which became widespread throughout south China, Thai-
art
land,
Malaya and the islands of the
south seas generally. The Karen people of Burma were found to be manufacturing these first
made
drums when Europeans
their acquaintance late in
the nineteenth century. In
most
parts
of South-east Asia the drums are preserved
in
Buddhist temples or the
59
of villages,
houses
sacred
and are
explained as precious heirlooms, to be
sounded on is
special occasions.
mention of their use in
ceremony, although
There
a
rain-making
this
application
need not have been universal (indeed in the region there
is
not
much need
to
invoke rain ceremonially).
A
the evolving shapes of the
drums and
ornament
study of
Han Empire
kingdom disappears from
barian
Han
absorbed into the
tory,
his-
territorial
system.
Wu
Ti's
adventure,
more important foreign Central
into
leaves
its
to the
tombs of great
BC Wu
Asia,
Ti's emissary
also
committed
trace in artefacts
officers.
In 128
Chang
Ch'ien,
an interrupted journey of ten
after
to
years, reached Sogdiana, the eastern
their
province of the Persian empire, lying
manufacture spread, and thus supports
between the Oxus and the Jaxartes. He had travelled nearly three thousand
their
Yunnan
strongly
points
as the centre
from which
the theory that the bronze age of south-
was much influenced from
east Asia
south-west China.
The
figural art of
Tien, however, was not exportable,
and
is
unmatched elsewhere.
The grounds on which curious.
It
is
said
that
become
Chuang
the Silk Road.
Han
Sian, the a
the Tienians
claimed connection with the Chinese are
miles along the route that
capital,
was
later to
On his return to he reported that
remarkable type of horse was bred in
Sogdiana. The emperor at once deter-
mined as
to obtain
some of these animals
an invaluable mount for
nomad
his
armies
on the was not
Ch'u relative, invaded Tien in the 330s BC, but found his retreat cut off - by a move of the
facing hordes of
Ch'in army which took place at least
patching an army of 60,000 to defeat the
Ch'iao,
fifty
royal
the
years later!
settled in
Tien
So Chuang Ch'iao men took
as its king, his
local
wives and founded a Chinese
state
with Chinese culture. Although
riders
north-western frontier. But
it
until the turn of the century, after dis-
Sogdians before their his
own capital,
that
aim was achieved. The contrast of
the
new
'blood-sweating'
'celestial',
horse from the west with the breed on
which
do not question little doubt that it is a dynastic fiction aimed at dignifying the Tien line of kings by
commander with
connecting
discovered in Shensi which date to the
Chinese writers
still
this account, there
especially
can be
with Chinese princes,
it
Chuang Ch'iao
as
figures
elsewhere in Chinese literature as an
obviously
legendary
trouble-maker. first
century
By
bandit
the middle of the
BC the usefulness
whose king held
and
of Tien,
the gold seal and
purple ribbon issued to the head of a client state,
had ceased, and the bar-
relied
118
first
the is
Chinese
had
previously
seen by comparing statues of
BC from
century
the
BC
AD. The new
tomb of
a frontier
figurines
and the
horses are
first tall,
recently
century
sinewy
and nervous, the old type low and stolid.
Artistic skill
was lavished on
the models of the superior animals,
and they appear carriages
in the
processions of
which are often painted on
the walls of tombs.
V Pottery figurine of a mounted huntsman in trouble
with a hunting cheetah riding on the crupper of his horse.
The beard and pointed cap show
the
man
a Central Asian.
to be
realistic
This excellent example of the art of T'ang came from the tomb of the
Princess
Yung
See pp. 77
ff.
Tai. Height $i.j cm.
AD 706.
VI, VII Paintings on the walls of Princess
The
standing beside horses
officials
Yung Tai's tomb. and a rack with
pikes appear on the side of the long approach corridor sloping
down
to the
burial chamber. In the ante-room
of the burial chamber are paintings of the women
who attended shown
here.
See pp.
the
Princess,
AD jo6.
77 ff.
of which
a detail
is
s
34 The jade funeral
Ton Wan,
Princess
hewn tomb {above).
35 suit
alongside
The
of Liu Sheng's wife,
the
as found {below) in her rockher
suit consists
husband's,
and
restored
of over 2000 tablets tied
A
gallery in the rock-hewn
prince
Liu
tomb of
the imperial
Sheng, at Man-ch'eng, Hopei.
Pottery
vases holding the usual wine offering are seen stacked.
Late 2nd century BC.
together with knotted gold wire, or, in the case of the bodice, attached by silk lining.
in
The head
rests on
piping
animal heads. The fade,
colour, is
now
gummed
a pillow ending on
a cloth
either side
originally light green in
largely patinated to
2nd century BC.
to
milky white. Tate
36 FACING Bronze wine vase decorated with inlaid gold wire. The arabesques allude to motifs of ancient tradition and incorporate
highly
graphs, which read:
expand your
ornate
and
May good
girth,
extend
barely
fare
fill
your
legible
ideo-
your
gate,
life,
keep
sickness at bay. The vase was found in Liu Sheng' tomb. Height 40 cm. 113 BC.
37 Decoration on the side of a bronze
drum used as a
container for cowries
{i.e.
money),
excavated at the necropolis of the Tien kings of ancient Yi'tnnan. The scene represents
a noble female carried
About ioo BC.
in
a
litter,
followed by attendants with hunting cheetahs.
Shih-chai-shan, Yunnan.
38
On
Bronze trophy of bull heads. complete bulls and the head Cattle
raising
inhabitants
was
of the
the
Tien
the
horns perch
Horn hiUs
common theme of Tien
art, as
is
framed by
snakes.
and
occupation
of the
are such real scenes as the ceremony represented sculp-
kingdom,
About 100 BC. Height
chai-shan, Yunnan.
other birds are a
container.
basic
and
the
bull
figures frequently in ornament as it did in religions sacrifice.
40 FACING Bronze drum adapted as a cowrie
11.2 cm. Shih-
turally on
the lid.
Women
seated at the edge are
engaged in weaving, others are offering gifts
to
the
principal, evidently a chieftainess. Height 2y K j cm.
About 100 BC.
Shih-chai-shan, Yunnan.
39 Bronze plaque of two men dancing. They hold in their
hands bronze discs of which the actual examples in Tien
found
ground
line is
tombs are decorated with
a snake. Both dancers wear
iron swords which were
warriors.
A
shell.
the
chief
The
the long
weapon of Tien
contemporary Chinese historian notes
that the dancers of south-west China performed with their
hands as much as their feet. About ioo BC.
Height about 10 cm. Shih-chai-shan, Yunnan.
-
4
w
4i Isometric drawing of the stone-built funeral chambers of a rich tomb at Yi-nan,
Shantung. The pillars and brackets imitate the shapes of wooden architecture. The stone walls are largely covered with engraved figures taken from Taoist mythology.
height of the roof beams above the floor is about 2.j m.
2nd century
The
AD.
42.
A winged dragon ridden by a winged man, as depicted on The
scene represents
the walls
of the Yi-nan tomb.
a visitation by an emissary of the Taoist paradise in the far west,
where the chief deity, the Queen Mother of the West,
lives
attended by such winged
as the one shown here. The details of the scene are not explained. The sceptres with
2nd century
a
cross are perhaps Taoist adepts engaged in calling
AD.
men
men
holding
up immortal spirits.
43
Wooden carving of a human head with protruding tongue, antlers.
crowned with deer
This figure comes from a tomb
at Ch'ang-sha and appears to be connected with
a shamanistic
antlered exorcist is east into
Asia, one of his
found
An
roles being to enter
a trance and so
realms
cult.
elsewhere in
of immortal
to
pass into the
spirits.
92 cm. 3rd- 2nd century BC.
Height
44 Glared pottery
figures representing
The player on
the left evidently
men at a game.
triumphs after an
adroit move, while his partner is perplexed. Realism
of
this order is the rule in the
Later
Han
period.
1st- 2nd century
AD.
tomb
Length of British
the
figurines of table
Museum.
tlye
30 cm.
45
Bronze wine-warmer with cast
relief
ornament de-
picting the magic landscape of Han art. The hills are inhabited by deer, tigers {some of these winged),
monkeys and spirits,
powers.
the
bears.
various
This
is the realm of immortal animals denoting the natural
Among the latter is the dancing bear CWih-yu,
which brandishes weapons in all four
paws and sym-
Height about 20 cm. 1st century Freer Gallery of Art. bolises courage.
AD.
I
S
m
,
47
c*
W%. lit
Impressed brick from the walls of a funeral chamber, showing the dance of the creator genies
Nu
Wa. They
carry the sun
compass and set-square.
Nu
Fu Hsi
and
and moon and brandish
Wa,
the
female of
pair, is on the left; both figures end in dragon
the
tails,
which in other representations intertwine, ist century iiiin r'i
BC. Yang-t^u-shan, S^echwan.
46 FACING The stone doors opening into an underground burial palace at Yang-t^u-shan, S^echwan. The view was taken immediately after disturbed.
The symbols carved on
mask and
ring illustrated in
fig.
the
tomb was opened, before
its contents
had been
the door resemble those represented by the bronze
29, the bird having become a separate item. Tigers
and dragons standfor forces of nature, while offertility. 2nd century AD.
the fish
presumably are the ancient symbol
48 Impressed brick from the walls of a funeral chamber, showing the entertainers at a feast.
bucket.
The figure at
in which she whirls left.
At
the centre stands the wine
woman performing
the dance of the long sleeves
These include musicians, dancers and jugglers.
The
the lower right is
a
round at great speed. The principal guests are shown at the top
increasing distance from the viewer is suggested by placing the figures succes-
sively higher in the field,
a method
characteristic
S^echwan. Yang-t^u-shan, S^echwan.
of
Han
painting.
1st century
BC.
49 Life-si^e stone lion, probably
from
the
Han
approach avenue of a great tomb. The
of the
compromise which the sculptor makes
2nd-jrd century
Bronze
belt
relief.
arms of
the
a diminutive monster who
only has a
besides.
The bronze
is
coated with
greenish gold, applied by the
BC.
Length 10.2 cm.
British
AD.
The dragon's
head is being pushed aside by
process.
period.
hook with a turquoise-inlaid
dragon represented in
head
form is typical Lo Yang Museum.
between real and stylised
amalgam
1st century
Museum.
5i
Pottery models offarm buildings placed in
Han
tombs.
One
the other shed houses 1 st- 2nd century
and Benaki
.A
is
a sheep
a rotatory
AD.
hiseum.
British
stall
and
rice mill.
Museum
5*
of a strange animal combining points and rhinoceros. This creature appears hippopotamus of 'Pottery figure
without precedent in later
meaning
not elucidated.
is
2nd century
Han
AD.
tombs. Its particular
Length about. 20 cm.
Benaki Museum.
55
Bronze model of a horse and carriage from the tomb which
contained
the flying
horse,
figure
$$.
The
chief officers.
The horse
is
of the noble western breed.
The harness included a breast band of
silk,
now
de-
carriages in the General's procession include one with
cayed, which allowed the horse to take the draught
an umbrella, no doubt intended for himself, and others
entirely
on
with emblems, such as an axe, which must denote his
century
AD.
its
shoulders.
Height
43. j
cm.
2nd
54
Segment from lore,
shows
stars.
the
back of a bronze mirror. The
celestial
Among
relief
ornament, taken from Taoist
dragons biting on the bars of a heavenly structure which joins fixed
them are figures of Taoist gods and, probably, of
of Yueh. 2nd century
AD.
Former Gure
the king
of the state
collection.
55
Impression of a mounted archer on a brick from a tomb wall. The horse the unreal posture
nomad fashion;
of the
'flying
is
posed
in
leap\ The rider delivers his Parthian shot in true
he rides of course stirrupless.
2nd century
AD.
56 Pottery model of a watch-toiver from a
Han
tomb.
Han
homesteads often look
like protected places
and usually
include
a look-out. While much of Han building
was
entirely in ivood it
appears from the
models that timber bracketing could be
combined porting here.
ivith
brick
structures,
projecting parts
ist-2nd century
as
AD.
about 4 j cm. Benaki Museum.
sup-
they
do
Height
57 Pottery camel and attendant, glared in brown and
The camel's load which
yellow.
game
is
a fanciful
one.
costume of Central beard.
includes vegetables
The attendant
is
Asia and wears a
The camels placed
in
and
dressed in the Persian-style
tombs around Sian, the
T'ang dynasty
capital, symbolise the wealth of trade
along the Silk Koute, as well as the personal distinction
of those who benefited from
Asian
it
and employed Central ,
servants.
Excavated at Ch nng-p
Shensi. Height 47. / cm. 8th century
,
u,
AD.
near Sian,
5
The Tang Dynasty After the
AD
fall
Han
of the
dynasty in
attributing her end to childbirth.
In 1964 the Institute of Archaeology
206 and the fragmentation of the
country
which
into
smaller
hostile
states,
the arrival of Buddhist religion
Academy of Sciences decided to investigate a major royal tomb of the of the
Sui emperors. These laid the economic
T'ang period, and following the indication of the histories and local tradition, chose the mound which they
with ten-
believed to be that of the heir apparent
did nothing to reconcile, China was
not again united until 581, under the
foundation of a stable tacles reaching
state,
out into Central Asia,
which the house of T'ang inherited in 618 and built to further heights of prosperity and international prestige.
Many
aspects of
T'ang
civilisation,
early
who
Li Hsien, tradition
died in 684. But the
was mistaken, and the tomb
proved to be that of the princess. This was the first time that any important tomb of the period had been officially proved
in con-
the classic age of China, are brought
opened.
together in the sad case of the princess
struction
Yung T'ai. Her father, the emperor Chung Tsung, had reigned only a year when his mother, the concubine pro-
had been excavated previously. The aim of Ch'in and Han emperors
moted empress, Wu Tse T'ien, took power into her own hands. Chung Tsung did not return to the throne until shortly before his mother died in
many-roomed underground
705, twenty vears
In 701,
T'ai
was nine-
teen years old and recently married, she was reported to the Empress Wu as
having
two
criticised
different
from other
been
build
to
tombs
royal
themselves
for
palaces,
not unlike the residences of their time,
but
wood. The
built
that
life-
of stone instead of
must be
greatest of these
tomb of the founder of the Ch'in dynasty, whose sheltering mound rises the
later.
when Yung
had
It
imperial
favourites in a conversation with her
to a height of forty-three metres and
surrounded
by
a
double
is
enclosure
measuring 2173 by 974 metres. It has not been violated since it was entered
husband and her brother-in-law. The position occupied by these young
by the Han conqueror of Ch'in. The
people in the succession was too close
hundred childless wives were
for any disloyalty to be tolerated, and
buried with him, as well as the workmen who had been engaged on constructing the tomb; and that among its
the empress ordered their
other
own
lives, or,
version
them flogged
in
three to take
all
according to an-
the
histories,
to death.
Yung
had
T'ai's
father reburied his daughter suitably
to
her rank
immediately after
Tse T'ien's death, although epitaph he
still
in
Wu her
took the precaution of
historian
tells
us that
fabulous treasures
all
is
the emperor's killed
a stone
map
China on which the hundred flow with mercury. Later ate style is
and
this elabor-
was occasionally imitated,
seen in the
tomb of
the
of
rivers
first
as
king of
the small southern T'ang state of the
78
from the seventh onwards an imperial tomb seems usually to have taken the form tenth century. But
century
T'ang Djnasty
The metalwork,
pottery and wall-
painting which adorned the
tomb show
Chinese culture on the brink of an age
of a long, plain, tunnel-like passage
of worldly refinement,
leading to a burial chamber with stone
sympathy towards the outside world. During the pre-Sui disunity of the
sarcophagus or coffin side
dais,
with some
chambers connecting by long, low
entrances. All of this
ground, and
a
high
is
deep under-
mound
faced by an
offering chapel covers the region of the
chamber, the entrance of the
burial
access passage being buried
is
the shape of
Yung
country Chinese influence in central Asia had declined, but
Along
the Silk Route both north and
T'ai's
and the Near East, and the return trade brought to China a host of exotic
Persian
in with
filled
rammed
earth,
which
were opened to speed the deep digging. One of these shafts had been located by robbers in antiquity, and a narrow
ideas, in art, horticulture,
and
The
community
trading
the
at
Ch'ang-an, the modern Sian.
of these contacts on the around the court reached a the turn of the seventh and
effect
upper
class
climax at
Much
eighth centuries.
princess's
The
of
is
it
of
furnishing
the
in
flected
re-
the
tomb.
dug down it and along the earth-filled main passage towards the burial chamber and its treasure of gold and silver vessels. Where the robbers' tunnel debouched into the tomb passage
around the shoulders
lay an iron axe-head and the skeleton
new custom of
tunnel
Zoroas-
religion.
were allowed to the
temples
trian
capital,
subsequently
and
materials
dress, medicine
tween the niches the inclined passage of the entrance was joined to the sursix vertical shafts,
was
it
before.
south of the Tarim desert caravans of
shalled pottery figures of menials. Be-
by
now
more completely than
restored
camels took Chinese weaves to Persia
tomb, but shorn of the side chambers. These are replaced by a series of niches containing over seven hundred mar-
face
liberal
dis-
and
guised.
This
with
wall-paintings
in
the
ante-
chamber show two groups of young
women
dressed in the Persian fashion,
with low-cut neck, narrow sleeves and a
long
stole.
The
baring the neck and
of the gang, or perhaps the unfortu-
even riding through the city bareheaded, instead of swathing head and
nate informer; and silver and glazed
shoulders in an ample
pottery were scattered along the pass-
sober
thieves rifled even the high
Yung
of
a
age.
man who seems
The
to
have been one
stone sarcophagus in which the remains
T'ai's
back-scratchers,
boxes
and cosmetics.
been placed. But much
in a boy's outfit,
remained,
and was recovered by the excavators.
style
with
One of them
of the princess and her husband had still
shocked
veil,
and delighted poets. serving maids carry fans,
citizens
still
of central Asia.
is
comfits
dressed
in the Persian
79
In the
first
half of the
T'ang period
painters were experimenting with the possibility of rendering the
rounded
form of the human figure by means of long brush lines. Although they were
T'ang Dynasty
given beards, moustaches and large noses and eyes to betoken their central
Asian
connection.
Foreign servants
mark of distinction, and camels laden with exotic-looking commodi-
were
a
acquainted with a kind of colour-
ties
shading, which central Asian painters
new
working in the Indian
into China) indicated that one
tradition used to
(even vegetables in allusion to the plants introduced
from the west was a
suggest the solidity of natural forms,
customer
Chinese masters scorned the super-
market which they furnished.
ficiality
of such methods. Their
own
linear style claimed to interpret three
in the doubtless expensive
sculpture based
Animal
upon close observation
of reality had not previously been
dimensions, and at the same time,
prominent
through the vigour of the brush stroke,
AD
convey the actual or potential movement of living beings. The greatest exponent of the linear style was born
living model, even if the portrayal
to
Yung
about the year of
Wu
Tao-tzu found a
in
Chinese
but after
art;
700 the realism of the noble horse
figurines
argues
close
study of the
was
always idealised.
When
T'ai's death.
the
potter
perfected
his
of figure
modelling he also adopted a technique
painting being practised which
of glazing which had fallen into disuse
judged to some extent
may be from the tomb
in China, at least for pottery other than
paintings,
style
by comparison
although
roof
tiles,
during the previous three
with the best of the time these must be
centuries. This
journeyman work.
which metallic colorants could be added with great effect. At first, before the opening of the T'ang dynasty, only
The heyday of for
the pottery figurines
which the T'ang
outside China today
AD
700 and 750.
art
is
lies
The
best known,
also
between
large
group
Yung
T'ai's
funeral and put to rest with her
shows
which was displayed
at
the sculpture fully developed in the characteristic sists
in
T'ang manner. It contypes, modelled with
human
some psychological insight. The court ladies are shown plausibly vain. Huntsmen concentrate on the matter in hand - one is striking downwards, another is
was lead-fluxed
glaze,
to
having trouble with an unruly hunt-
ing leopard
mounted on
of his horse.
Many
the crupper
of these menials
arc-
monochrome
greens
and
yellows
appear; then suddenly, within a few years
of
AD
700,
browns, greens,
blues, yellows blaze into a
polychromy
which aptly echoes the gay life of the capital as poets and novelists described it. The pottery which has survived was
made
for placing in tombs.
colours covering
it
The strong
repeat the tones
and even the designs of fashionable textiles. From central Asia had come a taste
for
cloth
decorated
by knot-
dyeing and resist-wax dyeing,
in
which
simple units of design blend softly into
8o
Tang Dynasty
Pin died in
AD
more than
a
variegated wares of T'ang,
and
in
the basic
garden or beneath
his
more than ordinary
caution. In 756 the
the is
ground colour. The general
effect
imitated in the famous three-colour
on which brown, yellow, green and blue-
are freely splashed
and partly overlie
each other. This style was transmitted to Japan and to the
Near
East, and in
silver
741, and the burial of
thousand pieces of gold
two
An
rebellion of
large
in
jars
his
house suggests
Lu-shan obliged the
emperor and court
from Ch'ang-
to flee
the latter region founded a long-lasting
an temporarily, and
tradition of ceramic decoration.
ing this emergency that the treasure
When
the Arabs invaded Persia in
638 an embassy went to Ch'ang-an to beg the help of the Chinese against the
Muslim conquerors. But the Chinese did not care to extend their commitment beyond the Pamir, and refused to send troops. Eventually the
the
son of
king came to
Persian
last
the
Chinese capital as a refugee and settled
Very
there.
contacts
gold,
is
coins - so widely ranged the trade of
which Ch'ang-an was the the rebellion
is
emperors. In order to persuade his
army to remain loyal, Hsuan Tsung was compelled to allow the death of concubine Yang Kuei-fei,
whose previous favours
Yet the majority
closely.
With
story in the personal annals of Chinese
his favourite
of work executed in gold and silver
centre.
associated the saddest
direct evidence of Persian
some wine-cups copying Persian
probably dur-
was hidden. Included with the silver were Persian, Byzantine and Japanese
seen in T'ang silver and
models quite
to the rebel
himself put her under suspicion of treason
when
the trouble broke out.
is
Afterwards Chinese poets never tired
although
of singing the fate of her 'whose smiles
breaks with decorative styles of the
awaked a thousand beauties', and who from Paradise sent a message of en-
clearly of Chinese invention, it
it is
preceding periods.
(made
chased
The
with
an
designs
are
instrument
during
which grooves the surface of the metal without cutting it). Wine-cups and
emperor.
ewers arc the commonest shapes, and
art
floral scrolls
based upon a lotus bloom
most popular motif of the ornament. The lotus, symbol of the Budthe
dha,
is
The
ubiquitous in T'ang
gold and
silver
was excavated
mansion records
and
largest
at
finest
found
in 1970,
treasure oi
on the
times
site
of a
the T'ang capital which
show
to
have belonged to a
cousin of the emperor. This Prince of
a
to
broken-hearted
Both the secular and the Buddhist of the T'ang period had an influ-
ence far beyond the borders of China.
The
accepted manner in
cities
became the icons of Buddhas most of the oasis
linear painting style
and Bodhisattvas
art.
in recent
love
in
of central Asia, beginning with
great emporium of Turfan just beyond the Jade Gate -which marked the exit westwards from China. The
the
glories of the Buddhist temples built in Nara, the
Japanese
capital,
during
T'ang Dynasty
the
half of the eighth century, are
first
creation
the
of
artists. in the far
emigrant
Chinese
west (Persia and the
the twilight of a comparatively small
and privileged community centred on the capital. China as a whole gathered
other countries of the Near East), the
new
Chinese were held to be most remark-
greatest time
able for their figured silks. Fortunately
the
warm
sand of such stations on the
Route
Silk
have
as
Turfan and Min-feng
preserved
fragments
of
the
weaves from which we can appreciate the artistry of colour and design as well as the barely credible skill
ing
technique.
of the weav-
Recent
excavations
have recovered specimens which rangein date
from the Han
Already
at
to the T'ang.
the beginning of this span
of time a five-coloured
woven with
could be
silk
damask
pattern for
a
which seventy-five selections of the were needed. Gauzes, with
warps
twisted warps, were
Han
woven from
period onwards.
An
the
elaborate
flowered stuff could use eight colours
and double warps. These
silks
were the
wonder of the medieval western world, and
it
understandable
is
launched
a
legend
that
of the
they
skill
of
Chinese craftsmen which has lasted to
our
own
day.
Fifteen
years
after
An
rebelled the old splendid
life
Lu-shan had de-
parted from Ch'ang-an for good.
Nor
did the easy cosmopolitanism survive.
The
pretty coloured pottery ceased, or
was much simplified, and the
fine art
of the silversmith declined. Soon
a
Tibetan occupation of the north-west threatened the trade passing along the Silk
Route and temporarily impeded How. But what ensued was
the cultural
energies,
and
was
in still
many ways to come.
her
58
FACING
Stele of white marble representing the
Buddha Sakyamuni under
Sa~la
trees,
between disciples and Bodhisattvas. The
Buddhist
religion,
creasingly
AD,
century
spread in-
having
China from
in
4th
the
achieved under the T'ang
dynasty the greatest wealth and eminIts images followed models which
ence.
can be traced back to India and Central
Asia, but the
the
is
is
where he reached Enlighten-
trees
ment,
of the carving
style
The Buddha, enthroned under
Chinese.
a frequent theme.
At
the base
of the carving lions and guardians in
human form flank which
denotes
Excavated
message.
Height
Hopei. century
the
sacred jeivel
Buddha
the
at
72.6
and
his
Lin-chang,
cm.
Mid- 6th
AD.
59
The idea of the spiritual guardian of the tomb was very ancient in China, and in the
T'ang dynasty coincided sculpturally
with
the
in
guardians
and of
religion
stoneware,
gla^e,
of the
the state.
Buddhist
This figure
with cream and brown
was excavated from
the
tomb
of a general at Anyang, Honan. The military
costume
still
includes
the
leather helmet of the northern warriors.
Height 64 cm.
AD
j
VIII Stoneware jar decorated with two phoenixes.
The
design is executed in black slip on which incised lines
are cut through to the clay body. The ground
is also
a
white slip. This outstanding piece of tzu-chou ware
was found
in
a forgotten storehouse below ground at
Liang-hsiang, near Peking.
dynasty
AD
See pp. 101
1271-1 }68. ff.
Height $6 cm.
Yuan
IX
An
eight - faceted
porcelain
decorated
vase
with
dragons and waves in undergla^e blue. The bodies of the dragons are raised in low relief
show
scales.
The fan-shaped figures at
and
the shoulders are filled with floral motifs.
compact ornament
Found
in
is
characteristic
incised to
the foot
and on
The whole
of Yuan
taste.
a hoard of porcelain buried at Pao-ting,
Hopei. Height ji.j cm. 14th century See pp. 1 01
ff.
AD.
6o
Fragment of five-coloured found near
Turfan,
silk
damask
Sinkiang.
piece came from a tomb dated
This
AD
jji, and indicates the revival of trade along the Silk Route through Central
Asia, which took place in the mid- 6th century. Its decoration is archaic, con-
trasting with the
and
floral
more natural animal
designs
which
ipere
due
shortly to be introduced.
61
Fragment of eight-colour silk damask with birds and flowers, from a tomb dated 778 at Turfan, Sinkiang. This decorative style
AD
is characteristic of
capital.
much of
the finest craft
The weave has double warps and a
the centimetre.
magicfungus.
Among
the flowers
produced at the
density of
Vang
32 threads to
appear phoenixes and the
Fragment of silk damask with confronted ducks in a beadedframe, found in a grave at 668. The heraldic style and the beaded frame are Turfan, Sinkiang, dated
AD
characteristic
of Persian or Central Asian rather than Chinese
style.
THE SILK ROUTE
63
The Silk Route. The bulk of the T'ang trade passed along Central Asia, by Turfan, Kucha and Kashgar.
the northern branch through
64
Cutaway Prince
drawing
684. The scale figures
of
the
tomb
Chang Huai who died shown
chamber.
is
middle of the
tomb on
of
AD
be judged from the
standing
The
sarcophagus
vertically
may
in
burial
the
in
chamber
ante-
with
approximately under the
mound which marks
the surface.
from
the
The
the
shafts rising
sloping
entrance
helped in the construction of the tomb.
The tomb of
the
Princess
Yung T'ai
followed the same design and
scale.
65
FACING
Pottery figure of a mounted huntsman,
glared green and brown, from the tomb of the Princess Yung T'ai at Cb'ienhsien, Shensi.
trolling 'a
The
rider seems to be con-
hunting
cheetah
which
he
probably carried on the crupper of his horse.
Height 31 cm. About
AD /oo.
66
LEFT
67
Glared pottery figure of the protective genie Ch'i-t'ou
Silver
cup with chased, decoration of a huntsman
from a tomb at Ch'ung-p'u, Shensi, of the early 8th century AD. The grotesque human head is placed on an animal's body, the horn, large ears and flaming
galloping through a blossoming landscape. The shape
shoulders denoting his powers directed against
T'ang
spirits.
evil
of the cup
68
of parcel gilt
'winged cup'
ornament of peony Indian
scrolls
silver
with chased
and a sacred duck,
hamsa, standing on a
shape copies a fashion of the
lotus pedestal.
Han
the
The
period, when cups
were made of lacquered wood. Peony-fancying was a rage at the
T'ang
capital,
ornament. The duck such as the
is
and
the flower dominates in
an element of western exoticism
T'ang patron
loved.
a large treasure of gold and
This piece belonged
silver
to
apparently aban-
doned at Sian when the imperial capital was occupied by rebels in
AD j
16.
decoration.
the first half
Height 77./ cm.
Height
2.
8 cm.
derived
leafed scroll around
12 cm.
A
is
from Persian the lip is
Such
silverware,
a frequent motif
the in
silver craft flourished during
of the 8th century
AD.
Height about
69, 7°. 7 1 Three pieces silver.
from
the treasure
The gold bowl, with
the scatter
found at Ho-cbia,
its sides
shaped
respectively
into lotus
in gold, silver gilt,
petals,
is
decorated with
of animals and flowers that was recognised by the patrons of T'ang craft
as the western Persian
style.
As
in all such pieces, the
which grooves the metal without cutting handle follows a Persian
form
exactly.
it,
work
and a punch. The
The
is
executed by a chaser,
silver gilt
cup with a ring
relieffigures are musicians holding instru-
ments or attendants with cups, standing against a ground of characteristic T'ang floral scrolling. The silver platter with badgers is one of a number in which lively and -
fairly realistic figures of animals are designed in repousse 6.
j cm, 2 2. j cm.
Mid- 8th
century
AD.
.
Height respectively j.j cm,
72
73
Stoneware jug with
light
The applied
and dark
Pottery bowl glared brown, yellow
decorative
green
panels show a bird, a lion and a floral
Yung
brown gla^e.
medallion.
Excavated near Ch'ang-sha,
Hunan. Height
22. j
cm. pth century
AD.
to
from
Tottery ewer decorated in three-colour glat(e.
The ewer with a hawk-head
neck certainly was elaborated originally in metal. It
was a popular form of
the
highly decorative ceramic product of the
T'ang potter during century
AD.
the first half of the
Height 32.2
Found at Loyang, Honan.
cm.
tomb of
the
Princess
The shape approximates
lead-glared decoration
knot-dyed
74
the
that of a silver bowl but the dappled
About
8th
T'ai.
and
textile.
AD yoo.
more resembles
Height
j.4
cm.
Tripod, ting, in celadon porcelain, as made at the Yao-hsien kilns in Shensi.
At
this centre were
pro-
duced one of the finest wares of the Northern Sung period,
between
northern celadon.
c.
iojo and 112J,
Some
the
so-called
pieces reflect the interest in
ancient ritual
and its bronze appurtenances which arose
at the end of the
nth
century. This tripod imitates,
but in a much altered version, the shape and decoration
of the ancient sacrificial vessel. Excavated at Lant'ien, Shensi. Height jy cm.
The Sung Dynasty The Sung period divides at the year 127, when the tribes of the Jurchen
vessels -
invaded north China and founded their
capture the deep lustre of jade.
1
Chin dynasty. The court
and
towards
monochrome
glaze,
excellence
in
intended
to
from the capital at K'ai-feng in Honan, leaving the emperor Hui Tsung, famous as
hard-glazed ceramics in China. Cur-
painter and aesthete, in the enemy's
rently the excavation of kiln sites adds
hands. lished
Hui Tsung's brother estaba government at Hangchow,
south of the Yangtze mouth, and the
Sung house continued to rule until extinction by the Mongol invaders
its
nished an early chapter in the history of
knowledge of the technical
yearly to
and commercial basis of the which the Chinese were - and - the unsurpassed masters.
BC
of 1500
Sung dynasty
In art the
is
equally
celebrated as the golden age of Chinese
landscape-painting
which saw the a perfection
and
potter's art
brought to
which has never been
The two movements
lated only
time
the
as
sur-
are re-
through the imperial patron-
age which they both received: painting
craft in
are
still
From the neolithic age Shang potters
in
1279.
passed.
Recently the archaeologist has fur-
fled
an unusually
inherited
type of kiln, in which the
efficient
separation of stoking chamber from kilning
chamber by
a
horizontal flue ensured a
and
a clean flame.
the
Yangshao
uniform tone to
fire
more or less good draught
This kiln had enabled
potters to maintain a
in their red ceramic
near-stoneware
to
and
hardness.
by the founding of an academy by
Moreover,
Hui Tsung, which was revived after the flight south, and porcelain by the creation of an imperial factory at Hangchow. Aesthetically the two arts di-
stumbled on two prime discoveries
verge. Painting begins in a
mood
of
robust romanticism and ends under
Sung in stereotyped senThe lonely fishermen on
the southern timentality.
misty waters under wet beetling in
cliffs,
which the poetic southern Sung
painter delighted,
were the approx-
imate equivalent of the
Monarch of the
Glen looming out of the
rain to
which
Victorian Englishmen were addicted. In porcelain the imperial influence
towards purity of form
-
the potter
often being required
to
noble
ancient
simplicity
of
was
imitate
the
ritual
without
their bronze-age successors
realising
pure white
clay,
their
potentiality:
kaolin,
which they
used for rather clumsy thick-sided pots
on which the ornament was carved imitation
of
the
designs
in
on
used
bronze; and the art of investing hard-
baked clay with
a
glazed pottery.
Together these two
coating of glass, or
discoveries anticipated the invention
of porcelain three thousand years
later.
Egypt had known glazed pottery an even
earlier date than
in China. alkali
its
at
appearance
This glaze was based on
(potash or soda) and did
not
adhere well to clay (being therefore
mostly used on a non-clay body). The Chinese
invention
however was
a
96
glaze with very
little alkali
sisting largely of silica,
in
it,
con-
which united
Sung Dynasty
Egyptians
strongly with the surface of the pot.
in China
Such bard glaze demands
asty
a kiln
perature in the region of 1200
C.
tem-
The
announcement of this Chinese achievement was at first met with scepticism, and it was suggested that the glaze had formed accidentally in the kiln through contact with wood ash. But the separation of the stoking chamber of the kiln from the pottery makes this unlikely, and the uniform thickness and colour of the
coating
point
to
deliberate
glazing.
After the Shang period kaolin seems
have been abandoned
to
as unsuitable
making pottery on the wheel, or even for making thin-walled vessels by hand. Shang potters used their glaze on only two or three undistinguished shapes with sides marked with twisted cords or stamped with a criss-cross of for
lines.
The reason
for such a limited
at a
much
in various stages of its
adoption in the
Han
mental phase.
the
It is
therefore difficult to
argument
that lead-glazing,
manufacture of lead-fluxed
glass itself,
may have been an import
from the Near East, where it was known from about the third century BC. The most imaginative
into China
exploitation of lead glaze first
seen in the
is
half of the eighth century, in the
polychrome pots and figurines which are an important element of the exotic Persianising art of T'ang capital. For the Chinese the distinction made in the west between porcelain and stoneware does not
denoted
exist,
both being
In the west porcelain
t^i'i.
with a clear note thin section
is
when
pinkish colour.
a
struck,
and
In stoneware
together, transmit less light, but
no
by
the high-temperature firing even with-
out glaze, and in competition with
particles of clay,
less
The
in
slightly translucent with
being waterproof was
obtained
is
described as a dense ware that rings
new technique has not been explained. The advantage of application of the
dyn-
was not preceded by any experi-
refute the like
earlier time and development, but
the
being less closely fused it
is
waterproof than porcelain. gradual
improvement which
led to porcelain took place initially in
other kinds of decoration the latter
the region of the Yangtze delta, in the
was perhaps not much prized.
south of Kiangsu and the north of
Hard glazing until the
when
it
duction. glaze,
is
traced sporadically
end of the
first
century BC,
was brought into regular pro-
Meantime an
consisting of
alternative soft
silica
combined
with a comparatively large amount of
Chekiang, where unglazed ware of stoneware quality had been made since the third century BC. First
Han and
came
the
dynasty vases with brown-green slightly
dappled feldspathic glaze,
a rather mysteri-
and these were replaced in the latter half of the third century BC by a green-
ous appearance. The use of lead in
surfaced ware, the ancestor of cela-
lead oxide,
glaze
had made
had also been
known
to
the
dons, which
owed
its
colour to iron
97
Sung Dynasty
were
oxide added to the glaze. By the T'ang
called 'hare's fur'
period the beauty of this Yiieb ware
used on tea bowls. At the 'imperial'
(so
named
after the ancient
word with later the
kingdom
was
established in the region)
a by-
and three centuries
poets,
celadons of the Lung-ch'iian
kilns of Chekiang reached a perfection
that
was never
times.
The
recaptured
glaze
in
later
praised by con-
is
glow (as which allied it to jade, an effect produced by careful control of the size and density temporaries
opposed to
for
its
deep
a vulgar glassiness)
of minute bubbles induced in the terior of the glaze
The
during
in-
formulation of the perfected porcelain
body went on both
in
Kiangsu-Chek-
iang and, in the north, especially Hopei.
Honan and
The problem was
to
means of rendering pure kaolin, the 'china clay' which had been known since Shang times, sufficiently fusible to produce a dense body, in which the particles arc cemented together. This was done by adding to the kaolin a find a
quantity of crushed feldspar, very mineral
whose decay
had produced the kaolin In north
i.e.
the
in the earth itself.
and south China porcelain
was produced
to
formula, and
this
decorated with coloured glazes that set
fashions
for certain
districts.
In
Shensi the Yao-chou kilns vied with those of Lung-ch'iian
producing
celadons.
in I
Chekiang
lopei
in
in
the
north-east specialised in white porcelain
from the
wards, and
at
late
T'ang dynast) on-
various kilns
in the
'oil
Hangchow and
spot'
at
Lung-
was paid which imitated jade and
ch'iian particular attention
to
effects
ancient bronze.
control
One
of crackle
device was the
in
the
glaze
by
adjusting differences in shrinkage be-
tween glaze and body.
It
was possible
to produce crackle of different grades, a fine crazing within a
broad mesh.
After the Sung period only three
major technical developments in the art
of porcelain remained to be mas-
These were underglaze painting, which was introduced in the Yuan period; overglaze enamelling, which tered.
firing.
of clays which led to the
trial
kilns near
and
south
black glazes, and the decorative glazes
flourished in the floral and figural ornament of Ming wares; and the enrichment of glaze colour by new metallic colorants, of which copper
proved the most interesting by its production of greens and reds. By the eighteenth century nearly every colour
of the spectrum could be given to glaze,
and
the
subtlety
of enamel
glazes painted over the hard glaze vied
with the painter's palette.
77 FACING Isometric drawing of the funeral chambers in the tomb of the
Southern
Tang
the structure
dynasty, built about
AD
pjo. Since they have not been excavated,
of the tombs of the Sung emperors
is
not known, but
follow the practice of the i oth century as it is seen here. brackets of hi
The
it is likely
that they
pillars, cornices
and
Pien's tomb were painted largely with floral scrolls of the kind common
T'ang art and used on
in
Emperor hi Pien of the
Sung porcelain. The platform
the earlier
in the rear
chamber
supported the sarcophagus. The stonework imitates a wooden building, in the manner
of the
Han tomb
shown
in figure 41.
Total length 21. j m.
76 Porcelain ewer
and bowl for wanning
allusion to the lotus in the lobes
inheritance of the pervasive to 1
the
wine, with light blue ch'ing-pni g/a~e.
bowl and
the petals at its foot
1
he
shows the Sung
of T'ang motif. The handle, neck and spout of the ewer appear
copy a metal prototype. Excavated at Te-an, Kiangsi. Height of the ewer, zj.8 cm.
2th or
r
jth century
AD.
to the inner
The entrance
was just
chamber of
after the brick sealing
armour.
On
petuated
'as
the
Emperor Li
Pien's tomb, showing
had been broken. The guardian
figures
the technique,
known
in
China from
dignity.
the
The brick
Han period.
corbelling
as
it
wear parade
the lintel two feline dragons flank a flaming pearl: this motif
a symbol of the imperial
it
was per-
of the roof repeats
79
View
across the first court of the Imperial Palace,
Peking, showing the approach
to the first audience hall,
T'ai-ho-tien (Hall of Universal Peace).
The white
marble bridges and palisades and the buildings them-
selves date
from
the
Ming
completed early in the ijth the
reconstruction of the palace cent/try
plan of K//blai's palace
is
AD, but in general
reproduced.
7
The Yuan Dynasty or Mongol,
The Yuan,
dynasty of
China holds a special interest for the West.
was
It
in this period that the
Europeans entered China. In 1271 the Genoese merchant brothers Marco, Matteo and Niccolo Polo set out on
first
their
Chinese scene throwing a light on affairs
which
missing from the native
is
histories.
Next
name of
to Genghis, the
grandson Kublai
is
When the Polos arrived in
to the West.
second journey to the Far East.
China in 1272 he had only
already been at the Great
pleted his conquest of the
They had
Khan's court
Peking, whence they
in
had returned with
his
suggestion that
his
the most familiar
pire of south China, but
been long enough
just comSung em-
had already
in possession
of the
hundred men learned in the Christian religion' might visit his empire.
north to have largely completed the
The Polos left accompanied by only two unenthusiastic friars, who never
upper one, Shang-tu (Coleridge takes
one of Polo's
reached the destination, but with the
situated
'a
At
this
time commercial interest and
political caution, as well as
romantic
Europeans towards contacts with the Mongol conquerors
curiosity, impelled
The
a
two
his
spellings,
short
The
capitals.
Xanadu) was north
distance
of
Peking, beyond the Great Wall. Here
Pope Gregory X.
blessing of
of
building
he built a marble palace 'marvellously embellished', which abutted
on
to a
wall encircling sixteen miles of hunt-
ing park. Kublai would often enter this
alliance of cattle-herding
enclosure with a cheetah on the crupper
plainsmen of inner Asia, founded by
of his horse. The remains of the stately
Genghis Khan eastern Mongolia
pleasure
of Asia.
at
Karakorum
in
1206, had
by the Polos' time subjugated the whole of in
continent
inhabitable
the
except
Rurope, Arabia and some distant archipelagos. Christians trembled, but were
content to watch 'dog eat dog' as the
Muslims
The
victims to the invaders.
fell
defeat of national states and oxer-
opened up
riding of religious barriers
Central Asia to travellers and trade.
China for the
first
time found herself
incorporated into a political unit em-
bracing
western
merchants
pax one
who
mongolica to
ences,
have his
peoples.
Of
took advantage
Marco Polo
left a
is
the
of this
the only
record of his experi-
sober observation ot
the
dome
await the attention
still
of the archaeologist.
It
the great
is
palace he built in Peking, Ta-tu, the great capital, of
which some features
have been recently excavated. Peking,
known
as
Khan-balik (the
Lord's City), was Kublai's creation.
He
followed
Chinese
precedent
in
adopting square precincts both tor the outer limiting wall and the two inner
which was his residence and the seat of government. All were orientated to walls surrounding the palace,
the
four cardinal directions, for the
Khan,
assisted
logers,
Chinese
by
his
would not practice
numerous treat
astro-
lightly
regarding
the
location
and direction. The palace faced the
102
Yuan Dynasty
principal gateway in the south wall.
(some of
The outermost
it is
in the last
it
few years) and
of twenty-
commemorated at places only by street names. What baffles the archae-
four miles, which proves to be nearer
ologist in attempting to recover the
Marco, had a
according
wall,
total length
to eighteen. In each of says,
sides,
its
to
he
were three gateways with towers
surrounding them
(in fact there
were
only two in the north wall), and a further three towers at the corners,
all
of these sheltering soldiers and serving as-
arsenals.
The
opened on to and
gates
straight roads crossing the city
dividing
it
into rectangular sections.
Yuan palace is the fact that Ming emperors rebuilt and
plan of the
when
the
extended
in the early fifteenth
it
and
the eighteenth centuries, the old plan
was largely adhered to. We are entitled assume that the general appearance of the palace, the Forbidden City, as it
to
stands today, does not depart over-
much from
the sight that met the eyes
In theory the whole population was to
of the astonished Genoese in 1272. In
be contained within the perimeter, but
details
Marco
tells
us
how
there were already
suburbs overflowing
Towards
gateways.
at the
the middle of the city so
defined stood the palace precinct, both
of
the
walls
encircling
eight defensive towers. there
were
and one walls.
five in the
it
Of
having gateways
southern walls
in each side of the
remaining
Between the walls two extensive
ponds were dug and stocked with fish, which were prevented by iron grills from escaping into the ever-flowing stream that passed through.
mound these
raised
A
long
the spoil from was planted with
with
excavations
many varieties of trees, even fullv grown ones being transplanted, and grass was sown in the great courtyard to remind the Khan of the vast spaces
ly
many
features have
changed; but the
undoubtedhave
effect will
remained much the same: noble roofs resplendent in coloured tiles, hipped
and curving panses
at
the eaves; large ex-
courtyard
of
between
the
carved marble sides of the foundation
on
platforms
which
principal
the
buildings stood; and the lateral galleries
latticed
with
their
rows
of
smaller
rooms. Marco notes that the
palace had
no upper
floors,
the 'basement on which raised ten
palms above the
surrounding
earth',
which
it
and
level is
that
stands
is
of the
about the
much of it today. He was moved by the 'halls and
height of greatly
chambers
.
.
.
covered with gold and
and decorated with pictures of dragons and birds and horsemen and silver
of the steppe plains where nomadic
various breeds of beasts and scenes
virtue and liberty reigned.
of battle'
Kublai's city has suffered alteration since his time, but the chequer-board
plan was for long respected.
Much
the outermost wall has been
removed
of
(tr.
R. E. Latham, Penguin).
The renovation of undertaken by the
the palace was
third
peror, beginning shortly
Ming emafter
1403.
The perimeters on north and south
io3
Yuan Dynasty
A
were moved farther south, and those
buildings.
on
gave archaeologists their chance. In
what one would expect at Kublai's court, judging from new styles of pottery ornament which became fashionable under the Mongols.
the middle of the west wall the Gate of
To
Peace and Justice, which
colour of buildings would not
and west were retained. In
east
1969 and 1970 the demolition of parts
of the
Ming and Ch'ing dynasty
with the original excavated
the
foundations
stands
still
Yuan brickwork, was
and within
cleared,
walls
its
entrance were
greater
part
of residential
and courtyards of the same
of
the
pavilions
date.
These
are identified as the Ho-ying-fang
(The
colour
rather garish display of
is
Marco's medieval eye the lavish
him
amiss. It does not occur to
sure
what he
come
to cen-
sees for excessive osten-
tation or extravagance.
The fine paving-
stone of the rooms, the marble pillarfootings and the trace of latticed doors
give an idea of elegant
if
not neces-
comfortable living. The elegance
Residence of Later Blossom) from a neighbouring street preserving the
sarily
name. What has been revealed of the
judged from the fragments of porce-
foundations covers forty metres from east
west and twenty-five from
to
north to south. hall
measuring
The main fifteen
feature
by
is
a
twelve
metres, with four central and twelve
of
the
lain
palace
furnishings
is
best
and lacquer vessels which were
found on and near the the lacquer pearl,
is
inlaid
site.
Some of
with mother-of-
and pieces of both materials are
inscribed with the
words
'palace' {nei
At one place a low platform (a 'moon platform', ytieh-t ai') projects into a courtyard, and is approached by steps leading between two stone lions. Although the regular merchants' quarters of the city were far from the palace, one may still
fu) or 'palace general use'.
imagine the Ho-ying-fang to be a place
a cobalt mineral (asbolite or cobalite)
where guests entering by the Peace and Justice Gate might be received; and even picture the Polos, at some
the
side pillars.
,
moment
The most remarkable advance made during the Yuan period is seen
in craft
in the porcelains, particularly in the
introduction towards the end of the
dynasty of painting in blue pigment.
This depended on the employment of
which
at first had to be imported from Near East, and hence became
known in China as Muhammedan blue.
residence in the city, passing between
The pigment is painted on to the white body of the unfired porcelain, then
on to the privileged elevation
covered with the glazing material and
of
the lions
of the
The find so
their
twenty-year-long
yueb-t'ai.
excavators were surprised to
much
debris of massive glass
and thickly glazed earthenware, all of which had evidently belonged to the
placed in the kiln. After firing,
when
the glaze has fused indivisibly with the clay of the body, the particles of blue
are
found suspended within the
By
this
glaze.
means the potter was able
to
io4
Yuan Dynasty
paint decoration almost as freely as an artist
using
earliest
brush and paper.
dated pieces on which
it
The was
employed are two vases in the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art in London, whose inscription places their
By then 1 1 3 method is so accomplished that we must suppose it to have been practised for some time past. Gradually the blue was refined to a pure sapphire tone which, combined with the pure white manufacture in the year
5
.
the
of the porcelain ground, produced one of the most striking
ed in ceramics.
effects
The
ever achiev-
invention, which
may have reached China from came
after the Polos' time,
Persia,
or they
could hardly have failed to notice
it.
Almost at once blue-and-white porcelain became important in trade with the Near East, where many early specimens still survive, and whence
many have come
to Europe.
By
the
mid-sixteenth century vases and plates painted with flowers, landscape and figures in
were commanding high prices efforts to reproduce
Europe, and
technique were made in most European countries. The result was
their
the foundation in the course of the
seventeenth century of the western tradition of blue-painted glazed earth-
enware which
is
variously
known
as
Delft or Lambeth. These in turn were the progenitors of a host of utilitarian
upon
modern
wares decorated with blue
white,
whose
ancestors
porcelains once set before the
emperors of China.
are
Mongol
80
FACING
The Gate of Peace and
Justice in the
middle of the west wall of Kublai's palace perimeter.
work
The massive brick-
suggests walls ofgreater height
and
breadth than the present ones, and designed with more concern for military defence.
This
is
one of the few surviving
fragments of the original Yuan fabric.
tet^^M**
1
iws
8i
Foundations, as excavated, of the Hou-ying-fang (Residence of Later Blossom). The stone platforms were the floors
detail of paths, steps
The Hou-ying-fang
and
of the pillared wooden buildings raised on them. The
recesses is unusually elaborate.
in the course
of excavation.
Chien-te gate
Su-ch'ing gate
)
(
>
Yung-ting gate
Yu-an gate
A
B
the Palace
sites
^
T'ai-yeh lake
of archaeological
Ov~
excavations
streets
the Imperial City
and Palace
of the
in
Ch'i-hua gate
Tso-an gate
C Huang-ch'eng
precinct
streams and lakes existing in the
Yuan
period
walls and buildings created
buildings and
Plan of
hsi gate
3 Ch'ung-jen gate
Ho-yi gate
eighteen miles.
Kuang
Yuan
city
Khan-balik (Peking),
The circumference of the Yuan walls
is
about
in the
Ming and Ch'ing
(AD
368-191
1
2)
periods
84
In
the
shapes of porcelain
innovation of the
Yuan
the
chief
potter was the
copying of bronze forms of Near Eastern design,
such
as this wine
undergla^e-blue painting of the century, with its spots
14th
and irregularities,
is technically inferior to
from
The
ewer.
that executed
the ijth century onwards, but is
full of fresh vigour savouring the pattern
book.
This
is
little
one
of a
number of fine porcelains discovered tact in
of
in-
an underground store-room at
Pao-ting,
Hopei.
Mid-ijth
century
Height
26. j
cm.
AD.
85
Ritual goblet, ku, in white porcelain with undergla^e-blue decoration. Under the
Yuan emperors
there
was a marked
increase in the production of porcelain
and bronze
vessels imitating the ancient
ritual pieces.
Excavated at Peking.
Height 13.3 cm. Mid- 14th century
AD.
A
new
era has
opened our knowledge of the Chinese
past as the scholarship of post-revolutionary Chinese
archaeology has recently
come
the
to
West through
remarkable exhibitions of objects of art. The bronzes,
ceramics,
uncovered
all
methods,
works
and
fabrics,
new findsjade
in
through carefully controlled
scientific
have made possible a coherent picture of
the development of Chinese
art.
Firm dates can now be
given to previously doubtful works in Western collections.
The beauty of of
significance
public
their
the objects themselves and the
documentation has captured the the Egyptian
imagination, as did
discoveries
of another great period of archaeological history. This book
newly found
is
a sympathetic
treasures.
The
the pieces exhibited in
and
livery study
illustrations
London
in
of these
show many of
1973, and a wide
range of other works are drawn upon to explain their significance.
known of
By
relating the
works of
art to
what
is
the society that produced them, the author
also presents an introduction, through archaeology, to
the whole span of Chinese history.
WILLIAM WATSON, Archaeology
at
Professor of Chinese Art and
London
University,
long
associated
with the Department of Oriental Antiquities in the British
and
Museum,
articles
is
the author of a
number of books
on the archaeology of the Far
traveled recently to China to research the treasures for
two
special
ISBN O-8212-0608-7
Pub. September 1974
BBC
East.
He
new Chinese
programs and
this
book.
53.95
