Exhibition Brochure Introduction | Late Prehistoric | Bronze Age | Chu Culture | Early Imperial | Timeline
Early Imperial China
The word "China" may derive from Qin (pronounced "chin"), a state near the western frontier. In 221 B.C. the king of Qin united squabbling, disparate kingdoms to create China's first centralized government. The empire he established was consolidated during the ensuing Han dynasty and lasted until 1911. The grandeur of the First Emperor's ambitions and achievements is mirrored in his burial complex, discovered in 1974 outside his capital near modern Xi'an. Still only partly excavated, the complex includes three huge underground pits containing seven thousand life-size terra-cotta foot soldiers, archers, charioteers, and commanders as well as chariots and clay horses, all for the emperor's protection in the next life (nos. 123-128). The terra-cotta warriors may have been substitutes for burying sacrificial victims, a practice known from Shang times and one that Confucius had decried as wasteful in the fifth century B.C. The First Emperor himself was buried beneath a huge earthen mound that has not yet been excavated and may have been looted in antiquity.
Political unification led to cultural unity as well, as exemplified by
the two jade burial suits in the exhibition. One was made for the imperial
Han prince Liu Sheng, who was buried in a rock-cut tomb at the northern
site of Mancheng in 113 B.C. (no. 129; fig. 8). Fashioned from nearly
twenty-five hundred jade plaques knotted together with gold wire, the suit
perhaps served as armor to protect the body from evil spirits and the
forces of decay. Jade suits were thought to be the prerogative of the
imperial family, until 1983 when a jade suit sewn with red silk was
unearthed in the tomb of the king of Nanyue in southernmost China (no.
139). Made within ten years of each other but for tombs more than two
thousand miles apart, these suits demonstrate that shared beliefs and
burial practices linked distant parts of China.
The art of the early imperial period also reflects the results of
diplomatic relations and trade with other Asian cultures, which exposed the
Chinese to foreign ideas as well. The most famous trade route, the Silk
Road, stretched from central China to western Asia, but other land and sea
routes connected China to India and southeast Asia. Buddhism, which arose
in India, reached China in the first century A.D. The Buddhist statues from
Qingzhou (no. 152; fig. 9) and the gold and silver objects found in the
crypt of the Famen Monastery testify to its profound influence on Chinese
religious life.
Interest in the outside world intensified during the prosperous Tang
dynasty (618-907), when the capital at Xi'an became the largest, most
cosmopolitan city in the world. Flourishing trade with the West sparked a
demand for luxury goods from Persia and western Asia. The ceramic figurines
of women playing musical instruments and hunters on horseback (nos. 170-171) reflect a fascination with western Asian music, costumes, and horses,
which were much larger than the ponies native to China. Found in tombs,
these figures are mingqi, grave goods that magically served and entertained
the deceased in the next life. A lively new spirit also pervades a painted
relief from the tenth-century tomb of Wang Chuzhi (no. 175; fig. 10),
excavated in 1995. It depicts female musicians performing a concert much
like those Wang Chuzhi would have enjoyed during his life at court. Ever
since the Shang dynasty, the Chinese had considered the afterlife
unthinkable without music. In the Bronze Age, however, making music on
majestic sets of bells was a solemn rite honoring ancestral spirits. The
female orchestra performing for Wang Chuzhi's eternal pleasure illustrates
a fundamental change that had occurred over the period covered by the
exhibition. Initially focused on religious ritual, Chinese art gradually
embraced the secular realm to express the worldly concerns and delights of
individuals.