Miniature tomb figurines and models in pre-imperial and early imperial China: origins, development and significance

Abstract

Early Chinese tombs contain great quantities of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figurines as well as architectural models. Both kinds of miniatures are generally regarded as part of a single trajectory that ultimately substituted for human sacrifices. The purpose of it all was to create ‘underground homes’ so that the deceased could enjoy the amenities of their former lives in the hereafter. This understanding is largely based on received literature and scattered archaeological finds. Through a detailed analysis of the earliest instances of funerary sculptures, this article seeks to demonstrate that figurines and models at first represented two different rationales. Later on, these converged into a new view of the afterlife, one that symbolized not only ‘underground homes’, but entire estates of an ever increasing number of landowners. Early Chinese tomb miniatures were thus instrumental in the formation of personalized, subterranean microcosms, or private ‘little empires’.

Keywords:

• Early China
• tombs
• figurines
• models
• mingqi

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Feodor Lynen Postdoctoral Fellowship and the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Stanford University. I am grateful to John Kieschnick and two anonymous reviewers for valuable comments on earlier drafts. All remaining mistakes are, of course, my own.

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Armin Selbitschka

Armin Selbitschka is an assistant professor at Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, and is the author of Prestigegüter entlang der Seidenstraße? (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010). He has published on archaeological practice in the People’s Republic of China, and is currently preparing a monograph on early Chinese burial customs reflected in the archaeological record and received literature.