Inside out: creating the exotic within early Tang dynasty China in the seventh and eighth centuries

Abstract

Highly coloured, lead glazed ceramic vessels of the early Tang period, known as sancai, or three colour ware, take on unusual shapes and decoration often reminiscent of earlier metalwork from Iran. The paper examines possible sources of this flamboyant and apparently outside appearance to argue that the sancai was not directly based on Iranian metal work or ceramics. Rather the wares were produced in a context in which the Tang seem to have wished to foster a cosmopolitan court that matched their political aspirations. Sancai seems to have been deliberately concocted to create an impression of contact with Central Asia and places further west, without in fact being a direct product of such relations. Sancai was produced at kilns in China. Tomb figures of horses, camels, dancers and musicians, likewise, suggested a flourishing trade with Central Asia. As both the vessels and the figures were intended for burial, it seems that the élite wished to perpetuate after death their aspirations to be affiliated with a power with extensive continental connections.

Keywords:

• ceramics
• lead-glaze
• Tang
• Central Asia
• agency
• afterlife
• Middle East

Notes

1. I am grateful for the advice and suggestions from Li Bao-ping and Nigel Wood who have also contributed to discussion of the Beilitung wrech (Li, Chen and Wood 2010).

2. The origins of lead-glazing are much debated and some of the earliest examples are found in China (Wood 2007, 190-1). However, lead-glazed beads found in China are not characteristic of China generally.

3. The comment is taken from Li Zhiyan et al. (2010, 171), where the use of foreign metalwork is discussed.

4. Cheng lists the other principal Sogdian tombs and illustrates some of the images on the coffins and couches. The tombs of Yu Hong (Shanxi 2005) and Wirkat (Xi'an 2005) provide particularly remarkable examples of outside motifs incorporated into traditional Chinese tombs.

5. These large petals were used to decorate the lotus pedestals on which figures of Buddhist deities were placed. It seems possible that such plastic forms derived ultimately from Hellenistic sculpture.

6. A possible continuity may have been provided by lead-glazed tiles. But no trace of these has been found to date.

7. Small bowls with flared lips, cups with small handles, circular covered boxes, trays on three feet and covered jars on three feet have direct parallels in known Tang silver. However, the designs on these pieces are all unlike those on sancai. Moreover, there are many Tang gold and silver vessels that have no direct parallels in sancai.