Sogdian Funerary Art in 6th c. China

Please join us for an upcoming East Asian Archaeology Forum (EAAF) talk.
On Thursday, March 29, 2012, from 12:15-1:30 pm,

Mandy Jui-man Wu (An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow, Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University)
will present:
"Sogdian Funerary Art in 6th c. China: Politics, Religion, and Transculturation along the Silk Road"

The talk will be held at the ICEAACH Library (650 Beacon St, 5th Floor, at the Kenmore "T" Station). Refreshments will be served!
We hope to see you there!

**Support for the EAAF Lecture Series is provided by the Boston University Center for the Humanities.** 

A Chinese Ceramic Figure of a Sogdian Wine-Merchant

Cosmopolitisme in the Tang Dynasty: A Chinese Ceramic Figure of a Sogdian Wine- Merchant

by Suzanne G. Valenstein 

This monograph investigates a Tang-dynasty (618–907) fifteen-inch-high, white porcelaneous figure of a Sogdian wine-merchant that is one of the most remarkable examples of Chinese mortuary sculpture to come to light in recent years. Only six Tang porcelaneous figures have been located during this investigation, and no documented analogous tomb figures appear to have been published to date. However, this figure—which is in the collection of Alexandra Munroe and Robert Rosenkranz—clearly belongs to a small, cohesive group of Chinese ceramic figures depicting foreign wine-merchants that can be attributed to the early Tang period.

The study shows that the figure’s relationship to a very small group of analogous tomb figures substantiates the attribution of “early Tang dynasty, ca. 625–75” assigned to this piece. It also considers hu ren, a term that by the Tang dynasty had come to refer specifically to those non-Chinese people with origins in the “Western Regions,” especially the Sogdians. These hu ren, or non-Han Westerners, are portrayed in the art of the Tang dynasty as having curly hair, heavy beards, a prominent nose, and deep-set eyes. Recent archaeological findings have verified the identification of the Rosenkranz, Croës, and Cernuschi ceramic figures, as well as the Duan Boyang head, as ethnic Sogdians, an Eastern Iranian people whose home, Sogdiana, lay in a region that encompasses today’s Uzbekistan and part of Tajikistan.

The book also delves into the construction of the figures and the head, taking into consideration the fact that the nature of China’s clays dictated the development of both its high-fired porcelaneous wares and low-fired earthenwares. The history of both ceramic types is helpfully summarized.

The history of Chinese mortuary furnishings, known as mingqi, is also discussed; these were manufactured for the afterlife. This study traces the evolution from the human sacrificial victims that were placed in Chinese tombs to meet the needs of the dead during the Shang dynasty (ca. 1600–ca. 1046 BC) to surrogate Tang-dynasty mingqi porcelaneous figures of Western wine-merchants.

The study then examines the various decorative motifs on the Rosenkranz figure and its analogous examples—tasseled streamers issuing from an ornamental disk, the makara, pearled roundel, monster-mask, five-petaled palmette, and the dragon set in a pearled roundel. These are traced both chronologically and geographically to their origins. Most of these ornamental motifs can be found in the West. They were passed along a large and complex system of cultural interaction and exchange that can be traced from ancient Egypt and Greece until they eventually reached China. At the same time, most of these ornamental elements can be directly or indirectly associated with the Buddhist religion, which originated in India and came to northern China from India by way of Central Asia.

The most remarkable feature of this Rosenkranz figure is its porcelaneous body. As opposed to the literally thousands of known Tang-dynasty earthenware tomb sculptures, only six Tang porcelaneous figures have come to light during this study. This paucity of porcelaneous tomb figures is not surprising, which makes this study all the more unqiue.

Cosmopolitanism in the Tang Dynasty will be valuable to art historians, particularly specialists in the history of Chinese ceramics; to scholars investigating Chinese mortuary practices; to medieval historians; as well as to others whose interests lie in China and the West, and in the Silk-Road trade that connected these two different worlds.

For more information, click HERE

Decoding Sogdian Funerary Art in China

Lecture:Decoding Sogdian Funerary Art in China: Politics, Religion, and Transculturation in the Sixth Century 
by Mandy Jui-man Wu, An Wang, Postdoctoral Fellow 
Location: CGIS South, Room S153, 1730 Cambridge Street, Harvard University

Some Sogdian merchants, craft workers, translators, and priests coming from Central Asia via the Silk Road, started to establish Sogdian communities in China around the third century CE. The newly excavated Sogdian tombs near Xi’an dating to the Northern Zhou period (557-581 CE) have led to a flurry of academic research. Dr. Wu will use the tomb of Kang Ye, a Zoroastrian priest, to show what Sogdian tombs can tell us about the society in which they lived. By examining the Chinese pictorial images decorating Kan Ye’s funerary furniture, which actually represent Zoroastrian death rituals, Dr. Wu will explore the political negotiation of cultural identity as a result of processes of transculturation in sixth-century China. Mandy Jui-Man Wu is currently an An Wang postdoctoral fellow at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies. She received her PhD in art history from University of Pittsburgh in 2010. Her current research rethinks the issues of power, constructed identities, and transculturation through examining mortuary art in sixth-century tombs in Northern China. She has published several articles, discussing issues such as gender roles in late Neolithic mortuary practices, the centrality of exotica to visual displays in Sui tombs, and remaining Sogdians in Eastern Asia in the six century. She is currently working on a book manuscript titled “Art, Power, and Identities: Hybridity in Mortuary Art in Sixth-Century Northern China.”

Silk road luxuries glitter at the Smithsonian's Freer in newly renovated Gallery

Lobed bowl with lotus petals, birds, animals, and floral scrolls. Probably Xi’an, Shaanxi province, China, early or mid-Tang dynasty, late 7th – early 8th century. Hammered silver with repoussé, chased, and ring-punched decoration and mercury gilding.

WASHINGTON, D.C.- Highways and byways crossing the vast Central Asian desert did more than facilitate the spread of Buddhism in the early Common Era, they also paved the way for the exchange of luxury goods between China and the West. “Silk Road Luxuries from China,” opened Nov. 5 in newly renovated Gallery 16 at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art, reveals the cross-cultural impact of Silk Road trade on Chinese luxury goods.

The small but exquisite array of 21 objects, including intricately decorated mirrors, cups and other forms of tableware, display the highest levels of craftsmanship practiced by Tang dynasty artisans working in precious materials.

“A revolutionary change began to happen in China’s decorative arts, fueled by an open and cosmopolitan, multicultural society centered in the vibrant Tang capital, Chang’an,” said J. Keith Wilson, curator of ancient Chinese art. “The intermingling of Chinese traditions and foreign influences led to a remarkable change in luxury goods produced for Chinese urban elites in the sixth through the eighth century.”

Sogdian traders—ethnic Iranians originally from Sogdiana, now Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in Central Asia—introduced the Chinese to new ideas in the decorative arts in the form of western and central Asian luxuries they offered in exchange for silk and other sought-after Chinese products. Objects such as tablewares made of precious metals and glass helped transform Chinese secular artistic traditions and promoted explorations of new materials, techniques, forms and decorative patterns.

Ideas and goods traveled both into and out of China along the Silk Road. Among the objects that are on view is a lobed Sogdian dish of hammered silver, decorated with the image of a lion, that may have influenced Chinese metal artisans. An eighth-century silk brocade with floral medallions that was once among the treasures held by the Shōsōin repository in Nara, Japan, reveals how Chinese exports inspired craftsmen further east.

Groupings of exquisite mirrors and silver vessels presented in the exhibition illustrate new fabrication methods and decorative motifs inspired by foreign models. Chinese smiths and founders set aside old practices and began creating objects from precious metals, adopting western hammering and gilding techniques to forge a new Chinese luxury aesthetic.

One of the highlights of the exhibition is a massive piece of burial furniture made in China for the repose of a Sogdian who died far from home. This and a small number of other Chinese burial couches feature layered decorative styles and Buddhist and non-Buddhist iconography, including depictions of foreign musicians and dancers. Although made for Sogdians, the objects belong to a Chinese tradition and reflect a multicultural vision.

“Silk Road Luxuries from China” in Gallery 16 and “Chinese Ceramics: 10th-13th Century” in Gallery 15 are the most recent installations in the Freer’s plan to reimagine the entire suite of six Chinese galleries, showcasing major collections in redesigned spaces that reflect the founder’s original focus on aesthetics and comparative study.

Source: ArtDaily.org

Silk Road Luxuries from China

FREER SACKLER, The Smithsonian's Museums of Asian Art
Future Exhibitions






SILK ROAD LUXURIES FROM CHINA
Opens November 5
Freer Gallery of Art
A vast network of caravan trails has long linked the oasis settlements spread across the Central Asian desert. For nearly two millennia these trade routes, now collectively known as the Silk Road, facilitated the spread of Buddhism and provided a course for the long-distance exchange of luxury goods between merchants and traders in China and the West. The impact of foreign imports on the arts of China is particularly apparent in objects dating from the sixth through eighth century, when Chinese craftsmen explored new materials, techniques, forms, and decorative patterns. They also began to use silver and gold for tableware and other functional objects. Exceptional examples of this phenomenon are now on view in the Freer Gallery. Most were made in the vicinity of the Tang capital at Chang’an (modern Xi’an) and attest to the cosmopolitan tastes of Chinese elites interested in foreign styles and customs.

Many of the traders on the Silk Road were ethnic Iranians originally from Sogdiana (modern-day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan). Also on view are portions of an elaborate stone burial couch that was apparently made for the tomb of one of these Sogdians, who died in China in the late sixth century.

CRANES AND CLOUDS: THE KOREAN ART OF CERAMIC INLAY
Opens November 5
Freer Gallery of Art
The Freer’s Korean gallery reopens with an exhibition embodying the evolution of the distinctive Korean ceramic decoration known as sanggam. Originally, sanggam involved inlaying white and black pigments into stamped or carved motifs to create images of cranes, clouds, ducks, lotuses, and willows that appear to float within a limpid green glaze. This technique appeared in Korea by the mid-twelfth century; it would adorn tableware and ritual vessels used by the court and nobility for two centuries. Once porcelain replaced celadon as the elite ceramic, however, the appearance of inlaid decoration changed radically. White pigment, applied in dense patterns to cover everyday bowls and dishes, approximated the snowy appearance of porcelain.

The National Museum of Korea has provided generous financial and curatorial support for this installation of the Freer Gallery’s Korean collection. A new location within the museum positions the Korean gallery adjacent to an exhibition of Chinese ceramics of the tenth through thirteenth century and, eventually, to galleries of Chinese arts of the Song through Qing dynasty (tenth through nineteenth century).

CHINESE CERAMICS: 10TH-13TH CENTURY
Opens November 5
Freer Gallery of Art
Potters in both north and south China perfected the skills needed to control and modulate ceramic glazes—in shades of white, green, blue, brown, and black—during the Song dynasty (960–1279). In some modes, the glaze complemented carved or incised decoration; in others, its purity of color became a focal point on its own. Two dozen Chinese ceramics from the Freer collection highlight these glazes and the skills of Song dynasty artisans.




Silk Road Luxuries Glitter at the Freer
A Newly Renovated Gallery Showcases the Decorative Arts of a Cosmopolitan Tang China

October 4, 2011
Highways and byways crossing the vast Central Asian desert did more than facilitate the spread of Buddhism in the early Common Era, they also paved the way for the exchange of luxury goods between China and the West. “Silk Road Luxuries from China,” opening Nov. 5 in newly renovated Gallery 16 at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art, reveals the cross-cultural impact of Silk Road trade on Chinese luxury goods.

The small but exquisite array of 21 objects, including intricately decorated mirrors, cups and other forms of tableware, display the highest levels of craftsmanship practiced by Tang dynasty artisans working in precious materials.

“A revolutionary change began to happen in China’s decorative arts, fueled by an open and cosmopolitan, multicultural society centered in the vibrant Tang capital, Chang’an,” said J. Keith Wilson, curator of ancient Chinese art. “The intermingling of Chinese traditions and foreign influences led to a remarkable change in luxury goods produced for Chinese urban elites in the sixth through the eighth century.”

Sogdian traders—ethnic Iranians originally from Sogdiana, now Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in Central Asia—introduced the Chinese to new ideas in the decorative arts in the form of western and central Asian luxuries they offered in exchange for silk and other sought-after Chinese products. Objects such as tablewares made of precious metals and glass helped transform Chinese secular artistic traditions and promoted explorations of new materials, techniques, forms and decorative patterns.

Ideas and goods traveled both into and out of China along the Silk Road. Among the objects that will be on view is a lobed Sogdian dish of hammered silver, decorated with the image of a lion, that may have influenced Chinese metal artisans. An eighth-century silk brocade with floral medallions that was once among the treasures held by the Shōsōin repository in Nara, Japan, reveals how Chinese exports inspired craftsmen further east.

Groupings of exquisite mirrors and silver vessels presented in the exhibition illustrate new fabrication methods and decorative motifs inspired by foreign models. Chinese smiths and founders set aside old practices and began creating objects from precious metals, adopting western hammering and gilding techniques to forge a new Chinese luxury aesthetic. One of the highlights of the exhibition is a massive piece of burial furniture made in China for the repose of a Sogdian who died far from home. This and a small number of other Chinese burial couches feature layered decorative styles and Buddhist and non-Buddhist iconography, including depictions of foreign musicians and dancers. Although made for Sogdians, the objects belong to a Chinese tradition and reflect a multicultural vision.

“Silk Road Luxuries from China” in Gallery 16 and “Chinese Ceramics: 10th-13th Century” in Gallery 15 are the most recent installations in the Freer’s plan to reimagine the entire suite of six Chinese galleries, showcasing major collections in redesigned spaces that reflect the founder’s original focus on aesthetics and comparative study. Both galleries will reopen to the public Nov. 5.

The Silk Road Gallery project was made possible with the support of the Thaw Charitable Trust.

For more information about the Freer and Sackler galleries and their exhibitions, programs and other events, the public may visit asia.si.edu. The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, located at 1050 Independence Avenue S.W., and the adjacent Freer Gallery of Art, located at 12th Street and Independence Avenue S.W., are on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily, except Dec. 25, and admission is free. The galleries are located near the Smithsonian Metrorail station on the Blue and Orange lines. For general Smithsonian information, the public may call (202) 633-1000 or TTY (202) 633-5285.

Nevkat – An Ancient Silk Road City

From the Blog " Postcard from Bishkek / Observations from an expat" by Ian Claytor in the Kyrgiz republic, the following article which he wrote on May 15, 2011:


Nevkat – An Ancient Silk Road City

About eight kilometres East of the city of Kant in Northern Kyrgyzstan lies the modern village of Krasnaya Rechka, (“Red River”). This is the site of the ancient towns of Suyab and Nevkat (“New City”), a Silk Road city that flourished between the 6th and 12th centuries. The identification is based on manuscripts found at the site.

By all accounts, Nevkat was a major metropolis. Indeed, it was probably the largest of all the medieval cities in what is now Kyrgyzstan – and, according to one author, was the “most north-easterly of the central Asian ‘super cities’” and was, at one time, “one of the world’s most important trading centres”.

Founded by the Sogdians, (an Iranian speaking people), in the fifth century, in the seventh and eighth centuries it boasted a population of 100.000. It had over 18 kilometres of city walls – as long as those of ancient Rome – which enclosed an area of 25 square kilometres. Inside these walls were public buildings, markets, gardens and even farms.

In the North-eastern part of the city was a vast citadel, built on a massive artificial platform – which is all that remains easily visible today. Measuring some 800m across and 20m high – 30m in the extreme South-Eastern corner where it is thought the ruler’s palace was located, the mound comprises some 13 million cubic meters of earth and mud bricks, it is five times the size of the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt and it, apparently, is the largest man-made mound in the world. It has been estimated that a workforce of several thousand must have been employed in its construction – which could have taken a decade, or more.

This citadel was almost certainly an “upper town” for the ruling elite of the city – probably Sogdians, who are also known locally as Saks. However, it was not a mono-cultural city. A necropolis showed signs of a number of different funeral techniques and traditions. Other peoples who are thought to have populated the city include Chinese, Uighurs, Tibetans, Persians as well as the local Saks. Archaeologists have found artefacts showing that Buddhists, Zoroastrians Nestorians, Manicheans and pagans all thrived here.

Particular archaeological finds have included: the remains of a large sculpture of the Buddha, which would have stood 12 meters high when complete, which were discovered in the corridors one of the two Buddhist temples uncovered. Also shards of 1.000 year old pottery litter the site.

Nevkat and the other towns of the Chuy Valley are mentioned by the Chinese pilgrim Hsuan Tsang, who visited the area in around 620 CE.

All that remains today are irregular mounds and a couple of eroded clay walls of the ancient fortifications, but, as Daniel Prior writes in The Bishkek Handbook:
"For those who are able to sightsee without seeing standing buildings, Krasnaya Rechka – prettier in setting and more conducive to contemplation than the history-factory at Burana – offers a subtle vista on the past. From the summit of the citadel, where the ground underfoot is thickly strewn with pieces of thousand-year-old pottery, on a clear day, you can see almost to Ch’ang An and Byzantium."

Despite it’s place in history, finding Nevkat is not actually easy. A lot of local people are not aware that it is there, and there are no signposts. Indeed, I have attended a couple of meetings where I and other foreigners, (they tend to be Japanese, who seem to have a fascination with the Silk Road and this particular period), have talked about the difficulty of finding the place and even of having to abandon the search.

In fact, the easiest way to see Nevkat, (albeit from a distance), is when travelling from Bishkek to Issyk Kul on the new road that bypasses the villages and the towns of Kant and Tokmak. It is possible to see the mound of the citadel and the embankment that marked the site of the old town rising from the Chui plain.

To get to Nevkat: First, head for the modern village of Krasnaya Rechka, about 30 km east of Bishkek. Go just a bit more than 2 km past the gas station at the eastern end of the village, and you’ll see a dirt road off to your left (north). Turn onto the track and go on for about a kilometre. You can’t miss the citadel. It looms 20 meters over the valley floor.