CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

122
Bronze mythical animal inlaid with gold
and silver
Middle Warring States Period,
late fourth century BCE
Height 12.1 (4 3 / 4 ), length 21.8 (8 ft)
From Tomb i at Sanji, Pingshan, Hebei Province
Hebei Provincial Cultural Relics Institute,
Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province
Two bronze beasts, differing from each another only
in the shape of their tails, were found in the east
storage compartment flanking King Cuo s burial
chamber. 1 Both objects were partly encrusted with
an unknown black material and show visible signs
of wear. The excavators speculate that the paired
objects may have been supports for a paneled
screen or low table or used to weigh down a mat.
Like the winged beast (cat. 121), the animal here
depicted displays hybrid characteristics: its muzzle
resembles that of a tiger, but it has two short horns
near the ears, while its cloven hooves are bovine, as
is shape of the body. The sophisticated inlaid ornamentation,
which accentuates some of the animal's
features, consists principally of abstract spirals in
gold and silver on a red ground; the spiral patterns
are interrupted by a band around the animal's neck
that resembles the numerous dog collars discovered
in King Cuo's tomb. The collar design may indicate
that these supernatural beasts had been tamed and
brought under the king's control. LVF
i Excavated in 1978 (MI 0x138); published: Hebei 1979,
pi. 5.1; Hebei 1995, i: 138-139,142, fig. 50; 2: color pi. 15.1;
pi. 93.
359 | TOMB OF KING CUO OF ZHONCSHAN