CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

cal examples of Tang decorative treatment of narrow
bands.
Colorful red and green parrots often appear in
Buddhist Paradise paintings of the seventh and
eighth centuries, and they were evidently much
sought after. 3 Flocks of parrots populated the Long
Mountains on the border between the provinces of
Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, defying easy capture.
Others came from further afield: Qinghai and Tibet,
as well as Indochina, were sources of parrots, but
the most celebrated of all were the "five-colored"
parrots imported from Oceania, one of which was
the subject of a rhapsody composed on the order of
Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-756 CE). A musical instrument,
decorated with parrots inlaid in amber,
tortoiseshell, and mother-of-pearl, in the Shoso-in,
was very likely a present from the Chinese court to
the Japanese emperor Shomu, who died in 756 and
whose possessions were dedicated to the Todai-ji
forty-nine days after his death. 4 RW
1 Excavated in 1970; published: Han Wei 1989.
2 Han Wei 1989, 224.
3 The examples that follow are derived from Schafer's inspiring
study of Tang exotics (1963), 96-103.
4 Schafer 1963,135.
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