CHINA ARQUEOLOGIA golden-age-chinese-archayeolog

Southeast corner of the
anteroom, showing paintings
of one of the Twelve
Earthly Branches and of
cranes in flight.
included porcelain, gold and silver, jewelry, and bronze vessels, only bits and pieces of which
remained. Three hundred coins were recovered.
A tomb epitaph carved on the same granite used throughout the tomb construction contains
nearly two thousand characters recounting the official life of Wang Chuzhi. Wang's titles
included Governor of Yi, Ding, and Qi Prefectures and Prince of Beiping. His biography figures
prominently in the official histories of both the Tang and Later Liang dynasties. He died in the
final year of the Later Liang, 923, and was buried one year later. RB
1 Excavation report in Hebei 19963, 4 -13. A complete
report has been published as Hebei 1998.
2 The landscape paintings are discussed in a brief article
by Luo Shiping in Luo 1996, 74-75 and are reproduced in
Hebei 1998, color pis. 14 and 18-20. All paintings are
reproduced or shown in copies in Hebei 1998.
3 This is the observation of Shi Jianwen in Hao 1996, 57.
4 Examples of Tang imperial tomb painting are reproduced
in Yang 1997, 67-74.
5 Luo Shiping (Luo 1996) mentions Guan Tong (active
c. 925) and Dong Yuan (d. 962) for comparison but
generally sees their work as very early stages in the
evolution of landscape painting and as products of the
Tang period. Their work closely resemble many of the
landscape depictions found on objects in the Shosoin
and at Dunhuang, as well as the garden elements depicted
in the Tang imperial tombs. For comparative
materials, see Sullivan 1980. A Tang imperial tomb containing
a sixfold landscape screen painted over one entire
wall was recently discovered in Fuping county, Shanxi
province (Jing and Wang 1997, 8-11 and inside back
cover), providing another Tang imperial precedent for
elements of the Wang Chuzhi tomb design. The Fuping
county tomb may be the earliest known example of an
independent landscape painting done for a burial;
it appears to date from the first half of the eighth
century CE.
508 EARLY IMPERIAL CHINA