Emergence of Pottery Figurines

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Tomb figurines are statues made in forms of human beings and animals to be buried in tombs to accompany the dead as replacements of real human or animals, and most of themare made either of wood or pottery.

The custom to bury human beings alive with the dead emerged approximately in the late Neolithic age, and pre vailed in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, as the nobles then all wished that they could take everything they possessed during their life, including their wives, concubines and slaves into the afterworld with them, so as to maintain their extravagant life. As a result, great many evidences of human and animal buried alive have been found in tombs of the Shang and Zhou nobles.

After the Shang and Zhou dynasties, this brutal custom was gradually abandoned and human and animal were replaced by wooden or pottery figurines. Although the exact time to first use figurines as funerary objects is not known yet, Confucius’ antipathy against such custom is recorded in, an ancient Chinese classic.

He cursed that the first man to make tomb figurines should have no offspring.

Hence, the application of tomb figurines already existed by the time of Confucius, and had always been a key constituent of funeral customs in later dynasties. The emergence of tomb figurines was closely related to the Chinese funeral tradition.

According to the concept of ancient Chinese, life didn’t terminate at death, but continued in the afterworld in an incorporeal form. Therefore, in order to meet theneeds of spirits of the dead in the afterworld, they should be accommodated with a residence same as the one they had lived before their death, complemented with various commodities, as well as figurines to serve as servants or slaves. All these tomb figurines and utensils are called funerary objects, which reflect ancient people’s concept that the dead shall be treated as if they were still alive. Except for a few imaginary pottery tomb guardian beasts, most of pottery figurines found so far can be traced to a prototype in life, such as warriors, maids, musicians, dancers, storytellers and animals. Nonetheless, pottery figurines of different times differ fromeach other in categories and forms.

The utilization of pottery figurines was not widely spread before the Warring States Period, and most of them were found in northern China, such as painted dance figurines found in Zibo and Zhangqiu, Shandong province. However, wooden figurines were more popular in the south, as represented by findings from tombs in Chu state in middle reaches of the Yangtse River. Pottery figurines of this period mainly included maids, musicians, dancers and warriors. They were decorated mostly with colour paints, with their dresses painted as well, while some others wore costumes made of real silk.

The application of pottery figurines became much more popular during the Warring States Period, but they didn’t become the main funeral objects until the Qin and Han dynasties. By that time, the concept to “treat the dead as alive “was further developed, and to farewell the dead with a lavish funeral became a social ethic as an integral element of “filial piety”, as well as to treat the elderly well when they are alive. Archaeological findings have shown the fashion of elaborate funerals during the time. Besides building a magnificent grave chamber with exquisite frescoes to construct a luxurious living space for the dead, tremendous amount ofvarious funerary objects were buried as well. Among them, pottery figurines took alarge proportion in diversified categories, including ferocious monsters, warriors holding different weapons in hands, ser vants and slaves in different clothes.