6.  Mawangdui: Ritual Objects, Mummies, and the "Afterlife"

 

 

Han dynasty (206 BCE-220 CE).

Mawangdui 馬王堆   Site of the grave of Lady Dai dated to 168 BCE.   Located 4 kilometers east of modern-day Changsha 長沙 in Hunan Province 湖南省 (south central China).   Excavated in 1972.

Objects

• Mawangdui 馬王堆   Site of the grave of Lady Dai, dated to 168 BCE.   Located 4 kilometers east of modern-day Changsha 長沙 in Hunan Province 湖南省 (south central China).   Pit #1 excavated in 1972.
• “well” or jing 井 style of tomb construction
• Wine vessel.   2 nd century.   Lacquerware, H: 22 1/2”
• “Flying robes,” “flying banner” (feiyi 飛衣) (fig. 4-24)
• Mittens.   2nd century BCE.   Silk with embroidery, L:   9 3/4” (fig. 4-12)
• Wine vessel.   2nd century.   Lacquerware, H: 22 1/2” (fig. 4-13)
• Red-ground coffin.   After 168 BCE. Lacquer, metal.   (fig. 4-16)

Terms

1. horror vacuae:   fear of empty spaces
2. mingqi 明器 :   bright objects, spirit objects
3. xiang 像 : portrait ( 人 “human being” radical plus 象 images or heavenly patterns manifested in earthly objects)
4. xiang 相 : physiognomy    
5. Hou Yi 后弈 and Chang E 嫦娥
6. Two souls:

   •  hun 魂 (pronounced “who-un”): upon death goes to the heavens. The living were expected to communicate with the hun during a regular schedule of sacrifices.

   •  po 魄 (pronounced “poe”):   upon death returns to the earth; hence dead had to be provided with luxuries of life and the corpse needed protection from evil spirits.  

7. Son of Heaven” tianzi 天子 the title for the emperor which was adopted by the Han court (first used in the Qin dynasty)

8. Confucianism : viewed relationship between members of family, community, and state in moral terms

9. yin 陰 ﹣yang 陽 :

   • yin:   female, wet, cold, dark, moon
   • yang:   male, dry, hot, bright, sun
     
10. Five phases:
    

11. wood	spring	green	east	dragon	sour
    fire	summer	red	south	phoenix	bitter
    earth	---	yellow	center	dragon	sweet
    metal	autumn	white	west	tiger	vinegary
    water	winter	black	north	tortoise/serpent	salty

12. Five Confucian Classics:

1. The Book of Changes ( Yijing 易經 )
2. Book of Documents ( Shujing 書經 )
3. Book of Songs ( Shijing 詩經 )
4. Book of Rites ( Liji 禮記 )
5. Spring and Autumn Annals ( Chunqiu shiyu 春秋事語 )

Daoism (Daojiao 道教 ): “Dao” often means a “road” or “path” and is translated as “the Way.”   Daoism has no supreme being.   Instead, there is “the Dao” itself, underlying and permeating reality.   For our purposes, we will consider Daoism to refer to texts that   discuss the quest for immortality.   Many of the first ideas about the Dao were articulated by the sage Laozi 老子 in the Classic of the Dao ( Daode jing 道德經 )

Concept:   representation

•  To stand in for something or someone.

•  To present a second time or to re-present. This second definition implies that "representation" is the ability of texts and images to draw upon features of the world and present them to the viewer, not simply as reflections, but as constructions.  

•  To look like or to resemble.

Texts

• Passage from the Handbook of Ritual and Etiquette for Gentlemen (Yili) describing attempts to call the hun back to the home (in an apparent effort to resuscitate the dead body):

A soul-summoner must take a suit of court robes formerly worn by the deceased, and having first pinned the coat and skirt together, he is to lay it over his left shoulder with the collar tucked into the belt, and in this manner, setting a ladder against the east end of the front eaves of his house, is to mount up on to the ridge of the roof, and there, facing northwards and stretching out the clothing, to call out three times in a loud voice, “Ho, so-and-so!   Come back!”   Then he is to hand the clothing down from the front eaves to another below, who is to receive it into a box and carry it therein into the house, entering by way of the eastern steps.   And this other one, going into the room where the deceased lies, is to lay the clothing down upon the corpse.   The summoner, meanwhile, is to descend from the roof by the west end of the rear eaves.

* In the funeral rites one adorns the dead with the trappings of the living.   On a grand scale one imitates what he had in life to send him off to the dead.   As though dead, but as though still alive; as though gone, but as though still present, the end and the beginning are one.   Thus the form of the grave and the grave mound imitates the house.   The form of the inner and outer coffins imitates the the side, top, front, and back boards of a carriage.   The cover over the coffin with its decorations imitates the screens, curtains, and hangings of a room.   The wooden lining and frame of the tomb imitate the rafters and beams of a roof and a fence. ( Hsun-tzu , chapter 13)

•  Nowadays when the vulgar lords of this turbulent era bury their dead lavishly, they are not doing it on behalf of the dead.   It represents competition among the living.   It is considered glorious if one can stage an extravagant funeral; and it is considered shabby if one only gives a simple burial.   They do not concern themselves with the peace of the dead, rather their only worry is whether their actions would be viewed favorably by the living. ( Lushi chunqiu )

•  There was a retainer painting for the King of Ch'i [Qi], whom the King of Ch'i asked:   “What is the most difficult in painting?”   He replied:   “Dogs and horses are most difficult.”   “What is the easiest?”   He replied:   “Demons and goblins are easiest.   Since dogs and horses are things known by man, visible before the day through, they cannot be completely simulated and thus are difficult.   Demons and goblins are without form, and not visible before us, hence they are easy.” ( Han Feizi , Book 11, tr. Bush, 24)

•  For instance, artisan-painters dislike depicting dogs and horses, yet like to execute demons and goblins.   Truly, this is because substantial entities are difficult to form, while insubstantial counterfeits are inexhaustible. (Zhang Heng [78-139 CE] Memorial against superstition in augury , Hou Han shu , book 89, Zhang's bibliography, tr. Bush, 24).

•  The standard Chinese character for portrait, read xiang , is homonymous with the character for fortune-telling or face-reading.   The character for portrait comprises a significant component for “human being” plus an element that refers ro the images, or heavenly patterns, that are manifested in earthly objects.   Thus the character might suggest that the portrait image reflects a heaven-endowed appearance that can be interpreted in ways related to the process of fate-reading in physiognomic evaluation. (Vinograd, 5-6).

Bibliography

Bush, Susan, and Hsio-yen Shih. Early Chinese Texts on Painting .   Harvard-Yenching Institute, 1985.

Fu Juyou, et al.   Mawangdui Hanmu wenwu 馬王堆漢墓文物 [ A Comprehensive Introduction about Cultural Relics Unearthed from the Han Tombs at Mawangdui ].   2 vols.   Changsha, Hunan:   Hunan Publishing House, 1992.

Howard, Angela Falco, et al.   Chinese Sculpture .   New Haven and London:   Yale University Press; Beijing:   Foreign Languages Press, 2006.

Ledderose, Lothar.   Ten Thousand Things:   Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art .   Princeton:   Princeton University Press, 1998. [see esp. chapter on “Factory Art”]

Lewis, Mark Edward.   The Early Chinese Empires, Qin and Han .   Cambridge, MA:   The Belknap Press, 2007.

Major, John S. and Constance Cook, eds. Defining Chu:   Image and Reality in Ancient China .   Honolulu:   University of Hawaii Press, 1999.

Rogers, Howard, ed.   China: 5,000 Years . New York: Guggenheim Museum & Abrams, 1998.

Vinograd, Richard.   Boundaries of the Self:   Chinese Portraits 1600-1900 .   Cambridge and New York:   Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Wu Hung.   “Art in a Ritual Context:   Rethinking Mawangdui.” Early China 17 (1992): 111-44.

Yang, Xiaoneng, ed.   The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology:   Celebrated Discoveries from the People's Republic of China .   London, New Haven:   Yale University Press, 1999.

Zhongguo kaogu wenwu zhi mei 中國考古文物之美 Vol. 8.   Beijing:   Wenwu chubanshe, 1994.