Page 298 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

to hold the wings, and a crown of deer antlers to the end of the fourth century BCE. They were
emerges from its head. Wooden sculpture of carved for use in funerary ritual, generally as
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antlered creatures often served as tomb guardians drum stands. Although the shape of the present
in Chu culture; the antlers of this figure and its sculpture differs somewhat from the wooden mod-
placement next to the double coffin of the marquis els carved by the Chu craftsmen (or at least from
have prompted many specialists to identify the known, published examples [see fig. i]), its mortise-
object as an auspicious creature intended to pro- and-tenon joinery links the object to Chu wooden
tect the tomb and its owner from evil spirits. 5 sculpture.
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Wooden sculpture of long-necked birds, some- This object was probably a drum stand. The
times crowned with antlers, resting on tigers were antlers have a decidedly unnatural round shape,
common in the Chu kingdom from the fifth century while their tips and the beak of the bird are approx-

297 Z E N G H O U Y l TOM B A T L E I C U D U N