Page 315 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

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Painted lacquer deer with black triangles and scrolls. The materials and
the quality of the workmanship indicate that this
Height 77 (30), length 45 (17%), was a luxury object; pieces of lower quality were
5
height of torso 27 (10 /s) usually coated with ink.
Warring States Period (c. 433 BCE) A square hole is cut into the back of the deer,
From the tomb of Zenghou Yi at Leigudun, Suixian,
Hubei Province probably to attach an object such as a drum; several
deer-shaped drum stands have been found over
Hubei Provincial Museum, Wuhan the years in Chu tombs in the Jiangling district of
Hubei province and, to a lesser extent, in Hunan
2
Placed in the marquis' burial chamber, this figure province. Some stands were made to support real
1
of a recumbent deer is the more elaborate of two drums (fig. i); others supported replicas in plain
deer found in Tomb i at Leigudun; the other sculp- wood. The drum found in the eastern chamber of
ture was placed in the central chamber with the the marquis' tomb was not associated with this
ritual bronzes. The head and the body are sepa- stand; the three rings attached to the drum strongly
rately carved from single pieces of wood, and the suggest that it originally hung from the antlered
head rotates left and right on the neck so that the cranelike figure (cat. 100) found in the tomb.
animal can be positioned to look straight ahead In many cases, however, wooden figures of
or to the side. The sculpture evidences an artistic reclining deer did not serve as stands but rather
sensibility that was quite new in the fifth century as auspicious figures intended to protect the tomb
3
BCE: the deer reclines on its legs in a natural pos- and the deceased. Most, if not all, such guardian
ture, and its head seems to have been copied from objects were placed at the head of the outer coffin,
nature (the antlers are in fact real deer antlers, as evidenced in the seven tombs at Yutaishan,
4
fixed in holes carved into the wood). Black lacquer Jiangling. AT
covers the entire surface of the wood, and against
1 Excavated in 1978; published: Hubei 1989,1:381, fig. 238;
this background, small, almond-shaped designs, 2: color pi. 16, pi. 142; Tokyo 1992, no. n; Tokyo 19983,
together with myriad tiny dots, are painted in red no. 21.
lacquer to imitate fur. The antlers are decorated 2 Several tombs in the Jiangling district contained such
drum stands, in particular, Tombs 2 and n at Paimashan
(see Hubei 1973,158, fig. 12, and pi. 9.1); Tomb 7 at
Xi'eshan (see Hubei 1984^ 525, fig. 14); and Tomb 10
at Wuchangyidi (see Jiangling 1989, 49, fig. 38.1).
3 Tomb i at Tengdian, Jiangling, Hubei province (see
Jingzhou 1973,12, pi. 4.1); Tomb i at Liuchengqiao, Chang-
sha, Hunan province (see Hunan 1972, pi. 10); and three
tombs from the cemetery at Jiudian, Jiangling, Hubei
province (see Hubei 1995, 306, fig. 208.3 anc ^ pi- 93-3)-
4 Hubei 19843, io8a, and in, fig. 89.2.

FIG. i. Painted lacquer
deer-shaped drum stand
from Tomb 7 at Xi'eshan,
Jiangling, Hubei province;
Warring States period;
3
length 45 (17 / 4). After
Hubei 1984^, 525, fig. 14.

314 I CHU AND O T H E R C U L T U R E S