Page 454 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

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Parcel-gilt silver pan dish with shell This dish, like cat. 154, is one of a set of five pan
from the Hejiacun hoard. Two of the dishes take the
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Height 1.5 ('/z), diam. 22.5 (8 / 8)
Tang Dynasty, first half of the eight century CE form of a mallow flower with six lobes; one is deco-
image of a phoenix with its head
rated with the
(c. 713-755) turned back, displaying its wings and florid tail; the
From the Hejiacun hoard, southern suburbs of
other shows a bear walking on all fours and looking
Xi'an, Shaanxi Province
upward. The form of this dish and the remaining
Shaanxi History Museum, Xi'an pan are inspired by fruit, respectively, a double
peach and a single peach apparently split in half.
Houston and San Francisco only The latter features a tortoise, seen from above so
that its upper carapace is completely visible, and
the head, tail, and four feet project around it. In
this piece, a pair of animals circle each other warily,

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