Page 459 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

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Two gold tree appliques While they are likely to have come from a tomb,
unfortunately no report of the circumstances of
3
Height 13.5 (5 A) and 11.5 (4'A),
thickness 0.4 (V») their discovery has been or is likely to be published.
two trees exhibited here, three
The set includes the
Tang Dynasty, eighth century CE
phoenixes, an outstretched dragon, and three ducks
From Guojiatan, near Xi'an, Shaanxi Province
3
with wings displayed. All the objects are on a small
Xi'an Municipal Institute of Archaeology and scale — the dragon only 9.4 centimeters long, the
Preservation of Cultural Relics, Shaanxi Province phoenixes 6.6 centimeters high, and the ducks a
mere 3.3 centimeters high. The trees are described
Houston and San Francisco only in considerable detail, from the roots and trunk, to
the branches and flowers or fruit with a different
These two miniature trees worked in filigree on configuration of the branches in each. On both,
gold sheet 1 form part of a set of nine pieces dis- a vine twists around the trunk. The leaves are ar-
covered during the building of the international ranged in rosettes, with a fruit or flower originally
airport at Xianyang, near Xi'an, in December 19/1. 2 inlaid with precious stone — one piece of green

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