Page 464 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

The Famen Monastery
pagoda prior to excavation
(left); excavation photo-
graph of the first chamber
of the Famen Monastery
crypt (right).

conveyed to the Tang capital of Chang'an (or, during the reign of Empress Wu, to the city of
Luoyang). In the capital, they were displayed in the imperial palace — usually in the imperial
Buddhist monastery — and eventually returned to be reinterred in the crypt beneath the
pagoda. An inventory stele, written in 874 by the monk Juezhi of the Xingshan Monastery,
gives precise details (most of which correspond to specific items contained in the deposit) re-
garding the 122 gold and silver objects presented in 873 and 874 by the two emperors Yizong
and Xizong.
While a full report of the excavation has yet to be published, this extraordinary array of
sumptuous objects has already provided invaluable evidence regarding art at the Tang court,
metalworking and textile techniques of the Late Tang dynasty, the tributary system, and diverse
aspects of Buddhism (especially Esoteric Buddhism, which was then dominant in China). The
order in which the exhibits are described here is designed to introduce them in a narrative
fashion. First is the massive Buddhist staff (cat. 160), made in the palace workshops, which was
undoubtedly carried to the pagoda in 874 at the head of the procession from the palace in
Chang'an, over a hundred kilometers away. Next is the model gilt-bronze stupa or pagoda
(cat. 161), one of the oldest items in the entire deposit and one that affords an excellent idea
of the architectural form of the original Tang pagoda standing above the crypt. It contained
one of the four fingerbone relics of the Buddha and was itself packed inside a painted stone
stupa in the first chamber of the crypt: this stupa was the first object seen when the doors were
opened, and its battered edges are vivid testimony to the number of times that it had been
moved back and forth.

463 | FAME N M O N A S T E R Y AT F U F E N C