Page 78 - The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology: Celebrated Discoveries from the People’s Republic of China

cate tattooed markings or the cosmetic application
2
of face paint. The top of the brow is indicated
by a low ridge curving upward from the temples,
and above, the figure's hair is twisted into a high
chignon at the front. The head is encircled by a
brownish black band on the surface of the vessel
and by broad painted strips that radiate away from
the face, ending in triangular pointed tips. Lower
down on the vessel, on either side of the chin,
appear two circles in reserve, each filled by a cross.
The figure's outstretched arms and small,
splayed fingers appear below. The body itself
is shown as a skeleton, with its spine and ribcage
framed as an oval shape in reserve, bordered
by a series of horizontal and diagonal brushstrokes.
The area of the pelvis at the base of the vessel is
blurred and less easy to distinguish. This skeletal
face
figure with its contrasting, delicately modeled
9 and poignant half-smile, seems mysteriously poised
Painted pottery guan jar between this world and a world beyond. In all prob-
ability, the vessel was exclusively intended for a role
Height 21.7 (8 V*) in the rites of burial.
Neolithic Period, Majiayao Culture The surfaces flanking the figure are painted
(€.3000-2500 BCE)
with contrasting designs: the one to the right ex-
From Shizhaocun, Tianshui, Gansu Province
hibits a more open pattern of crosses seen against
The Institute of Archaeology, CASS, Beijing the lighter ground of the ware; the one to the left
shows a denser pattern of triangular serrations in
The single most arresting feature of this vessel's vertical strips pointing in the opposite direction
decoration is the human face, in relief, centered to the smaller triangles left in reserve. Beneath the
1
on one side. The body is represented below, in rim, two broad horizontal bands frame a zone of
painted lines alone. The sensitivity with which this narrow circumferential lines. LF-H
face is modeled, and the refinement and sweetness
it conveys, set it entirely apart from its earlier and 1 Excavated in 1982; published: Zhongguo Ganqing 1990,
less expressive counterpart from Dadiwan (cat. 3). 583, fig. 9: 2; pi. 1:1, 2; Wenwu jinghua 1993, 81, fig. i; Goep-
per
1995, no. 4; Rawson 1996, no. 3.
The oval face, tilted a little to one side, is 2 Similar striations appear on the faces of the Banshan
slightly dished below the forehead. Although mod- lids acquired by the Swedish archaeologist J. G. Andersson
in Gansu earlier this century (Andersson 1943, pis. 186:1,
eled from the same buff-colored ware as the rest of 187:1). Human heads shaped from the necks of Machang
the vessel, the face has been coated with a pinkish vessels unearthed from sites in Gansu and Qinghai prov-
slip to enhance its lifelike appearance. The eyes inces often exhibit a series of parallel vertical lines
painted beneath the eyes and down the cheeks, suggest-
and the half-opened, faintly slanting mouth are ing a form of face painting that may have been associated
rendered as shallow depressions, which are shaded with mortuary rites (compare Zhang 1993, pi. 7:1 and
Elisseeff 1986, no. 4). The Banshan and Machang cultures
gray. The finely modeled ridges of the arched eye-
both date to the third millennium BCE.
brows are accented by almost imperceptible black
lines. Three fine vertical lines drawn from the nos-
trils downward to the tip of the chin probably indi-

77 | YANCSHAO CULTURE: MAJIAYAO