Page 38 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

still at Chengchow, or at a site somewhere near Anyang that has
still to be identified. Yet even if it was not at Anyang itself, this
complex of halls, tombs, workshops, and dwellings was su-
premely important in the cultural history of early China.
The Chinese belief that the spirit of the departed must be pro-
vided with all that he or she possessed (or indeed, would have
liked to possess) in his earthly life led to immolation and human
sacrifice on a gigantic scale. Later the more frightful practises were
abandoned, but until the Ming Dynasty the custom persisted of
placing in the tomb pottery models not only of furniture, farms,
and houses, but also of servants, guards, and domestic animals. At
the same time, the corpse was decked out with the richest cloth-
ing, jewellery, and jades that his family or the state could afford.
Collectors are even known to have been buried with their favour-
ite paintings. However much one may deplore this custom, it has
ensured the preservation of many beautiful things that would oth-
erwise have been irretrievably lost.
The Shang tombs throw a lurid light upon early Chinese civil-
isation. Some of them were of enormous size and furnished with
bronze vessels, jade objects, and pottery. One royal personage,
apparently an animal lover, had his pets, including an elephant,
buried near him in separate graves. The tomb excavated at Wu-
kuan-ts'un contained the remains of a canopy of painted leather,

15 Replica of excavated combat Wu-
kuan-ts'un, Anyang Late Slung
Dynasty.
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