Page 98 - The Arts of China, By Michael Sullivan Good Book

104 Burial suit. Jade plaques tewn
together with gold thread. From (he
tomb of Liu Shcng (died 1 1 3 b. c. ) it
Man-ch'eng, Hope: Western Han
Dynasty.

TEXTILES Under the Han Dynasty, the customs and amenities which in
Shang and Chou had been confined to a minute privileged aristoc-
racy in a small region now spread over a much wider area and a
much larger segment of society. At the same time, Chinese han-
dicrafts have been found far beyond its own frontiers—in Indo-
china and Siberia, Korea and Afghanistan. The ruins of a Chinese-
style palace recendy discovered in southern Siberia contained
Chinese bronze fittings, coins, tiles, and pottery house models,
the latter presumably made locally by Chinese potters. Chinese
archaeologists have suggested that this might have been the palace
of the daughter of Madame Wcn-chi, who had been married to a
chieftain of the Hsiung-nu in a.d. 19$ but eventually was forced
to return to China, leaving her devoted husband and children
behind.
Chinese textiles, too, reached the limits of the civilised world.
The Greek word Seres ("the Silk People") was probably first used
not of the Chinese themselves—of whom the Greeks had no di-
rect knowledge—but of the western Asiatic tribes who traded in
this precious commodity. Direct intercourse with China came
only after Chang Ch'ien's expedition and the establishment of the
Silk Road across central Asia. This great caravan route, leaving
China at the Jade Gate in modern Kansu, crossed central Asia to
the north or south of the Taklamakan Desert, reuniting in the re-
gion of Kashgar whence one branch led westward across Persia to
the Mediterranean world while the other struck south into Gan-
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