The tomb of a Tang Dynasty noblewoman with distinctive grave items has been unearthed in Shaanxi, China. It incorporates ceramics, bronzes, iron scissors, stoneware, gold and silver artifacts and 19 Persian silver cash. The artifacts and cash enrich our understanding of commerce between Tang Dynasty China and different nations within the seventh century.
Between January 2022 and April 2024, a staff from the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology excavated a collection of historic tombs within the Jiali Village space of Xi’an. Tomb M228 proved significantly notable, due to its high-value, well-preserved artifacts and exactly outlined date. The epitaph, carved on a stone slab, data the tomb as belonging to Ma San Niang, the spouse of Dong Shunxian, a Left Guard of the Imperial Guard in Longxi. She died on Could seventeenth, 698 A.D., at her house in Daixianli. She was 29 years previous.
The world the place she was buried additionally incorporates different tombs of the Dong household, together with one other high-ranking girl — Dong Shaorong, the spouse of Tang Dynasty prime minister Zhang Jiuling. The Dong clan had shut kinship connections to the imperial Home of Li, rulers of the Tang Dynasty. The detailed epitaph supplies new info that helps fill within the blanks within the Dong household family tree and historical past.
Her luxurious grooming artifacts embody a bronze octagonal mirror adorned on the again with flowers and birds, a gold hairpin, a gold comb again intricately adorned with filigree and granulation. They’re exceptionally crafted, as are the silver objects. A silver tripod jar and a silver stemmed goblet are adorned with intricate designs of grape and honeysuckle, a motif imported from the Western Areas on the Silk Street bordering Sasanian Persia. The objects showcase a high-level metalwork that blends native and overseas kinds.
In line with Shi Sheng, a researcher with the Shaanxi Academy of Archaeology, the artifacts found in Ma Sanniang’s tomb present necessary bodily proof of cultural interplay and worldwide commerce in the course of the Tang Dynasty. The presence of Western-inspired designs means that artisans in China’s central plains weren’t solely conscious of overseas aesthetics however have been actively incorporating them into luxurious items. This fusion displays the cosmopolitan nature of Tang society, significantly throughout its peak within the seventh century.
The Sassanid Persian cash additionally attest to how far-reaching the industrial and cultural hyperlinks have been between Tang China and nations to the west. Two of the 19 cash are uncommon sorts stamped with particular symbols. The Persian cash have been extra artifact than authorized tender, buried as objects of status and worth. Ma San Niang was additionally buried with loads of spending cash for the afterlife, although: virtually 1,000 Kaiyuan Tongbao cash threaded on a string have been discovered by her waist and proper leg.
Past their inventive worth, the objects function precious analysis supplies for historians learning financial and cultural connections between China and neighboring civilizations. The mixture of imported design parts and native craftsmanship illustrates how the Tang Dynasty functioned as a crossroads of East-West interplay, reinforcing its status as one of the crucial globally related empires of the medieval world.
