Group of dancers and musicians
AD618-906 Tang Dynasty, China
Chinese Art, Gallery 15, Ground Floor

History and Customs

In the Tang dynasty it was the custom to be buried with objects that represented daily life. Because the Chinese capital was the biggest most cosmopolitan city in the world during the seventh and eighth centuries, burial goods often depict the exotic. This includes camels, foreigners and other representations of life on the Silk Road, the trade route across Central Asia which helped make China so prosperous. Burial objects can also represent high living within China, and this group of figures may be compared to the dancers and musicians that feature in descriptions of lavish banquets in some of the short stories of the Tang dynasty, which are amongst the earliest examples of Chinese fiction.
Though earthenware figures are associated with the Tang dynasty, they were not made throughout the whole period, but mainly in the seventh and eighth centuries.