THE CHINA (T T TSUI) GALLERY: INTRODUCTION TO LIFE IN CHINA

Burial in China

The custom of burying grave goods with dead bodies lasted a long time, so the artefacts that remain range from Neolithic times (about 5000 BC) to the end of the Ming dynasty (1644). Inevitably, most of them come from the graves of the few with wealth and power; the lives of most people passed into history unrecorded. Elements of this ancient custom live on today in the practice of burning paper representation of luxury goods at Chinese funerals.

Why Did People Bury Things in Graves?

The proper conduct of the burial ceremony has always been a matter of great importance to the Chinese. The soul of a person was believed to leave the body at death, in order to take its place in the spirit world. An elaborate funeral gave the spirits in the next world, as well as the mourners left behind, a clear idea of the rank of the dead person. The separation of body and soul was felt to cause some fear and confusion to the new spirit, so the surviving members of the family tried to provide it with all the support it needed. If they were able to ease its passage into the next world, they reasoned, the dead person would not turn into an evil spirit that would return to make trouble for the living. Containers filled with food and drink provided sustenance on the journey to the spirit world. Other objects found in graves show that life in the hereafter was thought to be much the same as on earth.

Actual items, such as ceramic pillows were considered appropriate grave goods as they made the deceased more comfortable. Sometimes models were used instead of the real thing: the Han dynasty (206 BC-AD 220) burial goods include models of a stove and a sheep pen; a small green Ming dynasty (1368-1644) pottery table is a replica of the sort of table that, full-size, would have been made out of wood. Statues of fierce looking tomb guardians were buried with the corpse to drive away evil spirits.
The things that have survived in Chinese tombs may not represent the total range of grave goods used at the time of the burial. Tomb robbers may have looted some of the more precious items, and fabrics may have rotten away.

Continuity in Burial Customs

Chinese burial practices were not bound to any particular religion, and most people were very fluid with their allegiances.  A rich family might employ both a Daoist and a Buddhist priest to officiate at a funeral, or invite an expert in the Confucian classics to read out texts expressing the value of family ties beyond the grave. In fact, Chinese beliefs about death go back much further than the organized religions discussed here.

Funeral feasts and the offering of food and drink to the spirits have played a part in death rites from the very beginning of China's civilization, and they continue to do so today. Earthenware burial jars painted with bold swirling patterns survive from the Neolithic period, some even containing the remains of food. Royalty and the aristocracy in the Bronze Age (about 1700-221 BC) were buried with vast numbers of vessels for food and drink. For almost every period of the Chinese past it is possible to pick out grave goods connected with eating and drinking.

Changes in Burial Customs

Nevertheless, changes of a very gradual kind did take place and two types of objects illustrate this very well. First, over the centuries, funeral rites moved from being purely spiritual to a more secular focus.

Compare the Neolithic and Bronze Age grave goods with those from the Tang dynasty (618-906). In the earlier period there are puzzling cylinders and discs of jade. We know it was believed they had magic properties and were crucial to communication between this world and the next, but their exact purpose is not understood. By contrast, the fine models of horses and camels, the pottery statuettes of fashionably dressed ladies and the expensive silver dishes and cups, all from Tang times, are familiar as the commodities of a luxury lifestyle.

There is another change to be inferred from the objects. There are not many statues of people and animals among the grave goods of the Neolithic period and Bronze Age as human and animal sacrifices were frequent at these times. The Shang rulers, for instance, took their servants with them into the afterlife and big tombs contained as many as 350 bodies. But by the Han dynasty (206 BC - AD 220) human sacrifice had stopped. Instead, pottery figures representing the attendants, servants and entertainers of the deceased were buried with the corpse. Many of these can be seen at the V&A. There is even a tiny statuette together with the mould from which it was made, indicating that by the Song Dynasty (960-1279) fairly cheap figures could be mass-produced for the less well-off. The famous army of 6000 life-size pottery warriors, discovered in 1974 near the ancient capital of Xi'an in the tomb of the first emperor of China (died 210 BC), marks a transitional stage between the use of human bodies and smaller figurines.

Chinese Sources for Burial