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Han Lacquerware and the Wine Cups of Noin

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Han Lacquerware and the Wine Cups of Noin Bellezza 2003 and the Mystery of the Earliest Tucci 1933 John V. Bellezza. “Ancient Tibet: Peoples from the West. London: Giuseppe Tucci. Secrets of Tibet: Bringing to Light the Forgotten. A Thames & Hudson, 2000. Being the Chronicle of the Tucci comprehensive survey: of Pre- Ryavec 2005 Scientific Expedition to Western Buddhist sites in Upper Tibet Tibet. Translated from the Italian (1992-2002).” Athena Review, 3/ Karl E. Ryavec. “Aerial Survey of edition by Mary A. Johnstone. 4 (2003), online at <http:// Abandoned Agricultural Fields in London; Glasgow: Blackie & Son, www.athenapub.com/ the Ancient Tibetan Kingdom of 1933. 12tibet.htm>. Guge: Recent Findings from 2-foot Resolution Quick Bird Imagery of Van Driem 1998 Huo and Li 2001 Bedongpo and Environs.” Aerial George Van Driem. “Neolithic Huo Wei and Li Yongxian. “Xizang Archaeology Research Group Correlates of Ancient Tibeto- Zhada Xian Piyang-Dongga Yi Zhi Newsletter, 30 (2005): 18-25. Burman Migrations.” In: Roger 1997 Nian Diaocha Yufa Jue” Blench and Matthew Spriggs, eds. Samuel 2000 [Survey and Excavation of the Archaeology and Language. Vol. Piyang-Dongga Site in Zanda Geoffrey Samuel. “The Indus 2. London; New York: Routledge, County, Tibet in 1997]. Acta Valley Civilization and Early Tibet.” 1998: 67-102. Archaeologica Sinica, 3 (2001): In: Samten G. Karmay and 397-426. Yasuhiko Nagano, eds. New Horizons in Bon Studies. Bon Mallory and Mair 2000 Studies, 2. Osaka: National J. P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair. The Museum of Ethnology, 2000: 651- Tarim Mummies: Ancient China 670. all types of wood-based artifacts, Han Lacquerware and the Wine whether vessels, boxes, furniture, musical instruments, arms, Cups of Noin Ula chariots, or coffins. By the Qin (220–206 BCE) and early Han François Louis eras, lacquering had become so Bard Graduate Center, New York prominent a craft that certain vessels were even produced as ‘pure’ lacquer artifacts without a Lacquer work is today recognized recorded his historic find, a wood substrate, using instead as one of the centrally distinctive wooden ear cup with scroll lacquer-drenched ramie fabric to components of Han material ornament from the ruins of a Han build a core. culture (206 BCE–220 CE). What’s command center (Stein 1921, Vol. more, the Former Han period (206 2, 645; Vol. 4, pl. LII). Since As a commodity, lacquer work BCE–8 CE) has come to be Stein’s discovery, and especially was in many respects akin to celebrated as the apogee of over the past forty years, woven silk during the Han era. Chinese lacquer art (see Wang archaeologists have unearthed Both had relatively little intrinsic 1982, 80–99; Prüch 1997; Fuzhou thousands of Han and even pre- material value. Made from 1998; Barbieri-Low 2001; and Li Han lacquer artifacts, several renewable resources, silk and 2004 for further reading on Han hundred of which are fortunately lacquer products, unlike artifacts lacquer). These insights are still in fine condition. made of jade and gold, were relatively recent and entirely the valued primarily on the basis of result of archaeological dis- We now know that the use of their design and manufacture. coveries. Precisely a century has lacquer as a protective, water- This meant that they could be passed since the first proof coating made from the sap made to cater to a relatively broad archaeological discovery and of the lacquer tree (rhus spectrum of the population. Plain identification of a lacquer vessel verniciflua) goes back to Neolithic silk fabric and utensils simply from Han China. In the spring of times in China. But as an varnished in raw brown lacquer 1907, while surveying the Han artistically emancipated craft, were widely available and border fortifications north of lacquering came into its own only essential commodities. But Dunhuang — and just weeks in the late fifth century BCE in the patterned silks with complex before coming upon the state of Chu in southern China. weave structures and glossy, sensational medieval library at the From that time on it was the colored lacquers with artfully Mogao Caves — Aurel Stein dryly preferred means of decoration for painted red and black decoration 48 Fig. 1. Wine cup, dated 2 BCE, from Noin Ula tomb 6. Seen from the side. State Hermitage Museum, St. Peters- burg (photograph © 2005 Daniel C.Waugh). or even gold and silver inlays could be very expensive and functioned above all as means of social distinction. The quality of lacquer Fig. 2. Wine cup, dated 2 BCE, from Noin Ula tomb 6. Seen from the bottom work found in archaeological without handles. State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg (photograph after Umehara 1960, pl. 59). contexts can thus explain much about the wealth and social position of its last owner; it can discoveries in Mongolia and Mountains, about 100 kilometers even illuminate his or her Buryatia, it is worth taking a fresh north of Ulaanbaatar. look at some of the early finds. relationship to the Han imperial Four relatively well-preserved court. Most recently, Han lacquer lacquer cups from Noin Ula have While the discovery of Han artifacts have been reported from been adequately published [Figs. lacquer ware in a military station a number of Xiongnu cemeteries. 1–5]; a few more have been from the ancient Han frontier may While some evidence was reported though not illustrated in not be as spectacular as the finds discovered in tombs in the Tamir the main surveys. Unfortunately, from aristocratic tombs near big River Valley in eastern Arkhangai, no proper excavation report of the towns, it is by no means unusual some 300 kilometers west of tombs was ever prepared, as its or surprising. Lacquered artifacts Ulaanbaatar (Waugh 2006), the potential authors had fallen victim were available everywhere in the majority of finds come from the to Stalinist terror (Maenchen- Han Empire, even though the mountains between Ulaanbaatar Helfen 1965). And the Japanese majority was made in the and Lake Bai- lacquering workshops of central kal north of it and southern China where lacquer (Miniaev trees grew abundantly. Han 1998; Torbat lacquers have even been found in et al. 2003). areas far beyond the ancient Han Of these re- frontier, as far north as Lake Baikal cent finds a and as far west as Begram in lacquered Han Afghanistan (for the Begram finds chariot is see Hackin 1954, 295-297, figs. certainly the 243–249; Mehendale 2005, most extra- 1.4.3). ordinary (Miniaev and The lacquer artifacts from such Sakharovskaia distant sites are still poorly 2006). The understood, despite the fact that most sig- many of them were already found nificant early in the 1920s and 1930s. Although discoveries, widely discussed early on, they however, have received little attention since remain the the major discoveries in the wine cups People’s Republic of China took discovered in center stage. Now, however, in the mid- Fig. 3. Wine cup from Noin Ula tomb 23. Mid-first century light of recent insights on Han 1920s in the CE. National Museum of Mongolian History, Ulaanbaatar lacquer and in view of new Noin Ula (photograph courtesy of Thierry Ollivier). 49 1969, 112). The fourth cup was not discovered by Kozlov, but by Mongolian scholars who inves- tigated the tombs in summer 1927. This cup, found in four fragments, is also inscribed and dated to the year 2 BCE [Fig. 5], but was discovered in tomb 5, which lay in the vicinity of tomb 6. It has always been kept in Ulaanbaatar (Umehara 1944, 16; Fig. 4. Wine cup from Noin Ula tomb 23. Mid-first century CE. State Hermitage Umehara 1960, 29). The two cups Museum, St. Petersburg (photograph after Umehara 1960, pl. 63). now in Ulaanbaatar have recently been shown in two traveling archaeologist Umehara Sueji different tombs, a fact that exhibitions in Europe (Paris 2000, (1893–1983), who was able to appears to have escaped several 147; Bonn 2005, 51), where they study the lacquers extensively later authors (Umehara 1960, 28– were both assigned to tomb 6, soon after their discovery and 32, pls. 59–62). The Russian without any mention of Umehara’s planned on publishing a major expedition of 1924–25 led by Petr account of the 1927 investigations analysis of the site, lost most of K. Kozlov, according to Umehara, or the reports that the uninscribed his research materials during the found an inscribed and dated cup cup [Fig. 3] was found in the inner 1945 napalm bombing of Tokyo of 2 BCE in the large kurgan 6 burial chamber of tomb 23, north and had to reconstruct his book [Figs. 1, 2] and two un-inscribed of the coffin (cf. Trever 1932, 47, manuscript after the war. Finally, cups in kurgan 23, about 100 pl. 29, 1; Rudenko 1969, pl. 48). there has been some confusion meters west of kurgan 6 (Figs. 3, These discrepancies are likely the due to the dividing of the Noin Ula 4). Sergei I. Rudenko later result of oversights by the finds between the State mentions in his inventories of the catalogue authors. The cata- Hermitage in St. Petersburg and Kozlov expedition, published in logues, especially the one from the Museum of Mongolian History 1962, that tomb 23 actually Paris, do, however, have the virtue in Ulaanbaatar. contained four lacquer cups, one of providing outstanding color Umehara explains that the four of which [Fig. 3] had been illustrations of Noin Ula lacquers. returned to Mongolia (Rudenko Han lacquer cups come from three The two cups from tombs 5 and 6 [figs. 1, 2 and 5] carry important inscriptions that identify them as official products manufactured in government workshops for the imperial court. Both share the same basic design of facing birds and spirals, yet they show very different styles: one bold the other tender and fragile.
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