THE SPACE BETWEEN: Locating "Culture" in Artistic Exchange

Author(s): BONNIE CHENG

Source: Ars Orientalis , 2010, Vol. 38, THEORIZING CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTION
AMONG THE ANCIENT AND EARLY MEDIEVAL MEDITERRANEAN, NEAR EAST AND
ASIA (2010), pp. 81-120
Published by: Freer Gallery of Art, The Smithsonian Institution and Department of the
History of Art, University of Michigan

Stable URL: [Link]

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 BONNIE CHENG

THE SPACE BETWEEN

Locating "Culture" in Artistic Exchange

Abstract
Several late sixth-century stone items of tomb furniture unearthed over the past
decade in north China have reconfirmed the role of the Silk Road in facilitating
exchange between China and regions to its west. Scholars have identified motifs in
the decoration of these tomb elements and linked them to Chinese or Zoroastrian

traditions, searched for discernible narratives, or investigated the deceased's ties

to Central Asia and service as leaders of their communities. While the individuals

buried in these tombs or their ancestors likely hailed from Sogdiana, other features
of the objects defy clear interpretation according to artistic paradigms in either
north China or Central Asia. The tombs also demonstrate a range of affinities with
the traditions of both regions and challenge our assumptions about culture and the
coherency of traditions in the context of exchange.
This essay takes a broad view of these stone objects and examines the occu?
pants, tomb contexts, and the diverse representations on the tomb furniture as a
collective group. Drawing together biographic, iconographic, and archaeological
evidence, together with relevant iconography from examples in museum collec?
tions, I reconsider the methods by which these pieces have been examined and
demonstrate the varied relationships their occupants had to Central Asia and the
local communities they inhabited. I reorient the focus away from distinct markers
of one culture or another toward the larger picture that characterizes the com?
plex identities of individuals in late sixth-century north China. I posit a thematic
rationale for iconographic choices that transcend affiliation with one region or
another and argue that while specific elements may demonstrate affinities with
extant traditions, taken as a whole the general diversity of artistic elements and
burial practices suggests that these individuals occupied a space between paradig?
matic "cultures."

THE TOPIC OF CROSS-CULTURAL INTERACTION presents itself as an inher?

ently unsettling subject. At its simplest, it presumes the transmission of a thing, an
idea, or even a belief system, from one place or space to another. The distance trav?
eled may be short, or it may span several countries or even continents. Exchange
generally incorporates a temporal element ? a lag time ? brief or long, during
which a thing or idea traverses the spaces and minds of individuals who transmit
the object or rearticulate some portion of it. Exchange can elicit a sense of surprise,
in the discovery of a foreign object or idea far from where we perceive its "origin"
or place of manufacture to have been. Roman glass (Fig. 1) or Byzantine coins dis?
covered east of the Yellow River in the Central Plains region of China, for example,
leave us curious about the paths these items traversed, the hands through which

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 1 2

Glass bottle, probably Roman, first they passed, and the circumstances, such as trade, war, or diplomatic lar
to third century ce, excavated in led to their fate buried in the tombs of the medieval elite in China.
Luoyang, Henan. Luoyang Museum.
After James C. Y. Watt et al., eds.,
On one level, these items are the literal products of exchange, taken
China: Dawn of a Golden Age (Newplace to another we remain relatively comfortable in our ability to pinpo
place
York: The Metropolitan Museum of of production ? a space in which they are likely to have been m
Art, 2004), 113
or a context in which a motif held a particular meaning to the viewers f
was likely created. On another level, they act as catalysts for subsequent
2 as agents waiting to be transposed or recast via iconographic, formal, or
Silver ewer, fifth to sixth century, means into another guise. One or more of these various elements may fin
Tokharistan (ancient Bactria), sion in syncretic visions by artisans who borrow them from disparate lo
excavated from the tomb of Li Xian
temporal frameworks and introduce them into new contexts, as is the ca
(d. 569) and his wife Wu Hui (d. 547),
silver ewer found in the sixth-century tomb of Li Xian (Fig. 2). In this s
Guyuan, Ningxia. Guyuan Museum.
After Juliano and Lerner, Monks and instinct may be to trace the process of a motif or shape's alteration, or
Merchants, 98 lous routes of transmutation. This approach is, however, prone to be lim
dearth of evidence that can clearly map key points of change, or challen
improbability of knowing whether the imagery or form was inspired by
knowledge or a portable depiction, or was the product of an imaginative
tion, or even misinterpretation. For instance, while the shape of Li's ewe
of Sasanian metalwork, with fluted and beaded decoration, the division o
into large and small registers and the human head on the handle dist
vessel from contemporary Sasanian products.1 Even more startling ar
the ewer that appear to narrate the story of the Judgment of Paris. Ren
artisan unfamiliar with key iconographic details, a scene in which Paris a
depart for Troy lacks a ship, leaving Helen's right foot awkwardly dangl

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 air.2 But while the anomalous visual curiosities of the ewer challenge our ability to
identify an obvious place of manufacture, it is clear that the object itself was not
made in China.
How we elect to study these items of exchange remains varied. We might, as
other scholars have, explore technological innovations sparked by the introduction
of glass to China or track how the iconography on the ewer was transformed by an
artisan unfamiliar with Greek myths somewhere between the West and where it was
unearthed in northwest China.3 We might investigate the social aspects of exchange
and examine the circumstances that led to Li Xian s possession of the ewer. Did his
rank as general for the Northern Zhou or his one-time post in the region near Dun
huang, a major stop on the Silk Road, allow him to obtain exotic silver? Or was the
vessel the product of imperial largesse, given to him by Emperor Wu, whom he had
protected when the emperor was a child? We might consider how the Roman glass
and the Bactrian ewer demonstrate successive phases of exchange, from the direct
importation of glass or silver made in the west to the transformation of foreign
motifs and materials at sites in Central Asia and Asia Minor, and anticipate their
impact on local production in China.
These approaches share a desire to locate meaning or to find new meanings for
artistic and cultural practices that have, in one form or another, been involved in
a network of exchange. Tracing the transmission of an exotic motif, for instance,
we can pinpoint various phases ? insertion, adaptation, and integration ? and we
can identify historically specific perceptions of a motif until time erases its novelty,
and newer imports displace earlier ones. These methods of approaching the sub?
ject also assume various positions, from the perspective of the object, transported
or altered, to that of the artisan or patron who was somehow responsible for an
image's appearance. By extension, an individuals religious or political affiliations
may represent additional cultural variables in the network of exchange, adding
questions of identity to an already complex scheme.
Late sixth-century stone tomb furniture found in the tombs of Sogdians buried
in north China represent another type of object, which adds a different dimension
to this narrative about cultural exchange. We know of roughly a dozen examples
that date to the final decades of the Northern Dynasties (386-581) and the begin?
ning of the Sui Dynasty (581-609), from tombs across north China. They take one
of three forms: enclosed coffins, open platform-like couches, and house-shaped
sarcophagi.4 Built in the shape of stone and wood structures common in China,
they are decorated using incised or low-relief techniques and bear a host of imagery
associated with Chinese, Zoroastrian, or as yet unidentified traditions. This puz?
zling range of iconography references regions and cultures that span the area west
of China along the Silk Road but is incorporated deliberately and elegantly in a new

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 ritual and visual context?the tradition of Chinese tombs. Unlike the exotic for?
eign imports brought into China, these locally crafted objects complicate the issue
of cultural interaction: what has been exchanged is not simply an object or a (mis?
understood) narrative or form like Greek myths or Sasanian silver, but an intan?
gible cultural idea or belief interpreted through the eyes of an individual patron or
the hands of the anonymous artisan.
A good number of these stone funerary furnishings were found near Chang'an
(modern Xi'an), the capital of the Northern Zhou, Sui, and Tang (609-906 ce)
dynasties and, more crucially, the eastern terminus of the Silk Road (Fig. 3). The
"Silk Road," whose routes wove through Sogdiana (Transoxiana ? modern-day
Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, was the
major artery in the exchange of goods and transmission of religion between China
and the regions to its west. Buddhist cave temples situated near oasis towns, such as
the famous Dunhuang Mogao caves, are vivid testaments to the diversity of picto?
rial and sculptural religious art that began to be constructed in this region in the
fourth century, and objects unearthed from tombs along the routes testify to the
range of silk, glass, and other goods that traversed these pathways in the hands of
merchants.
During the sixth century, when the objects in this study were made, north China
was torn by political conflicts between co-existing western and eastern courts, each
of which lay claim to and sought to unify the two regions.5 This fraught political
atmosphere, which was itself in no small part based upon conflicting notions of
cultural traditions, further complicates our view of the circumstances of exchange.
It is the accretion of many variables ? cultural, artistic, religious ? along these
routes of exchange and their potential transmission to north China that demands a
broader interpretation of the stone funerary furniture, to which I now turn. While
all of the individuals buried in the large tomb structures had ancestral ties to Cen?
tral Asia, and these ties appear corroborated by Zoroastrian-inspired motifs that
recur in the tombs, the objects continue to puzzle scholars because the diversity of
imagery suggests varying degrees of cultural interaction. Some appear explicitly
foreign in iconography; others show affinities with local practices; while still others
appear to integrate a range of traditions. Moreover, they do not conform entirely to
conventional types of funerary structures found in either north China or Central
Asia. Extant art historical analyses tend to assign these objects to strands of one
culture or another, assessed according to the ethnic, religious, or social "identity" of
the deceased, and to gauge their imagery against visual paradigms found in these
separate regions. This comparative method can be a fruitful way to identify specific
motifs and explicate a few individual cases, but discussions that conclude that the
complex iconography thus demonstrates a reduction of distinctive cultural charac

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3
Map of the Silk Road from Sogdiana teristics obscure both the constitutive nature of identity and the creativity inherent
to North China. After Juliano and
in the process of exchange.6
Lerner, Monks and Merchants, 22-23
Excellent studies by historians such as Rong Xinjiang offer insightful remarks
on the complexity of the transformation of these artistic and cultural traditions,
but focus more on examples with striking Central Asian imagery and on textual
sources that document Sogdian communities in ensuing centuries.7 Newer tomb
finds, also having Sogdian occupants but bearing more locally inspired scenes,
complicate the picture adeptly narrated by Rong. Though their iconography is less
explicitly Sogdian, these examples deserve to be considered with the other Sogdian
tombs and compared to local funerary practices of late sixth-century north China.
My aim in this paper is to emphasize exchange as the distinctive feature of the
late sixth century and to see the objects not as deviations from static models, but
as innovative constructions created during a moment of heightened interaction.
While others have explored religious or cultural features of these items and noted
the important historical circumstances of exchange in the late sixth century, this
article aims to reconsider these objects through a theoretical paradigm that show?
cases change as a process that remains constant, but ebbs and flows according to the
pace of history.8 Specifically, I consider how, given the era's instability, the diverse
amalgams of iconography and burial traditions found amongst Sogdian immi?
grants may be more accurately viewed as active constructions from a network of
traditions in an arena that lacked cultural coherency. In times of relative political
stability, traditions could be dictated or controlled from a relatively strong cultural
center such as the seventh-century Tang court at Chang'an. By contrast, the late
sixth century saw no such stability or control, but great conflict and movement with
competing regimes stationed at Chang'an and Ye (near modern Anyang, Henan),
resulting in a diversity of pictorial representation. By adopting this perspective I
do not mean to reject extant interpretations as erroneous, but to reorient the focus
away from a discussion of isolated fragments as distinct markers of one culture

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 or another and towards the larger picture. Instead, I posit a thematic rationale for
iconographic choices that do not rely on strict affiliation to one region or another
but embody an active construction of identity.

The Stone Furnishings and Their Tomb Contexts

About half of the tomb furniture under discussion here was excavated in the first

decade of the twenty-first century; other items were dispersed to museums earlier
in the twentieth century, and extensive study has been hindered by their unusual
iconography. The following is a list of the items of particular interest to this study,
in chronological order:9

1. Incised limestone coffin casing of Li Dan (564 ce)10

Provenance: Northern Suburbs of Xi'an, Shaanxi province
Dynasty: Northern Zhou
Collection: Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology
2. Incised limestone couch of KangYe (571 ce)11
Provenance: Northern Suburbs of Xi'an, Shaanxi province
Dynasty: Northern Zhou
Collection: Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology
3. Incised limestone sarcophagus (573 ce)12
Provenance: Fujia village, Qingzhou (formerly Yidu county),
Shandong province
Dynasty: Northern Qi
Collection: Qingzhou Museum
4. Carved and painted limestone couch of Anlia (579 ce )13
Provenance: Northern Suburbs of Xi'an, Shaanxi province
Dynasty: Northern Zhou
Collection: Xi'an Municipal Institute of Archaeology and
Preservation of Cultural Relics
5. Carved limestone sarcophagus of Shi Jun14
(lit. Lord Shi; Sogdian: Wirkak) (579 ce)
Provenance: Northern Suburbs of Xi'an, Shaanxi province
Dynasty: Northern Zhou
Collection: Xi'an Municipal Institute of Archaeology and
Preservation of Cultural Relics
6. Carved and painted marble couch
Provenance: unknown
Dynasty: late sixth-early seventh century, Northern Dynasties-Sui
Collection: Miho Museum, Shiga prefecture, Japan

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 7. Carved limestone couch15
Provenance: purportedly near Zhangdefu, Anyang, Henan province
Dynasty: date unknown, possibly Northern Qi
Collection: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Musee Guimet, Paris, and
Museum f?r Ostasiatische Kunst, Cologne
8. Carved and painted marble sarcophagus of Yu Hong (592 ce )16
Provenance: Taiyuan, Shanxi province
Dynasty: Sui
Collection: Shanxi Institute of Archaeology

We do not know the tomb occupants connected to all of these stone furnishings.
In cases where the occupants are identified by epitaphs found in the graves, I have
underlined their names (surname first) as they will be referenced in this article.
The marble couch in the Miho collection was looted and sold on the antiquities
market, and the piece from Yidu and the couch from Anyang were unearthed early
on from their original contexts and lack excavation reports. These pieces are con?
nected to Sogdians based on iconographic similarities.
This tomb furniture dates roughly to the last half of the sixth century and half
the examples were found in the region around Chang'an. The rest were found fur?
ther east at sites in the Central Plains region. Decorated using a variety of tech?
niques, they take one of three general forms: a coffin (guan ftO constructed of six
stone panels (e.g., Fig. 4); a house-shaped sarcophagus or "stone chamber" (guo
or tangl^t) made of multiple slabs (e.g., Fig. 5); or an open platform "couch" or
funerary bed (chuang or ta ff}) surrounded on three sides by decorated panels
(e.g., Fig. 6). The enclosed sarcophagi of Wirkak and Yu Hong each consist of a low
platform with a decorated front facade and four walls with painted or low-relief
imagery on the interior or exterior, and a sloping stone roof. Beams, brackets, and
the roof were rendered in stone on Wirkak's sarcophagus, and modeled after tim?
ber-frame construction, giving it the appearance of an aboveground dwelling; and
four stone pillars inserted into bases supported the roof that extended out in front
of Yu Hong's sarcophagus. The couches of Kang Ye and An Jia are not dissimilar to
the sarcophagi, with a low platform and decorated base, but remain open struc?
tures, with vertical panels lining the back and two sides of the platform. Low, tower?
like sculptures frame the front edge of a few of these pieces (e.g., the Miho couch),
acting as a gateway to the platform on which corpses have been found.
The majority of these stone couches and chambers are diverse in their assem?
blage of images, lack identifiable narrative orientations, and vary in their manner
of representation. The present discussion will focus largely on the four excavated
pieces from Chang'an, belonging to Li Dan, Kang Ye, Wirkak, and An Jia, with com

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 4
Incised stone coffin, tomb of Li Dan parisons to the other examples where relevant. The earliest of these stone funerary
(d. 564), Xi'an, Shaanxi. After Guojia
furnishings, belonging to Li Dan, is the only known example of a coffin containing
wenwu ju, 2005 Zhongguo zhongyao
a Sogdian occupant. It is also the simplest in iconography, with conventional Chi?
kaogufaxian, 125
nese representations of the four directional animals: dragon, tiger, phoenix, and the
"black warrior" (xuanwu found on the four sides, and celestial representa?
5 tions, stars and the mythical deities Fu Xi and Nu Wa on the lid. The phoenix sits
Carved stone sarcophagus, tomb of
above a rendering of a doorway on the front or head end of the coffin, a trope seen
Wirkak (d. 579), Xi'an, Shaanxi. After
on coffins of the early sixth century in Luoyang and earlier. This panel includes an
Wenwu (2005), no. 3, fig. 16
additional motif underneath the doorway, however: a fire altar, the only motif that
alludes to Zoroastrianism. Imagery on Kang Ye's couch is also incised, with twelve
6
scenes lining the inner surface of the four slabs that surround the back and sides
Carved stone couch, tomb of An Jia
of the open platform. Kang's couch is also filled with what appears to be conven?
(d. 579), Xi'an, Shaanxi. After Shaanxi
sheng kaogu yanjiusuo^z'a? Bei
tionally Chinese iconography: scenes of a main male figure (likely Kang) shown in
ZhouAnJiamu,p\.i landscape settings with attendants, or seated at leisure under architectural struc?
tures. These scenes will be described in more detail below. An Jia's couch is similarly
decorated, but here twelve scenes show a variegated cast of Central Asian characters
with long hair and large noses (Fig. 7). And while figures dressed in flowing robes
common to north China appear near a Chinese-style palace in one scene, other
scenes show a diverse array of figures hunting, banqueting, or encamped in domed
yurts and diversely styled structures that are not native to China.

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7

7
Scenes from the An Jia couch. After A more sequential arrangement of scenes is found carved in low relief on three
Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Xi'an
sides of Wirkak's sarcophagus. Beginning on the west wall and continuing to the
Bei Zhou An Jia mu, fig. 37
north and east walls, ten scenes appear to chart Wirkak's life from his youth, hunt?
ing and traveling amidst caravans and attendants, to his passage over the Cinwad
bridge and ascension into the afterlife (see Fig. 13). Several scenes, including one
on the west wall that appears out of this sequence, contain deities or figures whose
identities are still unknown. The front facade has a massive doorway flanked by
two guardian figures in high relief. The right and left edges of this front facade are
divided into three tiers that roughly mirror each other: at the top, a cluster of musi?
cians play Central Asian instruments (e.g., the pipa), in the middle, two figures
flank a large carved window with slats, and, at the bottom, a fire altar tended by
a half-man, half-bird magus or priest-bird. Additional figural and animal details
decorate the base of this sarcophagus
In lieu of a separate epitaph found in the other excavated tombs, an inscrip?
tion was mounted above the doorway on the front facade of Wirkak's sarcophagus.
The only dual Chinese-Sogdian inscription from these tombs, the texts narrate
Wirkak's Central Asian ties and his official posts, and conclude with the dedication
of the stone sarcophagus (shitang lit. "stone chamber") by his sons in the
hopes that Wirkak and his wife would find eternal peace in the afterlife.17 The pro?
claimed eschatological wishes accord with the scenes of ascension into the afterlife,
but such a sequential narrative does not clearly exist on any of the other couches or
coffins listed here, though they may be organized according to a different pictorial
logic. Even more remarkable, such pictorial representations are virtually unknown
in Central Asia, despite vivid textual descriptions that narrate the fate of the soul
according to Zoroastrian beliefs.
The remaining examples have variations on these general iconographic themes,
with further variations in height, technique, and material distinguishing the funer?
ary furnishings. Despite structural differences, the Miho couch and Yu Hong
sarcophagus share strong Central Asian iconography and style, and were both dec?
orated in low-relief on marble slabs bounded by a scrolling decorative border. As
on the An Jia couch, a host of Central Asian peoples occupy these scenes of hunting,
tribute, and banqueting. A few distinct scenes, which have garnered much scholarly
attention, will be discussed below.

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 I have excluded from the present discussion tombs that, though they may share
iconographic similarities to some of those described above, did not have Sog
dian occupants, or those for which we lack knowledge of the tomb occupant or
context. For instance, two late sixth-century coffins offer useful comparisons to
the Li Dan coffin.18 Both bear an incised limestone dragon and tiger on the long
panels of the coffin and the inclusion of immortals and landscape details shows
affinities to stone coffins from early sixth-century Luoyang. Yet the lids are deco?
rated with unidentifiable creatures surrounded by pearl-roundel designs similar
to those found lining the edges of other Sogdian couches, including that of Kang
Ye. The iconography of a granite couch uncovered at Tianshui, its tomb occupant
also unknown, is more varied than the other examples. The panels are consider?
ably taller than the limestone examples such as those from Kang Ye's or An Jia s
couch yet bear thematic similarities, e.g., hunting, drinking, and feasting. And
while pavilions and landscape settings are present on other examples, the com?
positional rendering of perspective, particularly the angled views of pavilions and
winding corridors, appears more sophisticated in these scenes.19 The presence of
innovative motifs on these examples suggests that the adaptation of artistic tradi?
tions was not restricted to Sogdian immigrants but was a wider phenomenon that
merits further study.
The tombs of the known Sogdians were constructed in a manner consistent
with local tombs in north China: single-chamber earthen or brick tombs with
long, sloping passageways (Fig. 8). Traces of pigments found on the walls of An
Jia and Kang Ye 's tombs suggest that they originally had murals, like the graves of
contemporary local elites, but aside from representations of guards in the pas?
sageway of An Jia's tomb, these painted images are largely indecipherable. On the
other hand, the local practice of burying clay figurines in the grave is noticeably
absent from all of these tombs except in the case of Yu Hong in Jinyang (modern
Taiyuan). About sixteen figurines were found in this Sui-dynasty tomb, the latest
of the Sogdian burials listed above. Compared to contemporary figurine assem?
blages, Yu s group was quite small in number, but the representation of musi?
cians and civil officials is consistent with types found in Chinese graves. The white
marble material and lotus pedestal bases, unusual for tomb figurines, suggest an
unusual connection to Buddhist sculpture. Four large figurines made of granite
have drawn even more attention because they appear to represent Sogdians, with
deep-set eyes and large noses, grasping ewers resembling Li Xian's in shape (see
Fig. 2), and rendered with several items such as pouches affixed to their belts that
suggest that they may have been itinerant merchants.20 While one may argue that
regional differences between Jinyang and Chang'an account for the inclusion of
figurines in Yu's tomb, figurines were typical of large-scale graves in Chang'an

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8
Aerial view of tomb and passageway, during the Northern Zhou, making their absence in Sogdian tombs of the region
Wirkak tomb. After Wenwu (2005),
(especially Kangs, whose couch favored scenes with Chinese-style imagery) an
no. 3, fig. 4
interesting commonality21
The most compelling arguments linking these recent discoveries relate to three
features of the graves: their occupants' ancestral ties to regions in Central Asia, the
official rank of many of the deceased as a sabao (j??Jtf), a civic or religious leader of
a foreign community in the late sixth century, and imagery that alludes to the Zoro
astrian religion. These features highlight the deceaseds Central Asian connections,
even though they ranged from relatively recent arrivals in China such as Yu Hong,
who was a debuty sabao and from Yuguo (^H), the "land of fishes" or Wirkak,
who ascended in office to be sabao of Liangzhou (/JsM, the region centered around
Guzang ^ijll, modern Wuwei, Gansu) and was from the region known as Shiguo
() > to Kang Ye, a distant descendant of a Sogdian king who ruled the region near
modern-day Samarkand (Kangju guowang KMSffi) or An Jia, who was sabao of
Tongzhou ( modern Dali, Shaanxi) but hailed from Guzang.22 Wirkak's wife,
who was buried with him, was also from Kangguo (BHH) near Samarkand.
Many of these Sogdian immigrants spent a large portion, if not all, of their lives
in north China during a crucial period of political instability. China at this time and
for the previous centuries was divided into a series of short-lived territories known
collectively as the Northern and Southern Dynasties (386-589). The Northern
Dynasties included the Northern Wei (386-533), Western Wei (535-556), Eastern
Wei (534-550), Northern Zhou (557-581), and Northern Qi (550-571). The succes?
sive Southern Dynasties had their capital at Jiankang (modern Nanjing), while the
Northern Dynasties ruled from multiple capitals, at times concurrently, in north
China, including Pingcheng (modern Datong), Luoyang, Ye, and Chang'an, located
across the northern terrain. No fewer than thirty official rulers reigned over the five

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 northern "dynasties," including numerous short-lived and puppet emperors. With
power and territory changing hands so frequently, rarely did one ruler's initiative
survive more than a generation. The Northern Wei, the longest-enduring dynasty
of these centuries, was among the few to leave a legacy of reforms.
At the heart of these political struggles were long-standing tensions between
nomadic invaders and local Chinese that began after Luoyang fell to foreign con?
querors in 319 ce and the Jin (265 - 420 ce ) court fled south to Jiankang. Numerous
nomadic leaders set up small kingdoms across north China and fought for another
century, until the Northern Wei reunified the territory under their rule. Leaders from
various nomadic tribes lay claim to fragmented regions during the two hundred
years of the Northern Dynasties, a time historians call the "era of the five barbarians"
[wuhu shidai S?^H^ft], referring to the nomadic groups that lived in the north?
ern region of what is now Inner Mongolia. Although there is no consensus over
which five tribes comprised the "barbarians," the most commonly accepted include
the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Di, Qiang, and Jie tribes. Of these groups of non-Chinese, a
branch of the Xianbei known as the Tuoba gradually conquered the competing
nomadic tribes and ruled as the Northern Wei. These Tuoba-Xianbei rulers greatly
facilitated exchange between north China and the West, but access to trade routes
was at times limited as they continued campaigns against the Southern Dynasties
and fought against other nomadic groups in the steppe regions to their north.

Sogdian Traces
Sogdians, the people primarily responsible for mercantile activities along the Silk
Road's network of settlements, were characterized as itinerants without a bounded
nation. Sogdian trade caravans that traversed the Silk Road could be enormous in
size. Official histories record entourages, led by sabaos, of over two hundred mer?
chants with six hundred camels carrying over ten thousand bolts of silk.23 The
sabao, a term that appears in Chinese sources until the mid-Tang, is believed to
have been a high-ranking post for foreigners, but scholars do not agree on its pre?
cise scope. One view argues for a secular interpretation of the post, that sabaos were
political leaders in Iranian Central Asian communities, but that another lower
ranking office, the xianzheng (|^IE) or xianzhu was responsible for reli?
gious matters.24 Another interpretation, offered by Luo Feng and Antonino Forte,
regards it as a religious post, but also one that involved matters of trade.25 Jiang
Boqin's discussion highlights the notion that the role existed during a period of tol?
erance and was accorded special status by the government of the Northern Dynas?
ties which lasted into the Tang. He argues that the sabao was responsible not only
for tribute expeditions that came into China, but also for large settlements of the
descendants of earlier Sogdian traders. While scholars disagree on the religious or

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9
Fire altar above doorway leading into secular nature of the office, they nonetheless concur that the person who held this
An Jia tomb. After Shaanxi sheng
post was a member of the aristocracy in Sogdian society, or someone who owned
kaogu yanjiusuo, Xi'an Bei Zhou An
more than one hundred servants. It is also clear that sabao derives from a term for
Jia muy fig. 15
a merchant leader, which indicated the head of a caravan of several hundred mer?
chants.26 Epitaphs from the graves discussed here link about half of the individuals
interred within them to this high-ranking Sogdian post; the remaining individuals
either lacked an epitaph or remain unidentified.
The Sogdian religion was an indigenous development of ancient Iranian reli?
gious traditions, influenced not only by "orthodox" Zoroastrianism as developed
in Sasanian Persia, but also by Hinduism, Manichaeism, and Christianity. The Sog?
dian homeland nurtured a robust tradition of religious architecture and monu?
mental painting.27 Sogdian religion and its visual culture often unified Sogdians
where political or geographic boundaries did not, so it is no wonder that one of
the strongest commonalities linking the tombs and therefore the deceased within
them are the motifs that reference this religion. Representations of the Cinwad
Bridge and native deities on Wirkak's sarcophagus (Fig. 13), or a funerary ritual on
the Miho couch (Fig. 12), allude directly to Sogdian beliefs and practices from the
perspective of both the deceased and mourners.28 The affiliation with Sogdiana on
other stone funerary furniture varies in degree from the explicit depiction of Zoro
astrian deities and scenes to more abbreviated versions of motifs that make a more

general reference to the region.

The fire altar is the most frequently recurring motif on these objects and appears
on each type of stone structure or elsewhere in the related tomb: under the fictive
doorframe on the front end of Li Dan's coffin, on Wirkak's sarcophagus, and above

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10

Figure of the goddess Nana, Miho the lintel of the doorway leading into An Jia's tomb (Fig. 9). The altars are in some
couch. After Juliano and Lerner,
instances tended by a half-human, half-animal "magus" or "priest-bird" whose
Monks and Merchants, 309, fig. J
mouth is concealed by a pad?m (mouth cover) so its breath will not pollute the
sacred fire (see Fig. 12). But while An Jia, Wirkak, and Yu Hongs funerary structures
11
include additional Central Asian and Zoroastrian iconography, the fire altar incised
Unidentifiable deity, west wall, on Li Dan's coffin and a similar-looking motif on Kang Ye's couch are the only ref?
Wirkak sarcophagus. After Wenwu
erences to Zoroastrianism in their tombs. No priest-bird tends the altar in these
(2005),no.3, fig. 33
representations, and other features incised on the structures mute the allusion to
Zoroastrianism. We will return to these two examples below.
Scholars have been able to identify specific deities that explicitly reference Zoro?
astrianism post-mortem beliefs in a few scenes found on some of these structures.
The four-armed Nana is depicted on one of the rear panels of the Miho couch (Fig.
10); while a more tenuously identified Weshparkar appears at the top of the east
wall of Wirkak's sarcophagus (see Fig. 13).29 The majority of these otherworldly
figures, however, remain either unidentified or the subject of unresolved debates
(Fig. 11). Despite our inability to identify them precisely, their larger size, position
in the upper tiers of the compositions, and the fact that they are flanked by winged
figures, framed by a mandorla, or sit on a lotus base?all conventional modes of
presenting Buddhist deities?support the speculation that they are sacred figures.
More conclusive arguments have been made for the identification of two other
scenes on the Miho couch and Wirkak's sarcophagus. Their iconography is cor?
roborated by Central Asian textual and visual sources, and in their representation

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12

Funerary ritual (detail), Miho couch. of mourning and the imagined post-mortem journey of the soul they draw more
[Link]
specific links to Zoroastrian practices. The first scene, on the Miho couch, depicts
imgbig/[Link]
a priest who wears zpad?m and tends a fire (Fig. 12). Four of nine figures behind
him kneel and hold knives up to their faces; others meditate below in a landscape
alcove of sorts. Several scholars have discussed this composition, identifying it as
a Zoroastrian funeral ceremony, following the exposure of the corpse to be con?
sumed by animals and linking the presence of a dog to the sagdid rite, in which the
glance of the dog is believed to drive away evil or defiled spirits. Frantz Grenet notes
that despite the fact that the practice of face cutting is condemned in Zoroastrian
texts it is frequently depicted on Central Asian ossuaries. This detail is further cor?
roborated by murals such as those at Panjikent.30 The second scene, which spans
two panels on the east wall of Wirkak's sarcophagus, presents a host of figures and
animals crossing the Cinwad Bridge over hell (Fig. 13), identified by the heads of
monsters capping the pillars of the bridge and among torrential waves below. Other
details of the scene depicted here, two dogs and flames found at the lower right
edge, are interpreted as guardians of the bridge and the fires that aid the soul to
cross it. Grenet and others have identified the two larger figures at the front of the
party on the upper left of the scene as Wirkak and his wife, and the rocks above
them, which divide the human realm from the deities above, as the "mountain over
which the soul ascends."31

Within these scenes scholars have noted iconographic deviations from visual
conventions in Central Asia, writing that "many details (are) executed roughly
or wrongly" because Chinese artisans were less familiar with the imagery, per?
haps only given limited instruction by their Sogdian patrons. The domed pavil?
ion found in scenes from the An Jia, Yu Hong, and Miho pieces (see Figs. 7 and
17), for instance, is "characteristic of Sogdian architecture according to the Chinese
imagination. However, its details are not Sogdian but combine different, mostly
Buddhist elements."32 This recalls the Bactrian artisan's incomplete depiction of the
Greek myth on Li Xian's ewer, but it is less certain how knowledge of an original
architectural model might have been transmitted and adapted to these stone carv

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 13
Cinwad Bridge and unidentified ings. In Valentina Raspopova s reading of the Miho couch, renderings of costume
deity, east wall, Wirkak sarcophagus.
and posture are described as "mistakes" compared to earlier prototypes. Observa?
After Wenwu (2005), no.3, fig. 43
tions of subtle misunderstandings, compositional compromises, or substitutions
of more familiar artistic conventions ? characterized as "distortions" by some
scholars ? tell us that the tomb structures were likely produced by local artisans
drawing from diverse sources, and demonstrate how a conventional motif with one
meaning can be transformed within a new, and sometimes jarring, context. For
instance, seemingly harmless rocky settings, commonly used to position figures
in a landscape, apparently evoke "wild distant lands where heroic adventures are
possible and dangerous animals lie."33 While it may be the case that an artisan was
unfamiliar with the specific attributes of a deity or other iconography requested
by a patron, to describe a single motif as a "distortion" does not explain what the
iconography meant in its newfound context, assembled with pictorial tropes of the
local Chinese.34 If we relinquish the notion that artistic and cultural systems are
closed, and resist evaluating imagery against paradigms in distant regions, then
these "mistakes" will stand on their own as the actively constructed innovations of
Sogdian immigrants in a newfound cultural context.

Adapted Structures of Stone: Substitutes for Ossuaries?

Isolated inscriptions and motifs found on tomb furniture indicate how these
funerary objects may have been viewed as innovative constructions by Sogdians
in the north China context. Wirkak's sons built a "god-house" in the hopes that
Wirkak and his wife would find eternal peace in the afterlife, but the use of a large

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 stone sarcophagus in lieu of a small ossuary suggests a radical departure from Sog?
dian traditions and the adaptation of local burial practices.35 The sons' dedication
accords with the content of the imagery (see above, p.89 and note 17) and appears
to expand the function of the piece beyond that of a small, Central Asian ossuary
to a visualization of a post-mortem journey. Scholars such as Rong have noted that
the larger surface area of the stone panels and funerary furniture allowed for the
expansion of compositions of musicians and dancers that have been found on Cen?
tral Asian ossuaries.36

In discussions of the function of these pieces, most scholars recognize that the
adoption of Chinese burial traditions by elite Sogdians followed the growing set?
tlements of their people in the Guanzhong and Central Plains regions; but some
scholars have focused on continuities between their stone funerary furniture and
Zoroastrian practices; others have concentrated on Sogdian acculturation. The for?
mer argue that the stone structures naturally took the place of depositing bones in
ossuaries (ast?d?n), the normal Sogdian aristocratic practice in Transoxiana. They
have compared stone couch-beds and house-shaped sarcophagi, neither of which
are explicitly described in medieval Chinese sources, to dakmas (exposure plat?
forms), citing the importance of Zoroastrian proscriptions against the inhumation
of the body for fear of polluting the earth.37 The Persian word dakma (derived from
Avestan daxma) has come to have a more restricted meaning?towers dedicated to
the exposure of corpses for carrion birds to consume ? but in antiquity could refer
to a wide variety of funerary furniture and architecture.38 Carved from the living
rock, or built from stone and lime specifically because they are less porous materi?
als, exposure platforms prevented impurities from the corpse entering the ground
while carrion birds removed the most ritually polluting element, the flesh.39 If the
deceased had disposable income, after the bones were exposed his family members
might deposit them in an ossuary (especially popular in Sogdiana) or a rock-hewn
tomb (popular in Persia, modern Iran); however, the final deposition of the bones
was not religiously mandated and the less well-to-do might simply leave them on
the exposure platform.40 What was of the utmost importance, however, was that
no flesh should come in contact with any of the holy elements of earth, water, or
fire. Although the stone funerary furniture unearthed in north China would have
prevented this, a fact that could have facilitated the Sogdians' acceptance of this
type of funerary architecture, there is otherwise no evidence of continuity with
Zoroastrian treatment of human remains in these burials beyond allusions to these
beliefs in their imagery. None of the excavated corpses of the Sogdians under dis?
cussion here appear to have been exposed to the elements, but many of the graves
were disrupted so the corpses were found in varying states. Yu Hong's skeleton was
in pieces, scattered in the sarcophagus, under the base, and elsewhere in the tomb

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 chamber. Li Dan was found still encased in his coffin. Although Kang Ye was also
found laid out on the stone couch, he was clothed, and though some evidence of
burned material was discovered near the epitaph it appears related to a funerary rit?
ual that involved an animal sacrifice. Clearer evidence of burning was found in An
Jia's tomb, but his bones were located in the corridor, not on the stone couch, even
though his tomb showed no signs that it had ever been disturbed. These bones also
bore no bite marks or evidence that animals had gnawed away the flesh, so archae?
ologists posit an adapted process of disposal rather than a continuation of Zoroas
trian burial practices.41 Moreover, no small clay or stone ossuaries of the type found
in the Sogdians' homeland in Transoxiana have been uncovered in China proper,
nor do oasis towns offer much additional visual evidence of Zoroastrianism like
the elaborate scenes found carved on the structures in this study.
Jiang Boqin has argued against comparing these structures to ossuaries due to
their large size. Direct comparison with archaeological material from Iran and,
more importantly, Sogdiana strengthens Jiang's general observations and offers a
clear contrast between Sogdian aristocratic burials in the homeland and those in
China.42 According to Jiang, when aristocratic Sogdians migrated to China, they
"naturally dispensed with the use of the ossuary for burial and adopted Chinese
style graves." Noting in particular the favor lavished upon foreign artists (such as
the dancers and musicians mentioned below), a result of the popularity of Cen?
tral Asian trends in courts of the late sixth century, he writes, "an inevitable con?
sequence of the large-scale enfeoffment by the Northern Qi of Sogdians and other
Central Asians as princes was a noticeable shift away from Zoroastrian sky burials
to Chinese-style burials." Mary Boyce noted that despite the prevalent practice of
sky burials and the use of ossuaries, some members of the Sogdian royal elite con?
tinued to be buried in mausoleums, but whether or not the shift towards Chinese
style burials was a direct result of "large-scale enfeoffment," or how "natural" or
inevitable the process is debatable.43
The Biographies of Royal Favorites in the Bei Qi shu (History of the Northern Qi)
record that foreign dancers and musicians were granted high status because of their
skills, particularly by the last emperor, Houzhu.44 Jiang implies that these perform?
ers would have been permitted large-scale Chinese-style burials as a result of their
high rank. While textual records indicate the popularity of Central Asian music
at this time, the tomb occupants from excavated Sogdian graves under discussion
appear not to have been the recipients of this type of imperial favor, but descen?
dants of high-ranking officials of substantive posts. What these records do tell us,
however, is that the popularity of Central Asian customs and practices paralleled
the growth in foreign enclaves and the rise in the status of foreign aristocrats in the
last half of the sixth century.

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14

14
Incised dragon and fire altar, Li Dan While scholars concur that Zoroastrian worship existed in China well before
coffin. After Guojia wenwu ju, 2005
the eighth and ninth centuries (but was propagated orally), evidence of the extent
Zhongguo zhongyao kaogu faxian, 126
of religious and cultural exchange with local traditions remains dependent upon
extensive examination of material culture such as these stone funerary furnishings.
Textual and archaeological documents remain vague as to the extent of settlements
contemporary with the Sogdian tombs, but two centuries later, Zoroastrian tem?
ples constructed in four or five wards of eighth-century Chang an attest that the
religion and its community of believers had grown sizable by the Tang.45

Acculturation and Its Limits

Their rank as sabaos and the appearance of explicitly Iranian religious motifs such
as the otherworldly, pad?m-wearing magus on their funerary furniture make it
clear that the deceased maintained certain Sogdian practices, but the juxtaposition
of these motifs with local imagery and customs reveals that they were engaged in a
cultural sphere that was not exclusively Central Asian. Technically, structurally, and
iconographically, these furnishings borrow from an array of funerary traditions
to which their occupants were exposed. It is the inconsistent extent to which they
adopted artistic and burial traditions of north China that problematizes the notion
of cultural coherency.
Two examples in particular, the coffin of Li Dan and the couch of Kang Ye,
appear largely indistinguishable from traditional incised stone structures seen
earlier in north China. The snaking bodies of a dragon and tiger, two of the four
animals of the cardinal directions, incised across the sides of Li Dan's stone cof?
fin make an odd pairing with the fire-altar incised at the base of one end (Fig. 14).
And thin figures clad in the billowy robes of Chinese officials set in lush landscape
scenes populate Kang Ye's couch, even though his epitaph claims he was a direct
descendant of a "King of Sogdiana" (Kangju guo wang BtSBlHi, specifically the
region near Samarkand).46 The limestone material, the mythical creatures, and the
flowing lines immediately conjure up parallels from early sixth-century Luoyang.
This earlier tradition of stone coffins and couches was consistent in its use of lime?

stone and imagery of the four directional animals on side panels, at times includ?
ing large winged immortals astride tigers or dragons and smaller musicians amidst
cloud-filled mountainous landscapes. Figures carved on early sixth-century Chi

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15
Figures in Chinese attire, Kang Ye nese funerary furniture and Buddhist caves were similarly rendered in flowing
couch (line drawing of incised stone).
robes with ribbons trailing in the wind. These images were either executed with
After Wenwu (2008), no. 6, fig. 8
fine, incised lines, or using a distinctive technique in which the background was cut
away and the primary motifs left flat but seemingly in shallow relief.47
Scholars such as Jiang Boqin also draw strong connections between the con?
struction of the Sogdian funerary furnishings and earlier furniture or architecture
found in China, noting that each type ? coffin, couch, and sarcophagus ? has
precedents from the fifth and sixth centuries. Besides the link to Luoyang coffins,
the shape of the stone couches resembles the platforms found in late fifth-century
pictorial representations (see Fig. 18), and the sarcophagi are not unlike stone
chambers from the same era, although with greater technical variation.48 Based on
current archaeological knowledge, these structural forms continued to be used in
tombs of Chinese in early sixth-century Luoyang, but in the later sixth century they
largely appear in the tombs of Sogdians.
It is the iconographic representations on Kang Ye's couch, seen against his Cen?
tral Asian ancestry, that assert a glaring contradiction that is worth further consid?
eration. Groups of figures roaming leisurely in verdant landscapes, the ox-drawn
cart, and the riderless horse are familiar compositions featured among stone carv?
ings from early sixth-century Luoyang, alongside scenes recounting paragons of
filial piety.49 The moral iconography of filial paragons is absent from the late sixth
century tomb furniture of Sogdians, but the incised technique, limestone, and ico?
nography of mythical animals and transport demonstrate a stronger association
to China, depite the tomb occupants' Central Asian ancestry. The extent to which
these examples of tombs and their occupants adopted "Chinese" elements has been
interpreted as evidence of varying degrees of acculturation. Certainly the dress and
hairstyles seen in figural representations are not the trousers, boots, and heads

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 16

16
Ox-cart (left), KangYe (center), carves worn by Central Asians as seen on the funerary furniture of other Sogdians,
caparisoned horse (right), Kang Ye
but the long, flowing robes and stiff caps of north Chinese officials (Fig. 15). The
couch (line drawing of incised stone).
accoutrements of attendants and the trees and details of the lush landscape settings
After Wenwu (2008), no. 6, fig. 29
also align with those found in representations of gardens and architecture on the
Luoyang stone coffins.
The "foreign" element on Kang's couch in fact asserts a curious shift to repre?
senting a new type of foreigner, one associated not with geography but with a lower
social status. Figures of a kind described by archaeologists as foreigners, hu ren (
A) are not representations of Kang but of groomsmen and servants who appear in
only three of ten scenes: the two with the ox-drawn cart and riderless horse and the
scene between them (Fig. 16). In this central scene, a large figure sits on an elevated
curtained platform (in front of decorated panels much like the stone slabs on which
they are depicted) with a traditional Chinese-style hip and gable roof. Because he is
the largest and only figure represented frontally in all of the compositions, scholars
have drawn the reasonable conclusion that this is Kang Ye. The other eight figures
in the scene are all Central Asian men: a pair of wine-bearing attendants to each
side, and a group of four more kneeling below bearing more food and wine. The
use of foreign groomsmen seen in the two flanking scenes is not unprecedented
in Chinese representations, but in the earlier Northern Wei stone coffin tradition,
from which the imagery of Kang's funeral couch is adapted, groomsmen are not
distinguished by such clear foreign physiognomic features as a large nose and large
eyes, but dressed like other Chinese attendants. This element of the decoration on
Kang's couch appears to be an updated late sixth-century feature.
The visual pairing of ox-cart and horse alludes to forms of elite transport in
both north and south China and forms the core of lavish murals of processions
of the later sixth-century. The aristocratic practice of riding in horse-drawn carts

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 in the Han appears to have been replaced by ox-drawn carts some time after the
Han. A passage in the treatise on chariots and robes in the Jin shu (History of the
Jin) notes that ancient nobles did not ride in ox-drawn carts, but after the weak?
ening of the Han from the time of Emperor Ling and Emperor Xian (late sec?
ond century ce) officials rode them in certain stages of mourning rites. Perhaps
to indicate the growing association of the ox-cart with the wealthy, the treatise
also describes a contemporary carriage hitched to an ox with wheels and spokes
painted with lacquer.50 It is unclear precisely when the ox-cart began to be paired
with the caparisoned horse, but visual evidence dates back several centuries and
appears in both funerary and Buddhist contexts. As a longstanding convention
this trope could take on gendered implications because the horse was generally
depicted with a man and his male attendants and the cart with a woman and her
female entourage.51 While all but one of the remaining panels of Kang's couch are
divided into male or female scenes of audiences, riders, or processions in forest
settings, the ox-cart and riderless horse are shown with no clear gender associa?
tion. Instead, they are depicted at rest, surrounded by large-nosed groomsmen
and attendants who stop to share a drink or assemble around the horse, shown
unconventionally from the rear. Flanking the central image of Kang, both com?
positions appear to refer to the deceased's social position by associating him with
elite forms of transport.
One might argue further that the main male figures in other scenes on the couch
are Kang as well, riding with attendants and seated at leisure. Scholars argue that
the predominantly Chinese style of representation indicates that, following his
arrival in north China in the 530s, Kang assimilated to Chinese culture more readily
than An Jia, Yu Hong and others who occupied the sabao post and came into more
frequent contact with Sogdian communities.52 Thus, despite Kang's Central Asian
ancestry, proclaimed in his epitaph, scenes on his funerary couch render his image
in the manner of an elite Chinese. Traces of clothing found on Kang's body indi?
cate that his corpse was not exposed, as adherence to Zoroastrian practices would
have demanded. Yet the biography narrated in his epitaph emphasizes his links to
Central Asia. He assumed his post following his father's death in 563, and gave his
three sons, who engaged in mercantile activity (huozhu jtzE), "typically foreign
names."53 Archaeologists also note that plant ash discovered in the center of the
chamber between epitaph and couch and the presence of animal bones elsewhere
in the tomb suggest some unidentified ritual practice.54 The presence of a fire altar
on Li Dan's coffin may allude generally to Zoroastrian beliefs, but his tomb bears
no other detectable Zoroastrian element. Although Li was also of foreign ancestry,
his coffin lacks scenes of human activity so we have no sense of how he may have
represented himself.55

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 Neither Kang s couch nor Li's coffin bears the priest-bird or Cinwad Bridge
motifs found on other sarcophagi that reference Zoroastrian beliefs.56 Although no
priest-bird tends the altar on Li Dan's coffin, the five incised curling lines represent?
ing flames or smoke emitted from a basin support the Zoroastrian identification
of this motif as a Zoroastrian fire altar. But the identification of a vessel on Kang
Ye's couch as a fire altar is more doubtful. Situated before Kang Ye on the steps of a
pavilion (see Fig. 16), this small vessel appears similar in shape to the motif incised
on Li's coffin, but lacks any indication of flames or smoke. Its religious meaning if
any is certainly lost within the larger composition.
It bears noting that the borrowed stone-carving tradition had been popular half
a century earlier in Luoyang but, based on current knowledge, was uncommon in
contemporary Chang'an burials. It may also be worth considering that these two
incised stone examples from Chang'an are the earliest known examples of Sogdian
funerary furniture (dated 564 and 571 ce), suggesting perhaps that there was a
more limited repertoire of Zoroastrian motifs available to local artisans at this time.
While the iconography of these incised pieces makes clear that, compared to other
Sogdians buried in Chang'an, Li and Kang eschewed Sogdian imagery for scenes
more typical of Chinese traditions, they did not fill their graves with additional
tomb furnishings, except a few Roman coins. The degree of their "assimilation"
thus did not extend to the practice of interring the body with ceramic figurines or
models common in north China.
It is tempting to assert, as others imply, that Kang and Li wanted to identify with
Chinese traditions by selecting the limestone coffin or couch, incised stone-carv?
ing technique, and fluid figural style. Or that deceased with strong Sogdian affilia?
tions, like Wirkak and Yu Hong, favored burial in house-shaped sarcophagi carved
in shallow relief with greater Central Asian flavor. Perhaps there is something to
be said for the role material or technique played in limiting the iconographic rep?
ertoire from which different artisans drew, since the couch form has been found
made of marble, limestone, and granite, and its decoration rendered using incised,
carved, and painted techniques. But the presence of the ox-cart and horse on a
limestone example (Kang) and also on those with clearer Central Asian imagery
(e.g., Yu Hong, Miho) argues that despite stylistic or material discrepancies, select
motifs may not have marked affiliation with one region or another, but stood for a
feature such as elevated status that transcended geographic bounds.

Aristocratic Pursuits
Whereas the diverse imagery and structural variations of these funerary furnish?
ings reveal a range of affiliations with Sogdiana and China, the theme of aristo?
cratic pursuits unifies much of the general iconography. Some of the most striking

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 images carved on these stone structures are dynamic hunt scenes, regal banquets,
or scenes of tribute set in a variety of contexts and featuring a diverse cast of Sog
dians, Turks, and Chinese (see Figs. 17 and 20). Noted for their early representa?
tions of non-Chinese figures (and clear signs of interaction between north China
and Central Asia), such scenes feature long-haired Turks atop Bactrian camels
battling tigers, entertainers dancing the "Sogdian whirl" that would become the
rage during the Tang, and yurt-like and domed structures characteristic of the
itinerant Sogdian lifestyle. But looking beyond the innovative elements (e.g., a
rhyton, scenes of tribute) and the depiction of non-Chinese physical attributes
and attire on the figures, the more general iconographic repertoire from which
these images are drawn is not that of activities exclusive to the Sogdian elites, but
of activities pursued also by their counterparts in China and featured in mural
representations of contemporary Chinese, as in the tomb of Xu Xianxiu (d. 571);
see Fig. 19). Seated under a canopied platform depicted on the north wall opposite
the entrance of the chamber, Xu and his wife enjoy a feast presented by atten?
dants while being entertained by musicians, not insignificantly playing Central
Asian instruments such as the bent-necked pipa. The ox-drawn cart and capari?
soned horse (see above, p. 102) form the center of a procession of groomsmen
and attendants on walls flanking the central banquet scene and leading out along
the walls of the passageway. A mid-seventh-century epitaph offers a description
of what appears to have been a popular convention and the source of such com?
positions: "There are a hundred family retainers, and the family holds immense
wealth (many tens of thousands). They invite their guests and neighbors to great
banquets and their carriages surround their gates. They dress in brocades and
pearls and have the finest delicacies brought in. Their banquets are accompanied
by orchestras, and they ride forth in groups."57
Nearly every one of the Sogdian stone tomb furnishings includes a banquet
scene, despite the variation in their cast of figures and religious deities, discern?
ible narrative orientation, or pictorial structure. As in the mural from Xu Xianxiu s
tomb described above, a man and a woman sit under a canopy-like structure with
food and drink before them in a scene from the Miho couch (Fig. 17). Attendants
flank the edges of the space below them and, between them in the center, a man
dances the "Sogdian whirl." Several panels on An Jia's couch contain a version of
these types of activities (see Figs. 7 and 20); Yu Hongs banquet even occupies a
primary position centered on the back panel inside his sarcophagus, set against the
north wall of the chamber opposite the door to the sarcophagus and entrance to
the tomb.58 While details of banquet scenes on the stone chambers or couches are
distinctively Sogdian, e.g., the domed shelters or accoutrements, or what appears
to be a giant circular rug spread out for Wirkak s outdoor banquet, the basic com

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 ess? - jk^^^^^^^^^bSBb^b^^^B

17

17
Banquet scene, Miho couch. After positional structure?a platform with food and drink, attendants, musicians,
Juliano and Lerner, Monks and
and sometimes dancers ? can be found on both carved stone objects and painted
MerchantSj29$
murals in China.
These types of aristocratic pursuit, like the representations of elite forms of
transport discussed earlier, suggest an important link between the traditions of
Central Asia and those of north China and a plausible rationale for the conjoin?
ing of artistic practices in the tombs of elite Sogdians. Rong notes that in addition
to iconography more commonly seen in temple imagery in Central Asia, subjects
such as hunting, rites, and banquets were added to Sogdian burials in north China,
but that in some circumstances their meaning was altered.59 The varying degree to
which imagery alludes to Zoroastrian practices obscures the strict religious iden?
tities Sogdian inhabitants transmitted to late sixth-century north China, but the
depiction of shared pursuits?banquets, audiences, hunting?draws deliberate
parallels between the social identities and practices of elite Chinese and Sogdians.
The imagery of Wirkak's sarcophagus may narrate his passage over the Cinwad
Bridge and contain representations of specific deities, but one still finds hunting
and banqueting scenes that gesture to his elevated status. Scenes of face-cutting or
the Cinwad Bridge suggest a direct relationship to Zoroastrian funerary rituals and
beliefs, but representations of fire altars appear subdued next to the dragon and
tiger that dominate Li Dans coffin. And they are barely perceptible amidst scenes
of leisurely pursuits of men and women with entourages, outfitted in the flowing
robes of Chinese elite officials, and the trope of the ox-drawn cart and horse. This
pair of images, a marker of an aristocratic lifestyle and found on the Miho, An Jia

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 and Kang Ye couches, was one of the most recognizable elite symbols among the
artistic traditions of north China. They form the core of elaborate processions, as in
Xu Xianxiu s tomb, and the frequency of their depiction in funerary and Buddhist
contexts suggests that their meaning would not have been lost to contemporary
viewers.

"Intercultural" Paradigms
Theoretical debates about intercultural exchange have proliferated alongside
modern studies of globalization and its after-effects and in postcolonial critiques
of power. Interest in these power dynamics prompted earlier theorists to examine
larger social systems and their role in cultural transformations.60 They, in turn, have
subsequently been criticized for depicting individual agents as powerless and inef?
fective in bringing about any form of social transformation. These theorists largely
engage the contemporary global scene, and such abstractions may be inappro?
priate as analytical strategies for eras that were nowhere near as extensive in their
contacts. Nonetheless, the nomenclature used to couch discussions of premodern
cultural exchange has shifted alongside these contemporary debates. Terms such
as "influence" or "evolution," previously used to explain changes, have given way
to less hierarchical expressions such as "transformation" and "accommodation" in
analyses of how people outside an empire came to live within it and rule it, e.g., the
Goths in Roman territory, or the Tuoba-Xianbei who moved into north China in
early medieval times.61 Thus, attention to these discussions, particularly regarding
how the topic of exchange can be productively reframed, is useful for our investiga?
tion of the circumstances of Sogdian and Chinese interaction.
Despite widespread acceptance of medieval Chinas political and cultural com?
plexity, first and foremost with regard to the Xianbei and Chinese conflicts in north
China, scholars continue to interpret features of the stone funerary furnishings as
separate components of the overall historical picture. The tendency is to character?
ize them according to discernible parallels, noting visual or structural similarities;
to consider them as alterations of borrowed or adapted motifs; or to speak of them
simply as "hybridized" or "syncretic" forms. If we proceed along either of these
lines of inquiry, we arrive at one of two conclusions: that all art is intercultural and
derived from some preexisting idea or form, or, more rigidly, that very few visual
traditions or cultures can truly be characterized by hybridity. Yet these interpreta?
tions also shift between perspectives that focus on isolated iconographic features
of the objects or on the biographic and religious affiliations of their owners. Terms
such as "hybrid," "syncretic," "transformation," or "accommodation" characterize
separate components of the larger picture of exchange. The first two refer to the
objects themselves, while the latter two allude to the agent or process of change.

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 Moreover, both types of term or approach become problematic when not given
historic or political grounding, and their characterizations are challenged when
we begin to ask questions of specific contexts, in which we frequently find excep?
tions. In contexts with ample evidence these terms may be a productive means to
investigate the reception of a motif that is repeatedly reconfigured, but they do not
accurately illuminate the salient processes of interaction where, as in the case of
our recently excavated structures, there are few examples with diverse imagery and
textual sources fail to elaborate the meaning of their assemblages.
We might redirect the problem back at ourselves and ask what we seek in our
investigations. What are we examining when we interpret objects of such inher?
ent diversity and complexity? Do we seek knowledge of ancient religions and their
visual representations, or do we seek to determine someone's religious, political,
or "cultural" affiliations? And how, or through what, do these make themselves
known, i.e., what are the visual markers, particularly when the meanings of motifs
appear to have shifted in new contexts or assemblages? Does "assimilation" mean
that one tradition has been relinquished in favor of another? Or are we moving
away from interpretation-related approaches toward questioning how meaning or
identity is constructed? In other words, are we satisfied to continue debates about
the origin of imagery based on distant cultural paradigms, or can we turn toward
investigating what was sought in their innovative assemblage? One approach does
not displace the other, but in contexts in which the pursuit of meaning or a domi?
nant or clear cultural referent eludes us, the more productive approach may be to
focus not on the attribution of meaning, but on our own historical perspective, so
that we reorient our discussion toward the broader processes of exchange.
Jean-Francois Bayart's work on cultural identity serves as a productive theoreti?
cal apparatus to frame late sixth-century north China, and the stone structures in
particular, because it offers a compromise to the paradoxical notion of movement
and stasis inherent in cultural interaction and acknowledges the tension embodied
by a static interpretation of an object from a time of tremendous flux. In Bayart's
view, change is understood not simply as an infrequent, dramatic turning point, but
as a condition that remains constant, subject to ebbs and flows of varying intensi?
ties, or what he has called the "rhythms of cultural change."62 Exchange thus unfolds
as a dynamic that reveals rhythms of circulation and transformation, which can
move swiftly along with events of dramatic historic change, or slowly in eras of rela?
tive stability. Such an anti-culturalist perspective asserts that cultures are neither
coherent nor circumscribed by political boundaries, and allows us to observe the
existence of multiple variables with which an individual might affiliate. These cul?
tural forces are neither contingent on the wholesale adoption of a single "tradition"
nor predetermined by the presumption of an inherent quality such as ethnicity.

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 Expanding upon the notion that culture is not a closed corpus, but marked
by a dialectic of permanence and change, Bayart further maintains that culture
does not demand a specific political orientation, particularly in circumstances
in which ruling entities or structures are not themselves clear and coherent. For
scholars of premodern eras to borrow discursive language that frames a par?
ticularly charged postcolonial historical context and the modern, globalized eco?
nomic one appears untenable. Although we can point clearly to paths of exchange
in medieval China, parallels between premodern and modern economic systems
fall short, both in the speed of transfer as well as in the extent of contemporary
nations' global reach. But though the modern notion of a "nation" clearly did not
exist in the sixth century, premodern hegemonies nonetheless exerted tremen?
dous power and the perception of dominant cultural strands did exist in some
form. For example, official dynastic histories, written predominantly by educated
elites living in the capital, generally subordinated or marginalized foreigners, hu
in a Sinocentric rhetoric that pitted a dominant "Chinese" tradition against
those they deemed foreign; or a cultured or civilized group against groups that
were uncivilized, even barbaric. Modern historians have long noted that the term
hu, a general category that designates non-Chinese, found in these premodern
sources has a broad range of referents. For the Northern Dynasties, it typically
referred to the nomadic groups from regions of modern Inner Mongolia who
conquered north China in the fourth century, yet it has also been used to desig?
nate Sogdians and other Central Asians of Iranian descent who moved into this
same territory in greater numbers during the following century.63 These exclusiv
ist or relativist cultural perspectives, found in contemporary sources but per?
petuated by modern scholars, regarded foreigners as inhuman and incapable of
becoming civilized, insisting that transformation of their character was only pos?
sible through the adoption of Chinese practices. Such a position on the dynamics
of culture presumes not only a coherency on the part of the competing traditions,
but an underlying immutability that was certainly not the case at this historical
juncture in sixth-century north China.
This uncritical perspective of Sinicization and the inevitability of accultura?
tion that dominated characterizations of art produced by conquest dynasties has
largely declined in modern scholarship, and with it has faded the conceit of a
unified elite Chinese culture and tacit assumption of its transformative poten?
tial.64 In its place ethnicity, and ethnic identity, have become a popular substitute
with which to frame inter-group dynamics more objectively.65 While there is evi?
dence to suggest that the ethnicity paradigm offers useful insight into later peri?
ods, when textual sources indicate a rise in ethnic consciousness, in such contexts
individuals attempt to assert one distinct group identity in opposition to another.

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 Marc Abramson's work on the Tang, for example, suggests that ethnic differences
assert themselves most explicitly in moments of crisis and in opposition of the
ethnic self to the other, which, according to Abramson, meant against both the
non-Han and the Han.66 One wonders whether Kang Ye was crafting this sort of
self-image, as a "Chinese" aristocrat surrounded by lesser-status Central Asians,
by including representations of distinctive types of groomsmen and attendants
on his couch, and how this played into his perceived relationship to these groups.
But while notions regarding distinctive cultural practices and even perceived
superiority are present in contemporary sixth-century sources, it appears that it
is not always ethnicity or the recognition of an ethnic other that lies at the base
of resistance to cultural blending, but political expediency or the desire for social
legitimacy. Alternatively, historians of later imperial China have alerted us to the
diffusion of perspectives in so-called "frontier zones" and considered allegiances
not as they are circumscribed by borders mapped by politics or ethnicity, but
by conceptual relationships such as loyalty. Such scholarly trends have not only
demonstrated the limitations of the Sinocentric perspective, but they have also
reinforced the notion that individuals chose not to identify themselves through
ethnic, political, or strict cultural allegiances that were circumscribed by politi?
cal boundaries.67 These recent scholarly paradigms alert us to the diffusion of
perspectives within these dynamic zones of exchange, which might be better
understood as an intricate, sometimes conflictive articulation of forces, rather
than framed using the dialectic found in historical sources. Bayart's approach,
however, opens up the subject of inquiry from the static object to the subject or
agent and its social field, not bound by the perspectives we project into it, but
actively moving and inspiring in a broader rhythmic network. Given the diversity
of artistic and cultural practices assembled on the stone funerary furniture of
An Jia, Wirkak, and other Sogdian immigrants, their tombs must be examined
through this broader lens.
Unlike the Tang, the Northern Dynasties did not endure under a single rul?
ing house long enough for a central authority to dictate enduring cultural trends.
While Emperor Xiaowen's reforms of the Taihe era (477-499 ce) were successful
in many respects, the collapse of the Northern Wei by the 530s disrupted their
momentum. In late sixth-century north China, while it may be said that Wirkak,
An Jia, or Yu Hong drew links to Sogdian communities by adopting Zoroastrian
motifs on their funerary structures and proclaiming ancestors in Central Asia in
their epitaphs, they did not, at this historical juncture, attempt to draw a boundary
between their Sogdian ties and the local cultural practices in Chang'an or Jinyang.
In fact, scenes of aristocratic pursuits established a common social bond to other
elites in north China.

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 The Myth of Coherent Cultures
Bayart's paradigm of the rhythms of cultural exchange asserts itself as a more
appropriate analytical model for the tomb furniture most convincingly because
the network of interaction at the close of the Northern Dynasties had expanded
far beyond the already complex dialectic of Chinese and Tuoba-Xianbei. Neither
Sogdiana nor north China were circumscribed by stable political boundaries in the
sixth century, and "culture" existed in even less of a coherent, static form within
these geographic regions (see Fig. 3). Given the arid, desert landscape of Central
Asia and the western frontier of north China, it is a wonder that exchange ever took
place, yet material remains and correspondence from as early as the fourth century
tell us that monks and merchants braved the desert in caravans, stopping to rest in
oasis towns and writing to report back to their masters who lived in Sogdiana. A
letter written to Samarkand in 311 is evidence of how individual merchants served
as local agents or regional representatives. In this, arguably the most famous of the
Sogdian letters, the author writes of the fate of some of his compatriots on trade
missions further east in China, when the Xiongnu were raiding north China.68
While Persians, Syrians, Indians, and others were engaged in trade along the
Silk Road, oasis towns facilitated the commercial network of the Sogdians, whom
the Chinese referred to as a "merchant race" and were said to have gone "wherever
profit was to be made" according to one medieval historian.69 But Sogdians were
not only transporting their products, which served as sources of innovative artistic
ideas; they were themselves also the transmitters of ideas, services, and traditions.
Sogdian was the primary language along the Silk Road, but these traders were con?
versant in many other languages, they were literate, and could thus also function as
translators.
Sogdiana was not a unified political entity, but rather a loose confederation of
city-states, including Samarkand and Bukhara, run by local princes. Politically the
Sogdian city-states were semi-autonomous, yet the people were subjected to inva?
sions and dominated by a successive series of overlords to whom the princes owed
their allegiance. Although warfare impacted the ability of goods to be moved swiftly
along the network of Silk Road trade routes, the various overlords regarded it in
their best interest to permit and support commerce in these regions by defending
caravans. From the fifth to seventh centuries, these overlords were the Hephthalites
and Turks, and until the mid-sixth century Sogdians were the dominant mercan?
tile force on the overland route across Central Asia, since they were ideally situated
to establish a vast trade network.70 These factors ? the broad geographic expanse
of the Sogdian network, the itinerant nature of their mercantile commerce, and
their domination by a succession of overlords in the Central Asian terrain ? argues
against stability and the existence of any coherent cultural tradition.

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 The political situation in north China at this time was even more fraught. Here
the issue was not the lack of a central state or the existence of rival overlords, but the
collision of several competing groups of Chinese and non-Chinese (e.g., the Xian
bei), and rulers' different attitudes towards traditions of the Chinese past. Com?
pared to the relative stability of the Han (206 bce-220 ce) and Tang dynasties,
rampant instability characterized the centuries between these two "golden ages."
The cultural make-up of this tumultuous sphere was as inconsistent and var?
iegated as its politics. Not only did aspiring nomads move into north China and
clash with the Chinese who remained under their new regime, but the Northern
Wei rulers also forcibly transported large populations from western and eastern
regions of their conquered territory into their new capital at Pingcheng to mix
with the already diverse inhabitants. Traditions thus intermingled throughout the
fifth and sixth centuries as political groups continued to fight and territories were
reconfigured. As such, the Xianbei and Chinese already represented two competing
strands of artistic and cultural practice in north China at this time, even though
the adoption of these strands by the general populace was by no means simple or
one-sided.
Culturally, as well as politically, these northern areas, into which the Sogdians
later moved and where they were buried, witnessed tremendous upheaval during
the fourth to sixth centuries (see above, p. 91-92). Buddhism was introduced to
China and adopted by the Northern Wei court, nomadic and Chinese traditions
(e.g., language, costume) intermingled, and the ruling nomadic elite married mem?
bers of wealthy "Great Families," groups of Chinese who remained in the north and
the supposed bastions of ancient Chinese traditions. These traditions endured in
some form in the north or were adopted from contact with Chinese who fled to
Jiankang and established the Southern Dynasties. They were even actively revived
and implemented by aspiring Northern Dynasties emperors such as Xiaowen in his
famed late fifth-century reforms, leading to the fluid style visible in the early sixth
century Luoyang tradition of stone carvings. But the collision of these efforts with
innovative institutions such as Buddhism necessarily cast them in a new light. The
very notion of "Chinese" identity and culture was thus redefined several times over
in the hundred years before the Sogdians arrived in the sixth century.
We can see shifting notions of "convention" in a comparison of imagery from a
tomb at Zhijiabao in the late fifth-century capital Pingcheng and that of the general
Xu Xianxiu of the late sixth century at Jinyang.71 In a painted scene on the north
wall of a stone sarcophagus from Zhijiabao (Fig. 18), the deceased and his wife sit
on a low platform dressed in nomadic garb, including the characteristic long, fas?
tened headscarf, trousers, and boots. Flanked by attendants, and by the ox-drawn
cart and horse on the east and west walls, their images are awkwardly inserted into

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18
Couple seated on a dais, north wall of pictorial conventions adopted by aspiring late fifth-century Northern Wei officials,
stone funerary chamber, Zhijiabao,
who appropriated Chinese tropes in order to lend them authority in the eyes of
late fifth century (line drawing of
their newly conquered subjects. A century later in murals that decorate the four
painted stone). After Wenwu (2001),
no. 7, fig. 6 walls of Xus chamber, husband and wife are shown seated on a platform (Fig.
19), surrounded by attendants and musicians and an expanded repertoire of fig?
ures. An ox-drawn cart and horse, the same pairing found on the stone furniture,
extend the composition to the flanking walls. The core imagery remains the same
but fashionable dress has changed with the times. Female musicians wear newly
styled headgear and robes with the pearl-roundel patterns then popular on Cen?
tral Asian textiles. Mens trousers and caps appear to be updated nomadic garb.
But what is missing from the narrative of change framed by the imagery in these
two tombs is that in the decades between them inhabitants of north China fought
viciously over whether to continue the Chinese traditions initiated in the late fifth
century reforms or to renounce them for something else. At opposing ends of the
conflict were Xianbei nobles at Luoyang who had adopted Chinese traditions and
commanders stationed in northern garrisons who retained nomadic customs.
This conflict has been viewed as emblematic of the divide between Sinicizing and
nomadic trends, but the loss of high status, privilege, and advancement for military
families and other factors fueled the hostilities between the two regions. Garrison
rebellions erupted in 523 and culminated in the slaughter of the royal family in 528
ce (the"Heyin massacre").72
Within the Central Plains region occupied by the Eastern Wei and Northern Qi,
the majority of large-scale tombs known to us exhibit non-nomadic artistic trends.
Jinyang, however, was a military stronghold occupied by officials who favored
abandoning reform. While not necessarily advocating a return to nomadic prac?
tices, they did represent a faction made up of former rebels.73 Despite the repopu
larization of nomadic costume for men in the Central Plains region, and whether
or not this attire may be perceived as a deliberate assertion of an "ethnic identity,"
this identity was not reappropriated in women's fashions, which bore features of
the "newly foreign" Central Asian aspects of the late sixth century, e.g. pearl roundel
textile designs and hairstyles.74 Even in the relatively more circumscribed territory

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19
Banquet scene, north wall of tomb of of northeast China, artistic and cultural traditions were being reshaped. The addi?
Xu Xianxiu (d. 571), Taiyuan, Shanxi.
tion of Sogdian practices to this mix only contributed to its complexity.
After Wenwu Tiandi (2003), no. 1:2

Postscript: A Revised Perspective

While we may see hybridity, appropriated techniques, or a fusion of motifs and
structures in the late sixth-century Sogdian stone tombs, this might not have been
the case for the deceased or their survivors. To borrow a phrase from Bayart, "we
identify ourselves less with respect to membership in a community or a culture
than with respect to the communities and cultures with which we have relations."75
One consequence of overestimating the coherence of cultural traditions, Sogdian
or Chinese, and continuing to interpret the components assembled in the tombs
according to these closed cultural categories, is that linkages?inherent in the
invention of traditions or in the construction of identity, and the possibility of
multiple identities ? are concealed. The diversity of imagery, variations in con?
struction, and inconsistent degrees to which the tombs make cultural or religious
references, speaks to the need to refine our approaches.
Frantz Grenet has astutely observed that Sogdians rarely depicted themselves
engaged in the very activity for which they are best known: commerce. This he con?
trasts with their image in the eyes of the Chinese, who represent Sogdians engaged
in activities such as traveling with horses, in caravans, or trading in wine.76 An Jia's
funerary couch is covered with images of encounters between diverse peoples in
structures such as a tent or pavilion that suggest settings in both China and Central
Asia.77 He himself, the lone recurring figure in a short white cap, is presented dining
and interacting with figures who, according to hairstyle, dress, and the architec?
tural setting, are identifiable as Turks and Chinese (Fig. 20).

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 ?-U-\ )
20

20

Audience and encampment scenes, If we separate the imagery from these fascinating stone structures into
An Jia couch (line drawing of carved cultural strands and view them as embodying the tension between distinct
and painted stone). After Shaanxi
tions, we may overlook the process of exchange and innovation taking
sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, XVan Bei
Zhou An Jia mu, fig. 24 and pi. 57
may also miss the self-image that An was constructing through this a
of disparate elements in relation to the plurality of cultural repertoire
to him and his descendants during the late sixth century. Rather tha
fying him as the inheritor of one "coherent" culture or another, we may
instead as exposed to an increasingly diverse set of cultural variables. Ans
as a merchant or intermediary between diverse groups is highlighted by t
tional aspect. Adopting this view of identity and of these funerary furnis
produced relationally, from a network of artistic forms, acknowledges the
figuration of traditions in late sixth-century north China as an act of orig
It further reveals An's role as a facilitator between the disparate groups w
he had contact rather than as a member of one group or another. It is a vi
allows us to see individuals occupying a space situated in the colliding netw
late sixth-century north China, affiliating with multiple cultural spheres,
accurately portrays their place in a space between.

Bonnie Cheng, Ph.D. (2003), University of Chicago, is Associate Profess

History and East Asian Studies at Oberlin College. Her articles on tomb mur
urines, and architecture have appeared in several publications, including
of Asian Art and the Blackwell Companion to Asian Art. She is currently w
book that explores the construction of authoritative artistic traditions in t
of Northern Dynasties elites. E-mail: [Link]@[Link]

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 NOTES

The author is grateful to Matthew Canepa, Xian fufu mu fajue jianbao," Wenwu
the editors of Ars Orientalis, and the anony?(1985), no. 11:1-20.
mous reader for their helpful suggestions3 Li Xian's ewer was likely produced in
and comments, and also to Yang Junkai andBactria: Juliano and Lerner, Monks and
Zhang Jianlin in Xi'an and Zhang Qingjie Merchants,
in 99-100.
4
Taiyuan for generously allowing me to seeThe modern Chinese term for these items,
zangju (fpji), refers collectively to large
some of the excavated stone objects. A grant
from the American Council of Learned Soci?tomb furniture.
eties and the National Endowment for the
5 The Northern Zhou finally succeeded in
Humanities allowed me to travel to Xi'an inconquering the Northern Qi, based at Ye,
2007 to see some of these pieces. The authorinis577, only to have the throne seized by
indebted to these institutions for their gener?
Yang Jian four years later. Yang's newly
ous support. founded Sui dynasty then proceeded to
conquer the Chen dynasty and reunify
1 See Jessica Rawson, "Central Asian Silver north and south for the first time in
and Its Influence on Chinese Ceramics," centuries. The specific political context
Bulletin of the Asia Institute 5 (1991): will be outlined below.
139-51; and eadem, The Ornament on Chi? 6 E.g., Luo Feng in Juliano and Lerner,
nese Silver of the Tang Dynasty, British Monks and Merchants, 244.
Museum Occasional Paper 40 (London: 7 See Rong Xinjiang, "Sute Xianjiao meishu
British Museum, 1982). For an example of dong chuan guocheng zhong de zhuan
an Iranian silver vessel found in a tomb, hua-cong Sute dao Zhongguo" in Wu
and an entry point into the foundational Hung, ed., Between Han and Tang:
literature, see Prudence O. Harper, "An Cultural and Artistic Interaction in a

Iranian Silver Vessel in the Tomb of Feng Transformative Period (Beijing: Cultural
Hutu," Bulletin of the Asia Institute 4 Relics Publishing House, 2001), 51-67,
(1990): 51-59. For the larger phenomenon also collected in his Zhonggu Zhongguo yu
of importation and incorporation of wailai wenming (Beijing: Sanlian shudian,
Sasanian luxury goods into Chinese visual 2001), 301-25.
culture, see the article by Matthew Canepa, 8 This paradigm will be discussed below
"Distant Displays of Power: Understand? but stems from Jean-Francois Bayart, The
ing Cross-Cultural Interaction among the Illusion ofCultural Identity (Chicago:
Elites of Rome, Sasanian Iran, and Sui University of Chicago Press, 2005).
Tang China," in this volume. 9 References to specific stone material
2 For an iconographic study, see Annette (limestone, granite, marble) are derived
Juliano and Judith Lerner, eds., Monks and from the excavation reports. The "marble"
Merchants: Silk Road Treasures from used for the Yu Hong and Miho museum
Northwest China, Gansu andNingxia, examples is a soft, creamy white marble
4th-yth Century (New York: Harry N. (/H ? 3l ) common to the Shanxi region
Abrams and Asia Society, 2001), 99-100, and used also for Buddhist sculptures.
particularly the detail in fig. 31c; and Luo Additionally, pigment on some examples
Feng, Hu Han zhijian (Wenwu chuban (e.g., the sarcophagi of Wirkak and Yu
she, 2004), 79-99. The original report is Hong) suggests they were also painted but
published by Ningxia Huizu zizhiqu to what extent is no longer discernible.
bowuguan and Ningxia Guyuan There is an extensive range of sources on
Bowuguan, "Ningxia Guyuan Bei Zhou Li these structures by scholars of varying

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 disciplines, with greater interest being 13 Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanj iusuo, ed., XV an publications. Scenes from the Guimet
shown in those that bear the more distinct Bei Zhou An Jia mu (Beijing: Wenwu example are examined in Frantz Grenet,
Central Asian iconography. Among chubanshe,2003). "Religious Diversity among Sogdian
general studies, Jiang Boqin's Zhongguo 14 For Wirkak's (Shi Jun) sarcophagus see Merchants in Sixth-century China:
Xianjiaoyishishiyanjiu (Beijing: Sanlian Xi'an shi wenwu baohu kaogusuo, "Xi'an Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Man
shudian, 2004) provides summaries and Bei Zhou Liangzhou Sabao Shi Jun mu ichaeism, and Hindusim," Comparative
references for the Anyang, Miho, and An fajue jianbao," Wenwu (2005)^0.3:4-33. Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the
Jia couches, as well as the sarcophagus of I chose to use the Sogdian name Wirkak Middle East 27 (2007), no. 2:463-78; see
Yu Hong and the example from Yidu. The rather than the cumbersome Shi Jun or also Catherine Delacour and Penelope
collection of papers edited by Etienne de literal English "Lord Shi," but Shi Jun is Riboud, Lit de Pierre, sommeil barbare:
la Vaissiere and Eric Trombert, Les the name used in Chinese sources. Presentation, apres restauration et
Sogdiens en Chine (Paris: Ecole francaise 15 See the early study by Gustina Scaglia, remontage, d'une banquette funer air e
d'Extreme-Orient, 2005) offers diverse "Central Asians on a Northern Ch'i Gate ayant appartenu ? un aristocrate d'Asie
studies of Sogdian history and material Shrine," ArtibusAsiae 21 (1958), no. 1:9-28. centrale venu setablir en Chine au VP

culture, as does Rong Xinjiang's excellent 16 Shanxi sheng kaogu yanj iusuo, ed., siecle (Paris: Musee Guimet, 2004).
Zhonggu zhongguo yu wailai wenming Taiyuan Sui Yu Hong mu (Beijing: Wenwu 20 See Shanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo,
(Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2001). See also chubanshe, 2005). Taiyuan Sui Yu Hong mu, 49-85,
the very useful review of this and Etienne 17 On these inscriptions, which are largely particularly 55-60 and figs. 87-93. The
de la Vaissiere, Histoire des marchands identical in content, see Sun Fuxi, tomb containing the Tianshui couch also
Sogdiens (Paris: Institut des Hautes "Investigations on the Chinese Version of contained figurines of musicians (see
Etudes Chinoises, 2002) by Valerie the Sino-Sogdian Bilingual Inscription of note 19).
Hansen, "New Work on the Sogdians, the the Tomb of Lord Shi," in Vaissiere and 21 Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, Xi'an Bei
Most Important Traders on the Silk Road, Trombert, Les Sogdiens en Chine, 47-55; Zhou An Jia raw, 16.

a.D. 500-1000," T'oungPao 89 (2003): and Yutaka Yoshida, "The Sogdian Version 22 Kang occupied a post described on his
149-161. Vaissiere's study has been of the New Xi'an Inscription," ibid., epitaph as datianzhu (y^^i?) that is not
translated by James Ward as Sogdian Trad? 57-72. listed in textual sources, but which
ers: A History (Leiden: Brill, 2005). Since 18 See Shaanxi sheng wenwu guanli archaeologists relate to a three-tier
my interest lies in considering these weiyuanhui, "Shaanxi sheng Sanyuan Sogdian rank akin to a prince or leader of
tombs as a group rather than a compre? xian Shuangsheng cun Sui Li He mu a community and to the xianzhu (|^j?);
hensive discussion of each, I list here only qingli jianbao," Wenwu (1966), no. see note 24. The precise relationship
the primary reports and major studies of 1:27-42; Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanj iusuo, between this post and the datianzhu
the individual examples. "Shaanxi Tongguan Shuicun Sui dai bihua remains unclear. See Wenwu (2008), no.
10 A report on the Li Dan coffin is not yet mu xianke shiguan," Wenwu yu kaogu 6:34.
available, but see Guojiawenwuju, ed.,2005 (2008), no. 3:33-47; and Li Ming, 23 See the entry on the Tuyuhun ()
Zhongguo zhongyao kaogufaxian (Beijing: "Tongguan Shuicun Sui dai bihua mu in Zhou shu (History of the Zhou), juan
Wenwu chubanshe, 2006), 123 - 28. shiguan tuxian shidu," ibid., 48-52. 50:913, which records that in 553 ce, Shi

11 Xi'an shi wenwu baohu kaogusuo, "Xi'an 19 See Tianshui shi bowuguan, "Tianshui Ning $$fl Governor of Liangzhou W^fW
Bei Zhou Kang Ye mu fajue jianbao," shi faxian Sui Tang pingfeng shi (Wuwei jgclK or Guzang "seized an
Wenwu (2008), no. 6:14-35. guanchuang mu," Kaogu (1992), no.i:46 illegal caravan consisting of 240 mer?
12 See Xia Mingcai, Wenwu (1985), no. 54; and Juliano and Lerner, Monks and chants, 600 camels, and 10,000 rolls of
10:49-54; Wenwu (2001), no. 5:92-93; and Merchants, 304-308. Additional examples, multicolored silks."
the study by Zheng Yan, "Qingshou Bei Qi such as a couch displayed at the Musee 24 Jiang Boqin, "Sabaofu zhidu lunlue: Han
huaxiangshi yu ru Hua Sute ren mei Guimet in 2004-5 and a piece that wen Sute ren muzhi kaoshi zhi yi," Huaxia
shu?Yu Hong mu deng kaogu xin faxian resembled Kang Yes couch discovered 3 (1998) (synopsis in Chinese Archaeologi?
de qishi," in Wu Hung, Between Han and near Zhengzhou in 2007 offer further cal and Art Digest [CAAD], 2000,
Tang,73-io6. examples but thus far lack extensive 207 - 208). The term xianzheng or xianzhu

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 refers to a Zoroastrian priest or one who Zoroastrian Rituals in Context, ed. observed that the date of many of these

presides over religious sacrifices. Michael Stausberg (Leiden: Brill, 2004), Sogdian funerary pieces coincides with
25 Luo Feng, "Sabao: yi ge Tang chao weiyi 389-401. the Northern Zhou court's persecution of
wailai guanzhi de zai kaocha," Tangyanjiu 29 Grenet discusses Zoroastrian deities and Buddhism launched in 569 ce. Grenet
4 (1998): 215-50 (trans. CAAD, 2000, themes on Wirkak's sarcophagus in links this with his argument that no
165-91); Antonio Forte, "Iranians in Grenet, "Religious Diversity among explicit Buddhist motifs are to be found
China: Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Sogdian Merchants," 473-74. The link to amongst the iconography. See Grenet,
Bureaus of Commerce," Cahiers Weshparkar derives from the tiny trident "Religious Diversity among Sogdian
d'Extreme Asien (1999-2000): 285-89. held by the figure on the upper east wall, Merchants," particularly 478.
26 The term derives from either the Sanksrit and the base formed by three oxen that 34 Since the panels of the Miho couch were
or Sogdian sarthavaha or sarthavak. draws a connection to Mithra, known not scientifically excavated, it remains a
27 Frantz Grenet, "Religious Diversity for having slain a bull, although the possibility that they were assembled from
among Sogdian Merchants in Sixth deity is generally depicted with three disparate pieces.
Century China: Buddhism, Manichaeism, heads. Nicholas Sims-Williams, "Some 35 The Chinese inscription refers to the
and Hinduism," Comparative Studies of Reflections on Zoroastrianism in structure as a stone chamber or hall (see

South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 27, Sogdiana and Bactria," in Realms of the above, p. 89) but the Sogdian term
no. 2 (2007): 463-78. For an important Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern, ed. translates as "god-house." See note 17.
study of Sogdian religious architecture, David Christian and Craig Benjamin, 36 Rong, "Sute Xianjiao meishu dong chuan
see V. G. Shkoda,"The Sogdian Temple: Silk Road Studies 4 (Macquarie guocheng Zhong de zhuanhua...," 62, esp.
Structure and Rituals," Bulletin of the Asia University and Turnhout: Brepols, 2000), figs. 4-6.
1-12. 37 Guojiawenwuju ed., 2004 Zhongguo
Instituteio (1996 [1998]): 195-206. On
Sogdian iconography, see Frantz Grenet, 30 Grenet, "Religious Diversity among zhongyao kaogu faxian (Beijing: Wenwu
"Mithra: Iconography in Iran and Central Sogdian Merchants", 469. This observa? chubanshe,2005); Wenwu (2008), no.
Asia," Encyclopaedia Iranica Online tion was also made earlier by others, e.g., 6:14-35; Shi Anchang, Huotan yujisi
(2006), [Link]. For further Judith Lerner, "Central Asians in niaoshen (Beijing: Cijincheng chubanshe,
bibliography on the Sogdians, see note 9 Sixth-Century China: A Zoroastrian 2004), 114-16; Mary Boyce, "Corpse," in
above and Matthew Canepa's article in Funerary Rite," Iranica Antiqua 30 (1995):Encyclopaedia Iranica (1993) 6:279-88;
this volume. 179-90. Gherardo Gnoli,"Indo-Iranian Religion,"
28 The bridge on An Jia's couch is not 31 Frantz Grenet, Penelope Riboud and Yang in Encyclopaedia Iranica Online (2004),
conclusively identified as the Cinwad Junkai, "Zoroastrian Scenes on a Newly [Link]; A. Shapur Shabazi,
Bridge and the scene is typically described Discovered Sogdian Tomb in Xi'an, "ast?d?ns" in Encyclopaedia Iranica (1989)
as an outing or farewell: see Shaanxi sheng Northern China," Studia Iranica 33 2:851-53. Shi links a reference to a "spirit

kaogu yanjiusuo, XV an Bei Zhou An Jia (2004): 276-78. couch" (lingchuang Scffc) in the Jin shu to
mu, 38-39 and plates 73,77; Jiang Boqin, 32 Valentina Raspopova, "Life and Artistic a description of Sogdian burial ritual in
Zhongguo Xianjiao yishi shiyanjiu, 113; Conventions in the Reliefs of the Miho the Sui shu, but the latter passage does not
Ahmad Tafazzoli, "Cinwad Puhl," in Couch," Bulletin of the Miho Museum 4 clearly denote an object buried in the
Encyclopaedia Iranica, 5 (1991), 594-95; (2004): 44 grave: Shi, Huotan yujisi niaoshen, 115-16.

Mary Boyce, "Death among Zoroastri 33 Raspopova, "Life and Artistic Conven? 38 For the most comprehensive archaeo?
ans," in Encyclopaedia Iranica, 7 (1996), tions," 47. Some scholars certainly avoid logical study of Persian Zoroastrian
171. Compare medieval and contemporary this type of language, which presumes a religious practices, see Dietrich Huff,
Zoroastrian funerary and commemora? superior paradigm. Grenet takes a "Archaeological Evidence of Zoroastrian
tive ritual: Firoze M. Kotwal and broader perspective and interprets the Funerary Practices," in Stausberg, Zoroas?
Jamsheed K. Choksy,"To Praise the Souls visual imagery on these stone structures trian Rituals in Context, 593-630; on the

of the Deceased and the Immortal Spirits as evidence of religious diversity. Angela inscriptional and archaeological evidence
of the Righteous Ones: The Staomi or Sheng (cited by Grenet, "Religious and its bearing on the meaning of
Stum Ritual s History and Functions," in Diversity among Sogdian Merchants") dakma, 593-94.

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39 Mary Boyce, "Corpse." for a man's relatives, Vladimir A. Livshits 49 A stone couch in the Nelson-Atkins
40 Huff, "Archaeological Evidence ..." observed that this was in direct conflict Museum, Kansas City, is decorated with
593-94 with Sasanian Zoroastrianism and that scenes of filial paragons which feature the
41 Shaanxi sheng kaogu yanjiusuo, XV an Bei the practice was the topic of fierce debate ox-drawn cart and horse. See Toshio
Zhou An Jia mu, 86-87. The interesting in medieval Persia, Sogdiiskiji dokumenfis Nagahiro, Rikuch?jidai bijutsu no kenky?
reconstruction of material evidence in the gori Mwg,Vishusk II (1962), 48; cited by (Tokyo: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1969).
monograph's conclusion is undermined Jiang, ibid., 63. 50 Jin shu, Yufu zhi (Treatise on carriages and
by the general statement which relates 44 See Bei Qi shu (History of the Northern robes) juan 25:756.
An's couch to the other discoveries known Qi)juan 50 Enxingzhuan JHf$fj( 51 See, for example, representations of
at the time. Linking the few objects into a (Biographies of Royal Favorites): 694. donors on the base of Buddhist and
chronology, the authors of the report 45 They were built in the following wards: Daoist steles on the rear face of the Wang
write that while one sees the wholesale Buzhengfang, Liquanfang, Puningfang, Ashan (zEH?) stele of 527 ce or the base
adoption of Chinese tomb structures in Linggongfang, Chonghuafang. See Rong of the stele of Cao Wangxi (UMS) from
Sogdian tombs, elements of tomb Xinjiang, Zhonggu Zhongguo yu wailai 525 ce in Zhongguo meishu quanji, v.19
furnishings and funerary furniture were wenming (Beijing: Sanlian shudian, 2001), huihua bian, shikexianhua (Beijing:
later adapted from ossuaries. Lastly, they 76-85. Wenwu chubanshe, 1984). For murals, see
state that Sogdian tombs were probably 46 Wenwu (2008), no. 6, fig. 23. the tomb of X Daogui in Shandong,
indistinguishable from Han tombs and 47 See Huang Minglan, Luoyang Bei Wei Wenwu (1985), no. 10:45, the impressed
that this type of transformative process shisu shikexianhuaji (Beijing: Renmin brick tomb from Changzhou in Kaogu
also reflects their acculturation. Ibid., 87. meishu chubanshe, 1987); Luoyang (1994), no. 12:1097-1103; and an abbrevi?
42 Following earlier studies of Zoroastrian Bowuguan, "Luoyang Bei Wei huaxiang ated example from Zhijiabao in Wenwu
ritual practices, Jiang noted that, in the shiguan,"Xaog? (1980)^0.3:229-41; and (2001), no. 7:40-51.
royal funerary traditions of the Achaeme on an early sixth-century stone chamber, 52 Guojia wenwu ju, ed., 2004 Zhongguo
nids and Sasanians, the "kings of kings" see Guo Jianbang, Bei Wei NingMao shishi zhongyao kaogu faxian (Beijing: Wenwu
created rock-cut tombs or tomb towers xianke hua (Beijing: Renmin meishu chubanshe, 2005) and Wenwu (2008), no.
made of dressed stone; Jiang Boqin, "Ru chubanshe, 1987). 6:i4-35.
Hua Sute ren de Xianjiao meishu" (trans, 48 For example, the late fifth-century 53 Wenwu (2008), no. 6:34.
as "The Zoroastrian Art of the Sogdians in painted stone chamber unearthed at 54 Ibid., 14.
China" in CAAD 2000,35-71), 63. Zhijiabao, the undecorated stone 55 Li is said to have been descended from
Scholars of Iranian religion and archaeol? chamber found in the tomb of Song Brahmins, but a report has yet to be
ogy have themselves commented on the Shaozu, or the incised stone "shrine" of published with further details of his
fact that the royal tombs of the Persian Ning Mao in the Boston Museum of Fine epitaph. See Guojia wenwu ju, ed., 2005
kings would have functioned as monu? Arts, believed to have been produced in Zhongguo zhongyao kaogu faxian
mental ossuaries, shielding the soil from Luoyang in the early sixth century: Wang (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 2006),
the human remains by encasing them in Yintian and Liu Junxi, "Datong Zhijiabao 123-28.
dressed stone or the living rock: Huff, Bei Wei mu shiguo bihua," Wenwu (2001), 56 See Judith Lerner, '"Les Sogdiens en
"Archaeological Evidence..." 593-94, no. 7:40-51; "Datong shi Bei Wei Song Chine ? Nouvelles decouvertes histo
596-602,609-18. Shaozu mu fajiue jianbao," Wenwu (2001), riques, archeologiques et linguistiques'
43 Jiang, "Ru Hua Sute ren de Xianjiao no. 7:19-39; and Kojiro Tomita,"A and Two Recently Discovered Sogdian
meishu," 2000,63-64; Mary Boyce, Chinese Sacrifical Stone House of the Tombs in Xian," Bulletin of the Asia
Textual Sources for the Study ofZoroastri Sixth Century," Bulletin of the Museum of Institute 15 (2005): 151-62. See the report
anism (Chicago: University of Chicago Fine Arts 40 (1942), 242:98-110. The use of in Wenwu (2008), no. 6:14-35 and n. 4.
Press, 1990); in describing a Sogdian gold and red pigments to decorate some Brief descriptions can also be found in
contract (unearthed at Mugtagh, no. 13-8) of the later sixth-century tomb structures Guojia wenwu ju, 2005 Zhongguo
that detailed the appropriation of a large has also been linked to the earlier use of zhongyao kaogu faxian (Beijing: Wenwu
expanse of land for use as the resting place lacquer. Press, 2006), 123 - 28.

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57 Excerpted from the epitaph of Kang Po describe this process is rather misleading. in Cina e Iran daAlessandro Magno alia
(j??; 647 ce), whose grandfather served For one thing, adopting Chinese dinastia Tang, ed. Alfredo Cadonna and
the Wei and Northern Qi, and whose institutions did not mean becoming Lionello Lanciotti (Florence: Olschki,
father was sabao of Dingzhou. See Chinese except in the most abstract sense !996), 45-67; and in Vaissiere, Sogdian
Luoyangchutu lidai muzhijisheng^^Hi ... a shift in cultural practices does not Traders, ch. 2.
ilMiXMttM^ (Zhongguo shehui necessarily mean a shift in one's 69 See Jiu Tang shu (Old History of the
kexue chubanshe, 1991), 111. 126. self-perception or in how one is perceived Tang) juan 198:5310 andXm Tang shu
58 Shanxi sheng kaogu yanj iusuo, Taiyuan by others.... Furthermore, a term like (New History of the Tang) juan
Sui Yu Hongmu, figs. 8,145-46. Sinicization masks diachronicity and 2210:6244. This characterization, from
59 Rong, "Sute Xianjiao meishu dong chuan process; it obscures the fact that what is the two official Tang histories, dates to
guocheng zhong de zhuanhua...," 63. He held to be 'Chinese' has changed over the tenth and eleventh centuries, but is
does not elaborate on the relevance of this time by essentializing the political or based on earlier sources. Accounts in
new type of subject matter. cultural forms of any given moment as earlier histories record that inhabitants of
60 See the work of Pierre Bourdieu, esp. somehow integrally, immutably Chinese." western regions excelled at mercantile
Outline of a Theory of Practice, trans. R. Mark C. Elliott, TheManchu Way activities, but the description that they
Nice (Cambridge: Cambridge University (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University "go where profit is to be made" appears
Press, 1977) and The Field of Cultural Press, 2001), 28. to have been added in the tenth century.
Production (New York: Columbia 66 Marc Abramson, Ethnic Identity in Tang For modern sources, see Vaissiere s work
University Press, 1993). China (Philadelphia: University of cited in note 9.
61 Bryan Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome Pennsylvania Press, 2007). Use of the term 70 The Sasanians at this time had developed
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), "Han" and "non-Han" in this context a maritime route to the east. See Lerner,

5; Scott Pearce, Audrey Spiro and Patricia follows Abramson's text, but this author "The Merchant Empire of the Sogdians,"
Ebrey, eds., Culture and Power in the is cognizant of the problems with using in Juliano and Lerner, Monks and
Reconstitution of the Chinese Realm, terms that are not clear ethnonyms or Merchants, 220-29. On the Sogdian
200-600 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard political terms. ascendancy during this period, see
University Asia Center, 2001). 67 See Jonathan Karam Skaff, "Survival in Vaissiere, Sogdian Traders.
62 Bayart, Illusion of Cultural Identity, 66. the Frontier Zone: Comparative Perspec? 71 See Wenwu (2001), no. 7:40 - 51; Shanxi
63 Sometimes the term is made more tives on Identity and Political Allegiance sheng kaogu yanjiusuo and Taiyuan shi
specific, e.g.,jiehu or the foreign in China's Inner Asian Borderlands wenwu kaogu yanjiusuo, "Taiyuan Bei Qi
tribe known as the Jie. during the Sui-Tang Dynastic Transition Xu Xianxiu mu fajue jianbao," Wenwu
64 Historians of China have noted that (617-630)," Journal of World History (2003), no. 10:4-40.
these perceptions emerged out of the (June 2004), [Link] 72 The history has been recounted in several
rise of a national consciousness in the [Link]/cgi-bin/justtop. sources, most recently in Mark Lewis,
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries cgi?act=justtop&url=[Link] China Between Empires (Cambridge,
and have largely informed modern [Link]/journals/jwh/15.2/ Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009).
historical narratives. A few modern [Link] (accessed July 8, 2008); and 73 The character of Jinyang and the dual
historians of the Northern Dynasties Naomi Standen, Unbounded Loyalty: polity system (with Ye) is explained well
and Tang, such as Chen Yinke, have Frontier Crossings in Liao China in John Lee, "Conquest, Division,
offered a more complex view of the (Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, Unification: A Social and Political History
paths of exchange. 2007); Abramson, Ethnic Identity in Tang of Sixth Century Northern China" (Ph.D.
65 Writing on Manchu institutions, Mark China. dissertation, University of Toronto, 1985),
Elliott has argued against adopting this 68 For an overview and translation see ch.4.
perspective, noting that "despite the Juliano and Lerner, Monks and Merchants, 74 The surge of Central Asian goods into
many and varied signs of Manchu 47-49. More detailed accounts can be Central Plains China is largely attributed
acculturation, it must be said, however, found in Nicholas Sims-Williams, "The to the opening up of Central Asian trade
that using the word 'Sinicization' to Sogdian Merchants in China and India," routes in mid-sixth-century China after

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 decades of domination by the Hephtha
lites.
75 Bayart, Illusion of Cultural Identity, 95.
76 Frantz Grenet, "The Self-Image of the
Sogdians" in Vaissiere and Trombert, Les
Sogdiens en Chine, 137.
77 Ibid. Nancy Steinhardt has examined the
construction of these stone structures and
the diverse forms of architecture found

depicted on the panels in "Structuring

Architecture at the Cultural Crossroads:

Architecture in Sogdian Funerary Art,"

Oriental Art 49, no. 4 (2003): 48-62.

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