Description

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An enormous number of burial objects have been unearthed from ancient tombs in archaeological excavations in China. These mingqi were made in all kinds of materials and in a broad range of forms, techniques, and craftsmanship. In this book, author Quinghua Guo examines a particular type of mingqi - pottery buildings. The striking realism of the pottery buildings suggests that they were modeled after actual buildings. They bring to life courtyard houses, manors, towers, granaries, and pigsty-privies, as well as cooking ranges and well pavilions. These pottery buildings, previously little known, preserve knowledge of antiquity and demonstrate the architectural quality and structural variety of the period. The book identifies the typology of the pottery buildings in terms of ontology and semiology, in order to provide a conceptual map for classification. Additionally, it identifies building systems reflected by the mingqi to detect architectonic systems of the Han dynasty. Key features of this volume include its cross-disciplinary research - an architectural study interlocking with an archaeological study, as well as an architectural study interlocking with a graphic study. The Han pottery buildings are important architectural models from the ancient world and are contrasted with wooden houses of Middle-Kingdom Egypt and brick buildings of the Minor civilization, Crete, allowing cross-cultural comparisons.

Praise For…

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“Qinghua Guo’s The Mingqi Pottery Buildings of Han Dynasty China is a study of an intriguing and important aspect of Chinese architecture and burial practice that has never been fully understood. Mingqi is a complex term referring to objects of almost any variety placed in Chinese tombs. The subset of Han grave goods discussed in this book are pottery works shaped like buildings. More architectural mingqi are found in Han (206 BCE–220 CE) tombs than in earlier or later periods; thousands survive and hundreds are illustrated in the book. Guo tells the reader at the outset that she will not attempt to discuss the origins or evolution of mingqi. Rather, her purpose is to “present salient points of an architectonic nature … from the standpoint of architectural representation”. …The strength of The Mingqi Pottery Buildings of Han Dynasty China is that it brings the attention of English readers to an aspect of Han architecture through more than 200 examples and invites them to evaluate the reliability of this architecture in miniature as evidence of the appearance of full-size buildings.”  —Society of Architectural Historians