MONOGRAPHIENdes Römisch-Germanischen ZentralmuseumsBand 117

Susanne Greiff · Romina Schiavone · Zhang JianlinHou Gailing · Yang Junchang (eds)

THE TOMB OF LI CHUIINTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES INTO A TANG PERIOD FINDS ASSEMBLAGE

With contributions by Dong Junqin · Sonja Filip · Geng Guohua · Annegret Gerick · Susanne Greiff Gu Donghong · Huang Xiaojuan · Annette Kieser · Li Qinghui · Liang Jiafang Liu Song · Ma Zhijun · Friederike Moll-Dau · Stephan Ritter · Eva Ritz Florian Ströbele · Yan Jing · Yang Junchang · Zhang Jianlin · Zhou Mingquan

Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum

Forschungsinstitut für Archäologie

and

Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology

Verlag des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums Mainz 2014

Redaktion: Romina Schiavone (RGZM) unter Mitarbeit von Sarah Scheffl erSatz: Michael Braun (RGZM)Bildbearbeitung: Franz Siegmeth, Illustration · Graphik-Design · Malerei, Bad Vöslau / AUmschlaggestaltung: Reinhard Köster (RGZM) unter Verwendung eines Fotos von Christian Eckmann (RGZM)

Bibliografische Informationder Deutschen Nationalbibliothek

Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografi e; detaillierte bibliografi sche Daten sind im Internet über http://dnb.d-nb.de abrufbar.

ISBN 978-3-88467-221-1ISSN 0171-1474

© 2014 Verlag des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums

Das Werk ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Die dadurch begründeten Rechte, insbesondere die der Übersetzung, des Nachdrucks, der Entnahme von Abbildungen, der Funk- und Fernsehsendung, der Wiedergabe auf fotomechanischem (Fotokopie, Mikrokopie) oder ähnlichem Wege und der Speicherung in Datenverarbeitungs-anlagen, Ton- und Bildträgern bleiben, auch bei nur auszugsweiser Verwertung, vorbehalten. Die Vergütungsansprüche des § 54, Abs. 2, UrhG. werden durch die Verwertungsgesellschaft Wort wahrgenommen.

Druck: Strauss GmbH MörlenbachPrinted in Germany.

Das Projekt und seine Publikation wurden

Ein Projekt des

In Zusammenarbeit mit

Scientifi c committee:Zhao Rong PhD, Wang Weilin BA, Zhang Jianlin BA, Yang Junchang PhD und Ma Tao MSc (alle Xi’an) sowie Univ.-Prof. Dr. Falko Daim (Mainz), Prof. Dr. Thomas O. Höllmann (München), Dr. Adele Schlombs (Köln) und Dr. Susanne Greiff (Mainz).

Editorial committee:Wang Weilin BA, Zhang Jianlin BA, Wang Xiaomeng MA, Yang Junchang PhD, Zhao Xichen und Hou Gailing BA sowie Romina Schiavone M. A., Dr. Hubertus Mikler, Alexandra Hilgner M. A., Sonja Filip M. A., Dr. Florian Ströbele.

Translations (German, English, Chinese):Hou Gailing BA, Dr. Chen Ganglin, Dr. Xu Wenxing, Shao Anding PhD candidate, Liang Jiafang M. A., Dipl.-Buchwiss. Lin Hsiao-Ling, Sonja Filip M. A., Dr. Clive Bridger, Mary Wong-Sommer M.Phil., Ida Röpfl M. A., Dr. Manuela Struck, Dr. Lynda Lich-Knight, Maren Mittentzwey M. A., John Michael Deasy, Dipl.-Rest. Friederike Moll-Dau. Epitaph: Sonja Filip M. A., Dr. Baoquan Song, Dr. Clive Bridger.

(Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology)

V

CONTENTS

Sabine EilersGreeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII

Zhao RongGreeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . IX

Susanne Greiff Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XI

Wang Weilin Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . XIII

Susanne GreiffIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Inscription of the Epitaph for Li Chui . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Ma ZhijunExcavation and Documentation of the Tang Dynasty Tomb of Li Chui . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Sonja FilipA Cultural and Historical Analysis of the Features and Finds of Li Chui’s tomb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Zhang JianlinThoughts on Some Grave Goods from the Tomb of Li Chui . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Annette KieserSilver Vessels from the Tomb of Li Chui . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Annegret Gerick»…Bejewelled Blossoms Fell to the Ground…« – The Headdress of Li Chui.Exposure, Restoration, Reconstruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Stephan RitterReport and Observations Regarding the Block Lifting of the Torso of Li Chui . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Friederike Moll-DauThe Jewellery of Li Chui. The Exposure, Conservation and Museum Presentation of a Block-Lifted Tang Period Burial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Huang XiaojuanReconstruction and Presentation of the Artefacts from the Torso of Li Chui . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

VI

Eva RitzConservation and Restoration of a Tang Period Cosmetic Casket of Wet qi-Lacquerware from the Tomb of Li Chui . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Yang Junchang and Huang XiaojuanGold and Silver Threads from the Block with Li Chui’s Body: Materials and Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Susanne GreiffDecorative Mineral World: Identifi cation of Mineral Pigments and Inlays from the Tomb of Li Chui by Means of Micro-Raman Spectroscopy and Micro-X-Ray Fluorescence Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

Florian Ströbele and Liang Jiafang Tool Marks and X-Ray Fluorescence Analyses of Tang Dynasty Silverware from the Tomb of Li Chui . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355

Li Qinghui, Yang Junchang, Yan Jing, Liu Song, Dong Junqin and Gu DonghongThe Non-Destructive Analysis of the Components of Li Chui’s Headdress Dating to the Tang Dynasty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Zhou Mingquan, Geng Guohua and Yang JunchangThe Facial Reconstruction of Li Chui . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

List of Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387�

VII

GREETING

The Federal Republic of Germany and the People’s Republic of China have been engaged in long-term bi-lateral co-operation on the research and preservation of cultural heritage since the early 1990s. Under this special partnership, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has funded numerous successful projects together with the Chinese Government in the fi elds of archaeology, restoration, conser-vation and the humanities on major cultural treasures of the People’s Republic of China. This support sat-isfi es two fundamental priorities of the BMBF’s funding policy: to increase the internationalization of German research, and to increase interdisciplinarity between science and the humanities. The German contributions to this international, interdisciplinary co-operation are currently being pro-vided by the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum (RGZM) in Mainz as well as the Technical University of Munich and Heidelberg University. They are collaborating with their respective partners to examine and restore various important archaeological fi nds in the Chinese provinces of Shaanxi and Sichuan including World Cultural Heritage sites such as the famous Terracotta Army.This volume presents another successful chapter of German-Chinese co-operation in the preservation of cultural heritage involving the collaboration between the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum and the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology. Between 2001 and 2010 they worked together to investigate the burial complex of the noblewoman Li Chui who lived from AD 711 to 736 in the Tang Dynasty. Her tomb is of outstanding cultural value as it was never plundered throughout its centuries of existence and thus contained rare and precious pieces of jewellery from the Tang period. Furthermore, an inscribed epitaph also discovered in the tomb reveals details about the life and fate of the short-lived noblewoman, which has made it possible to carry out valuable socio-cultural analyses.The burial site posed an enormous challenge for the archaeologists and conservators involved in the project. Due to the fragility of the fi nds it was necessary to employ the technique of block lifting, i. e. to remove the fi nds together with the soil encasing them. Working together over several years using modern, highly com-plex methods, the collaborating teams were able to expose, restore and analyse the fi nds in the laboratory. Much of the resulting information about the era of Tang Dynasty China, which is presented in this volume, is ground-breaking in art and cultural historical terms. On the one hand, it provides an example of how cutting-edge scientifi c methods and approaches grounded in the humanities can be combined to achieve a comprehensive reconstruction of cultural contexts. On the other, it demonstrates the vast potential of cul-tural co-operation that transcends borders. Without such cultural contacts, the ornate jewellery of the en-tombed noblewoman Li Chui could neither have been created at the time nor would its recovery have been possible today. Thus in their uniqueness, the project results also provide a compelling general argument for the creative power of both transnational and transdisciplinary co-operation.

Sabine EilersHead of Division 425 – Humanities, Social and Cultural Sciences, Academies, Research Museums Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany

VIII

IX

GREETING

The tomb of Li Chui, the subject of this publication, is not the fi rst burial of the Tang Dynasty in which an ornate headdress was discovered, but it is the fi rst with a reconstructed headdress, at present the only re-stored female headdress from the Tang Dynasty.It is also not the fi rst tomb of the Tang Dynasty in which remains of clothing together with elements of jew-ellery were found, but it is the fi rst reconstructed costume with elements of jewellery and, at present, also the only known reconstructed female costume with elements of jewellery from the Tang Dynasty.Certainly, there are many more burials of the Tang Dynasty displaying a superior degree of equipment with grave goods, but this is the fi rst and, at present, the only precisely dated tomb in which gold and silver threads have been found. Moreover, we have to mention the extremely rare, completely surviving bronze mirror with mother-of-pearl decoration, the silver inlays of a decayed lacquer box, as well as a group of ivory and amber miniatures around one centimetre large.Only the exposure work in the laboratory led to these fi nds being rescued and now presented in this pub-lication.The preliminary results of the analysis show the various artistic methods, such as goldsmith work, were used in creating the burial equipment of Li Chui. In them very different materials were employed, such as gold, silver, bronze, iron, ivory, mother-of-pearl, pearls, turquoise, amethyst, amber, glass, feathers and lacquers. In the course of conservation and restoration Chinese and German experts used scientifi c methods from dif-ferent disciplines, such as modern investigative methods including microscopic analyses, X-ray radiography, X-ray fl uorescence analysis, 3D-scanning, the use of high-defi nition cameras, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy and computer simulations.The new materials and technical methods employed, the focus on the solving of practical problems, the standardisation of the archaeological exposure in the laboratory, the conservation and restoration of very different materials now provide new standards.The conservation and restoration of the objects from the tomb of Li Chui refl ect the perfect interplay be-tween traditional handicraft and modern technology. The restored and conserved headdress, the costume, the pieces of jewellery and the bronze mirror with mother-of-pearl inlays display the highest level of con-temporary artistry and techniques. At the same time, the conservation and restoration work carried out bear witness to the conscientious working practices of the Chinese and German experts and their sense of academic investigation.The Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeological (Xi’an) in China and the Römisch-Germanisches Zentral-museum (Mainz) in Germany are constantly co-operating in the fi eld of conserving archaeological fi nds using scientifi c methods. The development work achieved between archaeologists and conservators in this framework is of seminal importance for the fi eld of conservation and restoration and also represents a chal-lenge for it. The new methods used, the interdisciplinary teamwork, as well as the exchanges among experts of various disciplines which have occurred during the conservation and restoration work of the tomb of Li Chui, point to the direction in which academic preservation of cultural heritage is going. This is being ac-cepted in the cultural area and can be seen as an example for an effective, interdisciplinary co-operation in the investigation of cultural fi nds and restoration.The desired success has brought recognition and respect. On the occasion of the publication of the scientifi c report into the burial of Li Chui I congratulate and, on behalf of the Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau

X

and, of course, myself personally, say thank you to all the German and Chinese experts and colleagues who have taken part in this excellent work.The co-operation project on the research and preservation of cultural heritage between China and Germany has existed for almost 25 years, further co-operations and joint scientifi c projects are going on. A cultural and academic co-operation project which has lasted so long represents a wonderful chapter in the fi eld of Chinese-German academic teamwork and one which will fi nd its way into the history-book of Chinese-German cultural exchange.

Many warm greetings and continuing success with the German-Chinese co-operation in cultural heritage preservation.

Zhao RongPresident of the Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau

XI

FOREWORD

With this present publication, »The Tomb of Li Chui – Interdisciplinary Studies into a Tang Period Finds As-semblage«, a truly interdisciplinary research project lasting many years is being brought to a provisional conclusion. Everything began in 2001 with the discovery of the Tang Dynasty tomb during construction works for a new building for the Xi’an University of Technology. It was a wise and prudent decision by our Chinese colleagues of the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology not to remove the fi ligree fi nd with its many parts in the form of its individual components, but to take the ornamental headdress and costume components out of the tomb in their original composite whole, together with the soil, in several so-called block liftings.As a result the really detailed work was transferred from the site into the laboratory, in which Chinese and German specialists carried out the conservation and restoration of high-ranking Chinese burial fi nds to-gether for many years. In these workshops in Xi’an, equipped and gradually expanded with funds from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research since 1989, it was now possible to extract the splendid decorative objects and grave goods from the soil with the necessary care, to safeguard and document every individual tiny item, every, no matter how small imprint of a long decayed silk fabric, every fi ligree little wire, in order afterwards to obtain as complete a picture as possible of the rich jewellery adornment of a Tang Dynasty noblewoman. In this way, for example, for the fi rst time a reconstruction en detail of a Tang Dynasty headdress was possible, based strictly on the feature. This triggered off not inconsiderable discussions among the Chinese experts, because, as a consequence, many a previous research opinion was thereby overturned. The Chinese media, too, reported several times on the research work into the tomb of Li Chui.On the basis of this archaeological information, an exciting interdisciplinary discussion now began. Specialists from very varied fi elds were involved: conservation and restoration, archaeology, natural sciences and sinology joined forces in order to put the tomb and the person buried within into their historical context, to elucidate her status and to classify her costume from a technological and cultural and historical point of view.After the excavator Ma Zhijun and his team, it was the conservators of both countries who, with great expert knowledge and fervour, brought the objects back to new life and knew how to read their traces. Eva Ritz, Annegret Gerick, Friederike Moll-Dau, Andree Forßbohm, Stephan Ritter, Huang Xiaojuan, and Shao Anding should be mentioned here. The textile conservators Gerda Koppatz and Ines Scholz participating in the project also contributed towards the interpretation of the assemblage with their specialist knowledge. On the basis of this work, Ma Zhijun, Zhang Jianlin, Sonja Filip, Annette Kieser and beforehand Bettina Zorn were able to carry out their work on the archaeological feature and its cultural and historical classifi cation. However, Ms Filip has by no means completed her work on the tomb of Li Chui with the conclusion of the paper printed here; she will be dealing with the ornamental headdress as a central topic in her PhD thesis at the Institute of Sinology of the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich. Commendably, this is being super-vised by such a renowned expert as Thomas O. Höllmann, who is also a member of the academic committee for this publication.Technological studies of the individual objects were carried out by Florian Ströbele, Liang Jiafang, Yang Junchang, Huang Xiaojuan, Li Qinghui, Yan Jing, Liu Song, Dong Junqin, Gu Donghong and also myself. Our thanks are due to Yuan Kaizheng for the technical support with the preliminary investigation of the silver objects (provision of a hand spectrometer).The reconstruction of the face was made possible by Zhou Mingquan, Geng Guohua and Yang Junchang. Thanks also go to Ursula Wittwer-Backofen, Stefan Schlager and Fan Yachun.

XII

As we are very interested in having as international a dissemination as possible of the project results, the texts have been translated into three languages. Baoquan Song, Sonja Filip and Clive Bridger were involved in the translations of the epitaph, Bettina Zorn having produced a preliminary version for the catalogue to the exhibition in Bonn in 2006. The extensive translations of all the other texts were carried out by Hou Gailing, Chen Ganglin, Xu Wenxing, Shao Anding, Lin Hsiao-Ling, Sonja Filip, Clive Bridger, Mary Wong-Sommer, Ida Röpfl , Manuela Struck, Lynda Lich-Knight, Maren Mittentzwey and John Michael Deasy.Alexandra Hilgner, in her function as project assistant, fi rst organised the work until Hubertus Mikler, from June 2011 to July 2012, and latterly Romina Schiavone took on the extensive task of editorial supervision on a full-time basis, supported by the RGZM publishing house.Now it lies before us, the work about Li Chui – a young married lady from a good family, so chaste and beautiful, as the inscription of her epitaph imparts to us.It would be desirable to be able to exhibit the magnifi cent fi nds as a whole, supplemented by the exciting fi ndings now to hand about the cultural and historical background, to an international public, too. Visitors were already able to gain a fi rst insight into the world of Li Chui in the exhibition »Xi’an – Kaiserliche Macht im Jenseits. Grabfunde und Tempelschätze aus Chinas alter Hauptstadt« [»Xi’an – Imperial Power in the Afterlife. Burial Finds and Temple Treasures from China’s Old Capital«] in the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn in 2006. However, at that time research was still just beginning and not all conservation works had been completed then, either.Without the extensive support of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research with the title »Inter disciplinary Studies and the Development of Methods for the Protection of and Research into Archae-ological Cultural Finds in the Shaanxi Province« under the project number 01UG1102, neither the research work nor the publication would have been possible. It is thanks to the Ministry offi cials responsible – Angelika Willms-Herget, Sabine Eilers, Karin Korn-Riedlinger und Katharina Kloke –, as well as the staff of the pro-ject’s sponsor at the German Aerospace Centre – Heinz Thunecke, Maria Böhme und Christopher Wertz –, that it has been possible to bring the project to a purposeful conclusion. The project also enjoyed the sup-port of the President of the Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau – Zhao Rong –, as well as his staff at all times. Our thanks go to them, too, as well as to all the employees of the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology (Xi’an), in particular its Director, Wang Weilin.In addition we thank the members of the academic committee and also the editorial committee who gave us moral and practical support at all times. The academic committee includes Zhao Rong, Wang Weilin, Zhang Jianlin, Yang Junchang and Ma Tao (all from Xi’an), as well as Falko Daim (Mainz), Thomas O. Höllmann (Munich), Adele Schlombs (Cologne) and Susanne Greiff (Mainz). The editorial committee con-sists of Wang Weilin, Zhang Jianlin, Wang Xiaomeng, Yang Junchang, Zhao Xichen and Hou Gailing, as well as Romina Schiavone, Alexandra Hilgner, Sonja Filip, Florian Ströbele, Hubertus Mikler and Won Andres.There is hardly any more pleasant task for a project leader after the successful conclusion of such a compre-hensive and lavish publication than to express my most heartfelt thanks to all the employees of the institu-tions involved.

Susanne GreiffHead of the China Project Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum (Mainz)

XIII

FOREWORD

Li Chui was a descendant in the fi fth generation of the founder of the Tang Dynasty, the Emperor Gaozu (AD 566-635). She died unexpectedly of an illness at the age of 25 in the 24th year of the Kaiyuan era (AD 736). She was buried in Leyouyuan, a south-eastern suburb of the Tang capital of Chang’an. More than 1,200 years later, in the winter of 2001, the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology carried out the excavation of Li Chui’s tomb, which had been discovered during construction work on the new campus of the Xi’an University of Technology in the suburb of Qujiang.The fate of the deceased was written in red colour on an epitaph found during the excavation. Although she possessed no title of nobility, the large amount of grave goods shows that she was the descendant of noble and wealthy families. There were found objects of bronze, silver and gold, pottery, jade and lacquer, as well as iron, lead, ivory etc., besides an elaborately formed headdress and jewellery. All these objects display the highest quality of contemporary craftsmanship.As a result of the centuries of soil pressure and the slow penetration of water into the burial chamber many of the grave goods, in particularly those weighing little, such as the lacquerwares, the delicate headdress and smaller decorative pieces, no longer lay in their original places. Some objects were in a bad state of pres-ervation. Li Chui’s clothing no longer existed, only traces were still discernible. The headdress consisting of gold, silver, copper, iron and such materials as turquoise, garnet, amber, agate, pearls and mother-of-pearl was crushed. Some pearls and mother-of-pearl seemed already to have turned to powder. For these reasons, as well as the lack of time for excavation, it was extremely diffi cult to recover the parts of the headdress and further decorative pieces around the body from the archaeological site. Under these circumstances the archaeological team decided to lift the headdress and parts of the body en bloc covered in plaster and then investigate it in the laboratory.Infl uenced by the available time for excavation and digging conditions, the method of block lifting archaeo-logical features and fi nds was introduced very early into archaeological practice in China. As early as 1936, during the 13th campaign of the Yin Ruins, a block weighing fi ve tons, which included 17,096 oracle bones (an archive of oracle bones of the Shang Dynasty with the designation H127), was transported to Beijing for further working. That the tomb of Li Chui has attracted so much attention among experts is not only a result of the rich and intricate fi nds, but also of the scientifi c methods used, such as the preparation under the microscope or the conservation and restoration of the fi nds. Thus, for instance, prior to preparation in the laboratory the earth block with the headdress was fi rst X-rayed, in order to assess the state of damage. After that plans for the conservation and restoration were further developed. The next stages were microscopic work, photography, mechanical cleaning, stabilising porous materials, partial additions, as well as the analysis of the archaeological context. All of this is only possible in an archaeological conservation laboratory. The headdress, comprising around 500 pieces of different materials, was restored in two years of careful labora-tory work and proved to be a work of art of the highest quality. Hitherto it is the only completely restored headdress of the Tang Dynasty in China and, thus, is of exceptional scientifi c value. The State Administration of Cultural Heritage has praised the successful restoration of Li Chui’s headdress in the highest tones and sees it as a paragon for dealing with complicated, archaeological fi nds in China. Following the exhibition »Xi’an – Kaiser liche Macht im Jenseits. Grabfunde und Tempelschätze aus Chinas alter Hauptstadt« [»Xi’an – Imperial Power in the Afterlife. Burial Finds and Temple Treasures from China’s Old Capital«], which was held in Bonn in 2006, the results were also presented in the exhibition »Research and Technology in Cultural

XIV

Heritage Preservation in China« on a prominent level in Beijing in 2010, where the object caused a large amount of interest. Based upon the experience gained in the past, further pieces of Li Chui’s jewellery were restored by Chinese and German experts between 2007 and 2009.This project helped Chinese archaeology gain important insights, one of the most important being the new view of archaeological methods of research and interpretation. I can remember the lecture by Mr Lin Yun 30 years ago on the archaeology of the »Shangzou«, in which he demanded that fi nds assemblages had to be taken into account. He demonstrated this with the example of a stone spearhead, whose sim-ple plotting of its fi nd spot and marking with a fi nds label were not enough. Before removal it had to be checked whether there were traces of the shaft, whether its length, method of attachment or decoration could be observed. If not, many important pieces of information could be lost through carelessness. Dec-ades later the block lifting of Li Chui’s tomb and the subsequent conservation in the laboratory have given a new meaning to the warning of Mr Lin. It is noteworthy that fi nds that have been carefully, scientifi cally prepared, but which are obviously not associated with one another, do in fact relate to one another and then allow an interpretation. Even previously there were many archaeological excavations with similar features. As a result of bad working conditions and a lack of knowledge in the interpretation of features, the focus of the work remained the traditional documentation, recovery and sorting of the fi nds. During that fi nds which originally belonged to one another were separated. Even more problematic was that formally associated fi nds were segregated into individual groups of materials, such as gold, silver, bronze, iron, jewels etc., and on this basis documented in the report. Imagine the hundreds of individual pieces of Li Chui’s headdress being investigated and described purely according to their material groups – how much of the scientifi c value would have been lost and an interpretation would have been extremely dif-fi cult, if not impossible.

The exhaustive report on the archaeological, conservational and scientifi c work of the Tang Dynasty tomb of Li Chui is presented here. It resembles a sword – forged slowly during 10 years of very close Chinese-German co-operation. In these ten years various experts worked with different methods towards a common goal, each gaining his or her individual results. This is refl ected in the content of this publication: Beside the report of the excavator, Ma Zhijun, through detailed analyses of the fi nds, features and contemporary sources several papers present a unique insight into the rich burial equipment of Li Chui and into her times. The complicated work of conservation on the grave goods refl ects in a large number of thematically varying articles. Also, various scientifi c methods of analysis were used, the results of which are presented in several papers.

In China there has hitherto been no comparable project during which over such a long period of work so many different methods have been utilised and archaeology, conservation and sciences have worked to-gether so productively.

Not least owing to our success achieved hitherto the State Administration of Cultural Heritage at the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology has established a research centre with the focus on »the conservation of archaeological objects directly on the excavation site«. With the setting up of an interdisciplinary platform one is hopeful of a further step forward, in order to confront better the problems of securing archaeological fi nds on the excavation itself.

In my view the present publication »The Tomb of Li Chui – Interdisciplinary Studies into a Tang Period Finds Assemblage« will play a very active role in the development of Chinese archaeology.

XV

Finally, I wish to comment that we have from the German experts not just learnt new working methods, but have also adopted their example of staying power in academic research. This should not be forgotten.

I wish much success for all further undertakings of the Chinese-German co-operation

Wang WeilinDirector of the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology (Xi’an)

XVI

The Tomb of Li Chui 1

SUSANNE GREIFF

INTRODUCTION

DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROJECT

This set of papers dealing with the burial of Li Chui presents the results of an interdisciplinary co-operation between the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz and the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archae-ology in Xi’an which has existed for almost 25 years.The Shaanxi Province with its capital of Xi’an can be justifi ably regarded as one of China’s archaeological treasure-houses and the rule of the Tang Dynasty between AD 618 and 907 as »China’s Golden Age«. Thus, it is no accident that within the academic-technical co-operation established in 1978 between the Federal Republic of Germany and the People’s Republic of China talks between both partners took place during the late 1980ies providing for an extension of the activities to investigate and protect cultural heritage in this province. On a visit by German experts it became quickly plain that the region with its numerous prestigious burials and important temple complexes was particularly suitable to accommodate this co-operation project.As well as the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum in Mainz, the Bavarian State Department of Histor-ical Monuments also undertook the task of realizing projects to investigate and conserve archaeologically rele vant sites and fi nds with the fi nancial support of the German Federal Ministry of Research and Tech-nology (today the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research). The Römisch-Germanisches Zen-tralmuseum has been active in Xi’an up to the present day and has been running restoration laboratories since 1991 on the premises of its Chinese project partner, the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology. It soon became clear that many of the valuable objects of exceptional cultural and historical importance could not be adequately dealt with owing to a poor technical infrastructure and a lack of formal expert training in the fi eld of conservation and restoration. This defi cit could be redressed with the establishment of suitable workshops for dealing with portable cultural fi nds and the training of Chinese experts, who together with German colleagues received further training on the spot on fi nds typical of the region. The joint work is characterised by an enthusiastic and close exchange among the project partners. Even though the practical work mainly takes place in Xi’an itself, the Chinese experts travel regularly to Mainz for study-trips.On the Bavarian side the focus of the work initially lay on the preservation of historic buildings and sites on the one hand and the conservation of the colours of the terracotta soldiers on the other. The Technical Centre for the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Finds and the Qin Shi Huangdi’s Mausoleum Site Museum partake on the Chinese side. For some time now the Bavarian part of the China Project has been established under the aegis of the Chair of Restoration and Conservation at the Technical University Munich. With the Institute for Far Eastern Art History of the Ruprecht-Karls University of Heidelberg a further partner of the Munich colleagues has now been included in the research, in order to cover the cultural and historical aspects, in addition to the conservational side.The Mainz project group also won a further partner, in order to document the large Tang imperial funerary monuments in the County of Pucheng. With its expertise in the fi eld of modern surveying and documenta-tion techniques the i3Mainz, the Institute for Spatial Information and Surveying Technology of the University of Applied Sciences in Mainz, takes part in the project in numerous ways.With the help of long-term fi nancial support through the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research the German and Chinese project partners have already successfully accomplished numerous schemes. Apart

2 Susanne Greiff · Introduction

from the satellite supported documentation of Tang imperial funerary complexes, such as the Qiaoling mausoleum, and the documentation of a Zhou period tomb from the cemetery of Liang Diacun, the Mainz teams of specialists, for instance, dedicated themselves to the restoration of the life-size bronze water birds from the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huangdi (»First Resplendent Emperor of Qin«) and partook in the saving of Han wall paintings from a tomb near Xunyi. Work was also carried out on the restoration of fi nds from the imperial mausoleum of Xiaoling and the satellite tombs of the Maoling mausoleum. Already in the 1980ies, the large fi nds complex from a subterranean treasury of the Buddhist temple of Famen was chosen as the starting project. Bronze, porcelain, silver, gold, silk, lacquer, wood… almost all materials imaginable were encountered, but all precarious in their state of preservation. Slowly but surely all could be successfully con-served and restored – with the exception of many silk fi nds. For this reason a laboratory for restoring silk was later established at the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology in Xi’an adding a further important component. The unfolding of the extremely fragile bundles of silk garments, which were also folded into hundreds of layers of material, was exemplarily carried out successfully on a bundle consisting of seven gar-ments. The textile technological and the cultural and historical research are almost completed, so that this subsection, too, can soon be presented in a publication.Many results of the German-Chinese co-operation were on show in 2006 in the large exhibition »Xi’an – Kaiserliche Macht im Jenseits. Grabfunde und Tempelschätze aus Chinas alter Hauptstadt« [»Xi’an – Imperial Power in the Afterlife. Burial Finds and Temple Treasures from China’s Old Capital«] in the The Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany in Bonn. This also included splendid objects from a Tang burial, in which a young woman of the Li family had been interred. At that time the conservation and res-toration work on this fi nds assemblage had not been completed and the cultural and historical evaluation had only just begun. In the intervening period the situation has changed and, following the conclusion of the restoration work in 2010, the decision to present the work on this fi nd in all of its facets has now been realised. Taking part in this, apart from the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum and the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, are also the Institute of Sinology of the Ludwig Maximilian University Munich under Prof. Dr. Thomas O. Höllmann, as well as the Institute of Sinology and Far Eastern Studies of the Westfälische Wilhelms University Münster under Prof. Dr. Reinhard Emmerich. This close interlock-ing between archaeology, conservation and restoration, art and cultural history, as well as various natural sciences is illustrated in the content and structure of this volume.

INVESTIGATION INTO THE TOMB OF LI CHUI

Under normal excavation conditions numerous small and fragile fi nds can only be adequately retrieved with the aid of block lifting. When during an excavation in 2001 on the campus of the Xi’an University of Technology a female burial, which had been penetrated by water and which contained an evidently complicated headdress and costume, came to light, Ma Zhijun laid the foundation for all further steps with his intelligent decision to recover the fi nds assemblage in the form of blocks in situ. In his excavation report he describes in detail the building and structure of the tomb, as well as the most important fi nds. An unrobbed tomb of this status is rare and, therefore, offers the opportunity of looking at female elite burials in a new light. However, as well as all the scientifi c studies following, it is the touching epitaph that enables a very personal access to the deceased herself. The text – a history of love and suffering – is accord-ingly placed before the scientifi c studies and accompanies the reader throughout the book. Starting with the deceased’s biography set down in the epitaph’s text Sonja Filip deals with the cultural and historical

The Tomb of Li Chui 3

background to the fi nds and features. She also answers the question that Li Chui was of noble birth, but in fact did not take the rank of »princess«, which because of her relationship to the imperial house had been assumed at the beginning of the research. Accordingly, and in contrast to the catalogue to the exhibition in Bonn, in the following texts Li Chui is no longer referred to as »princess«.Although she bore no offi cial title of nobility, her personal attire in particular shows that the tomb, from the viewpoint of European archaeology, can certainly be termed as a »noble burial«. In order to illustrate the position of Li Chui in the society of her time, she is, therefore, often referred to in this book as a »Lady of rank« or as a noblewoman.In his paper Zhang Jianlin picks on certain fi nds, such as the sumptuous headdress, the waistband adorned with pearls and turquoise, as well as some small fi nds of lead, and considers them in the context of the literary sources on costume rites and burial practice during the Tang period. Annette Kieser deals with the silver vessels from the tomb of Li Chui and compares them with other known examples of the Tang era.Annegret Gerick describes her complex work on the numerous small-sized and delicate headdress, which, for the fi rst time based on the fi nds situation of the individual pieces en bloc, allowed the restoration of a Tang headdress broadly in accordance with the original fi nds. As well as this block parts of the body with delicate jewellery objects were also block-lifted. Prelim inary work on these was carried out by Stephan Ritter and continued by Friederike Moll-Dau. Here the work concentrated not only on the restoration and conservation of jewel pendants and a waistband, but also on saving and documenting the traces left behind as impressions in the loess by textiles decayed long ago. On the strength of the knowledge gained a form for a museum presentation was designed, which Huang Xiaojuan presents and explains in her text.Saving objects of organic materials, such as textiles, wood and lacquer, still represents a major problem for restoration and conservation. Eva Ritz reports on an assemblage of lacquer boxes, whose former wooden core material had disappeared into the soil long ago, merely leaving a layer of paper-thin lacquer behind which also reacted extremely sensitively to the loss of moisture.The end consists of papers in which scientifi c and technological methods play a role. Yang Junchang and Huang Xiaojuan deal thoroughly with the analysis of gold and silver threads and how they were made. In my own paper I present the results of some mineralogical investigations into gemstones from the tomb, whereas Florian Ströbele and Liang Jiafang deal with the composition of the alloys and the making of the silver vessels using non-destructive analysis. The portable X-ray fl uorescence instrument, purchased with project funds, was used in this. Non-destructive was also the watchword during the investigation of the headdress carried out by Li Qinghui, Yang Junchang, Yan Jing, Liu Song, Dong Junqin and Gu Donghong. Finally, Zhou Mingquan, Geng Guohua and Yang Junchang describe the way they reconstructed the face based upon the skull fi nd.

EDITORIAL MATTERS

As one can deduce from the contents, this book combines various academic fi elds, which geographically, but also interdisciplinarily should in the end congeal to one uniform whole. By standardizing the texts the different research traditions have led to the need to agree to certain compromises in the formal layout. Thus, we have preferred the archaeological way of citation to that of the natural sciences. The names of the Chinese colleagues and scientists have been transcribed into Pinyin and, in custom with Chinese usage, the surname is given fi rst followed by the fi rst name. This system was also employed in the shortened biblio-

4 Susanne Greiff · Introduction

graphical citations in the footnotes, whereas the names of the German colleagues and scientists are given only with the surnames. The complete bibliographical citation for the Chinese names, titles of literature and bodies are given in Chinese characters, so that the original version can also be consulted by those versed in Chinese. In order to differentiate, information on historical sources, as well as scroll paintings have been set in cursive letters. Where authors or translators thought it would be sensible or valuable, the reader will fi nd in the German and English texts designations and specialised terms in Chinese characters, in Pinyin and the German or English translation, so that experts and interested readers can deal with the contents in the same way.

One issue of this book has already been published in German, another one is being prepared in Chinese, in order to provide the international academic world with the results, too. A quintessence of this research project’s results targeted towards the interested public has also appeared in German and English under the title »The Lady with the Phoenix Crown. Tang Period Grave Goods of the Noblewoman Li Chui (711-736)« under the editorship of Sonja Filip and Alexandra Hilgner. In the support of young academics a further piece of work on Li Chui will follow: Sonja Filip is at present working on her PhD thesis under the working title of »The headdress of Li Chui (711-736) – Reconstruction, Allocation of Status and Comparison«.

Thus, the German-Chinese project will bear rich fruit, which not least thanks to the extensive support of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the national and international academic community, as well as the interested public can be made accessible through publications and exhibitions.