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- more terrifying expression with gaping jaws and bared teeth. When in a tomb, a pair of zhenmu shou guardian creatures are always found at the entrance in the burial chamber together with a pair of ceramic warriors in armour. This team seems to be related to the Buddhist concept of the Four Heavenly Kings, or lokapalas, who guarded the four quarters of Heaven, or possibly the two dvarapalas who guard the entrance to Buddhist temples. These armoured guardians, who are usually standing on demons or reclining bulls, have ferocious expressions on theirfaces similartothe zhenmu shou creatures. It is this Buddhist guardian aspect, which has been added for the first time in the Tang tombs, when Buddhism was in its heyday, as a kind of double insurance against evil spirits.
From the middle to late Tang, the makers of these ceramic mythical figures seem to have let their imaginations run wild, as some zhenmu shou take on the appearance of the lokapala and attempt to stand upright on their hind legs, adopting the gestures and stance of the lokapalas (fig. xii). They, too, are now seen trampling on an animal.
By the late Tang through the Five Dynasties to the Song dynasty, these fearsome creatures appear to have largely disappeared or degenerated into all sorts of wonderfully weird creatures. Snake or dragon body shapes with two human heads or two lion heads, one on each end, make their appearance, as well as human-headed fish (fig. xiii).
The best examples of this popular new imagination can be found inthe numerous mythical hybrid figurines found in the two excavated Southern Tang (937-975) emperors� mausoleums near Nanjing. By the time of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), the ceramic tomb figurines of mythical hybrids seem to have completely disappeared.
Another popular type of mythical hybrid had the upper body of the human, male or female, combined with a bird�s bottom half (fig. xv). This combination occurred fairly early in tomb art. For example, we see it in the Mawangdui banner, on tomb bricks from Dengxian and on tomb figurines of the Sui and Tang periods.
Before leaving the subject of mythical hybrids, we should examine the twelve animals of the calendrical cycle which have human bodies and specific animal heads representing the twelve-year cycle: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, chicken, dog and pig (fig. 37). The concept of animals representing each of the twelve earthly branches of the calendar appears to date back at least as far back as the Warring States period. This belief in animal zodiac signs has continued to have a popular impact on Chinese thought up to the present day. Each animal is supposed to exert an influence, according to its own attributes over hour, day or year appropriate to it.
The placing of ceramic figurines of these �zodiac� animals in tombs appears to have become very popular during the Tang dynasty. It became a relatively common occurence in certain locations in China to place a set of these in one�s tomb. Tang dynasty tombs, which were excavated at Xingyuancun, Henan, reveal their usual arrangement in the tomb chamber: on the floor set along the walls of the chamber and sometimes in tiny niches. Another example of their use is found in one of the joint tombs of the Tang dynasty excavated at the Astana graveyard in Xinjiang. Here, only two large figurines were found, and they represented the birth years of the husband and wife interred in the tomb (fig. xvi). This practice of placing zodiacal animals in tombs continued into the Song dynasty. There are some ceramic figures from this period in the exhibit which offer an interesting variant on the theme. Officials are depicted carrying a zodiacal animal or the head of a zodiacal animal in their hands (fig. 93).
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