Collection of Ancient Chinese Cultural Relics

This book, a collection of ancient Chinese cultural relics details relics from the Liao, Jin and Western Xia Dynasties, 916 to 1234 and the Yuan Dynasty, 1271 to 1368. It has relics of jade ad copper ware, gold and silver ware, pottery, porcelain, painting, and handicraft from the Liao, Jin and Western Xia Dynasties and others from the Yuan Dynasty. There are 250 relics.

During the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties, northern nomads established a number of separate regimes. The Liao, Western Xia and Jin Dynasties. In the northeast, the Khitan people founded the Liao Regime and 916 and it was destroyed in 1125.

The Liao, Jin and Western Xia Dynasties were ill founded by nomadic peoples, but under the influence of the Han people, who had a long history, the politics and cultures of these nomadic peoples took on a kind of duality. While they preserved the traditions of their respective nationalities, they also absorbed the culture of the Han people and gradually they even converted to Han customs.

Jade objects were usually manufactured by the Han. For example, the Jade Ornament of Sprint Water Patter shows a scene of a falcon attacking a wild goose, which reflects the hunting life and the national character of the Khitan people.

The ceramic industry attached great importance on the absorption of advanced porcelain-fired skills from the Central Plains, and a group of skilled craftsmen migrated to these areas. As a whole, the ceramic industry in these areas were inferior to those of the Central Plains-they had fewer workshops and were smaller kin size-but porcelain of some considerable quality was still produced there and different national styles were developed as well as skills and techniques in terms of shaping and adornment. The Liao state followed the lead of the Han people in establishing offical kilns in Shangjing Linhuangfu. In spite of their small size and relative short duration of usage, the kilns still produced high quality and artistic work.

In the Liao, Jin and Western Xia Dynasties, calligraphy and painting were relatively underdeveloped and there were few great calligraphers or painters. However, large numbers of gold and silver objects have been found and were used in funerals, for adornment and worship. Jade was more popular in the Jin than in the Liao Dynasty.
Yuan Dynasty 1271 to 1368

In the early period of the Yuan, the emergence of the nomadic Mongo people on the northern prairies was hardly noticed. In 1206, Genghis Khan, began building the Mongol empire. In 1276 the Yuan regime moved south and conquered the Southern Song Regime to reunite the whole country- the first time this had been done by a northern nomadic ethic group in China's history.

This book, the seventh in a ten-volume collection, brings to the English-speaking world a series of books from China which has been complied by an Expert Committee of the Chinese Society of Cultural Relics. There are 250 descriptions.