The Tomb of Wang Chuzhi (Chinese 王處直墓 / 王处直墓 Wang Chizhi mu) is the grave of

Wang Chuzhi Wang Chuzhi (王處直, Wade–Giles: Wang Chʻu-chih) (862–922), courtesy name Yunming (允明, Wade–Giles: Yün-ming), formally the Prince of Beiping (北平王, Wade–Giles: Prince of Pei-pʻing), was a warlord late in the Chinese dynasty T ...

(863-923 CE), a senior military governor of the late period of the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

and the Later Liang from the time of the

Five Dynasties The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period (), from 907 to 979, was an era of political upheaval and division in 10th-century Imperial China. Five dynastic states quickly succeeded one another in the Central Plain, and more than a dozen conc ...

. It was rediscovered in 1980 in Xiyanchuan village in

Quyang Quyang County () is under the administration of Baoding City, Hebei province, China. The county is famous for its stone carvings, many of which are exported abroad. The Beiyue Temple is located in Quyang city. Administrative divisions Towns: * He ...

district of the Chinese province of

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, an ...

. The grave was robbed in July 1994 because of the high artistic level of its wall paintings and reliefs which are of great historical value. Thieves used dynamite to blast their way into the tomb before removing several painted marble relief panels. The tomb was subsequently excavated officially in 1995. One of the panels was advertised for sale in a Christie's New York Fine Chinese Ceramics, Paintings and Works of Art auction catalogue in 2000. It was seized by US Customs in response to a request made by the Chinese authorities and the stolen panel was returned to China in 2001, and is now on display at the

National Museum of China The National Museum of China () flanks the eastern side of Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. The museum's mission is to educate about the arts and history of China. It is directed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the People's Republic ...

in Beijing.

Painted marble relief

Painted on two marble reliefs, a group of servants and a fifteen-member ladies' orchestra. It provides information about the musical tastes of the upper classes during the late Tang dynasty.

Women's orchestra

On the Western wall of the tomb, there are twelve people in the orchestra. In the front row there are five women (from right to left) playing the

konghou The () is a Chinese plucked string instrument. In ancient China, the term came to refer to three different musical instruments: a zither and two different types of harp. Today, usually refers the modern '' concert harp'', which was invent ...

(箜篌; bow harp), the

guzheng The zheng () or gu zheng (), is a Chinese plucked zither. The modern guzheng commonly has 21, 25, or 26 strings, is long, and is tuned in a major pentatonic scale. It has a large, resonant soundboard made from ''Paulownia'' wood. Other co ...

(古箏; an 18 - 23-stringed plucked zither with moveable bridges),

pipa The pipa, pípá, or p'i-p'a () is a traditional Chinese musical instrument, belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets rang ...

(琵琶; lute),

paiban The ''paiban'' () is a clapper made from several flat pieces of hardwood or bamboo (or, formerly, sometimes also ivory or metal), which is used in many different forms of Chinese music. There are many different types of ''paiban'', and the instr ...

(拍板; bamboo clapper) and dagu (大鼓; bass drum) while, in the back row, there are seven women playing the sheng (笙; mouth organ),

fang xiang Fang Xiang (; born October 1957) is a lieutenant general in the People's Liberation Army of China. He was an alternate member of the 19th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. Biography Fang was born in Chun'an County, Zhejiang, in O ...

(方響;

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...

metallophone A metallophone is any musical instrument in which the sound-producing body is a piece of metal (other than a metal string), consisting of tuned metal bars, tubes, rods, bowls, or plates. Most frequently the metal body is struck to produce sound, ...

), dalagu (答臘鼓; West Asian cylindrical drum),Zeng, p.87. two bili (篳篥; oboes), and two bamboo transverse flutes (hengdi 橫笛 or dizi 笛子). At the far right of the front row is a female conductor dressed like a man with two children dancers in front of him.

Gallery

File:Epitafio de la tumba de Wang Ch'u-chih.jpg,

Epitaph An epitaph (; ) is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves be ...

of the tomb of Wang Chuzhi File:王處直墓壁畫1.jpg File:王處直墓壁畫2.jpg File:王處直墓壁畫3.jpg File:王處直墓壁畫3a.jpg File:王處直墓壁畫5.jpg File:王處直墓壁畫6.jpg File:王處直墓後室浮雕.jpg File:Mural Painting from Tomb of Wang Ch'u-chih (王處直) 1.jpg File:Mural Painting from Tomb of Wang Ch'u-chih (王處直) 4.jpg File:Mural Painting from Tomb of Wang Ch'u-chih (王處直) 3.jpg File:Mural Painting from Tomb of Wang Ch'u-chih (王處直) 2.jpg File:Mural Painting from Tomb of Wang Ch'u-chih (王處直) 5.jpg File:Mural Painting from Tomb of Wang Ch'u-chih (王處直) 6.jpg

Footnotes

References

* Hebei Sheng Wenwu yanjiusuo 河北省文物研究所: ''Wudai Wang Chuzhi mu'' 五代王处直墓. Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe 1998, * Zeng Jinshou. ''China's music and music education in cultural exchanges with neighboring countries and the West''. Bremen 2003 (Diss)
Online
see: "''Qiuci ji''") * Scots Hammer, Angela: "The grave of Wang Chuzhi (863-923)." In: Angela Scots Hammer (ed.) ''On the trail of the afterlife. Chinese culture grave in the facets of reality, history and cult of the dead''. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2003. pp. 61–117. * Xiaoneng Yang (ed.): ''The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology. Celebrated Discoveries from the People's Republic of China.'' .

External links

Angela Schottenhammer: Tombs of the upper classes in Ancient China: The grave of Wang Chuzhi (863-923)
The Transformation of Medieval Chinese Elites (Nicolas Olivier Tackett)
{{coord missing, Hebei Tombs in China Chinese sculpture Chinese music Tang dynasty art Jin (Five Dynasties)