Tang Material Culture

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Tang Material Culture

• How much and to what extent do material culture
  reflect Tang dynastys cultural advances?
• How important were the foreign influences on Tang
  material culture?
• What were situations of dwelling and clothing in
  the Tang?
• What kind of food did Tang people eat and what
  constituted Tang transportation system?

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• Dwelling little foreign influence the majority
  of people lived in houses
• Special dwelling structures
• artificial caves (northwest)
• homes built on pilings (southwest)
• boats (along the Yangtze River)
• large ships (central China)
• Boats (some southern districts)
• Clothing many foreign influences
• Women wore burnoose adopted from the Tu-yü-hun,
  curtain bonnet from Tokâra
• The rich and the poor

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Earliest Tang buildings still remain today
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Northern corner of Huaqing Pool Park, Xian
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Old Huaqing Pool site
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Dwellings in the Tang

• Built according to the principle of fengshui
• Gates face south
• Walls and outer walls, made of earth
• Images of gate gods painted on or attached to
  gates

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Gate Gods
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Dwelling of the Rich

• Houses of the rich and powerful had to follow
  sumptuary statutes
• Only highest-ranking aristocrats could place
  lances with banners attached to them, planted
  outside the gates of their homes
• Mansions having two or more courtyards and halls
• Men lived in front apartments, women rear or
  inner apartments
• Wood pillars, beams, rafters used to construct
  halls
• Windows made of oiled papers, cloth, or silk
• Walls were plastered and decorated with paintings
  and calligraphies

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• Houses of rich families and ranking officials
  consisted of
• Center room, wife and relatives rooms
• Personal library
• Treasury room
• Family shrine
• Bathhouse or hot spring
• Separate privy (had goddess of the privy)
• Wells

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• Furnishings
• couches, chairs (after mid-Tang century), round
  stools and long benches, dinning tables, screens,
  beds (supported by four poles from which curtains
  hung), foreign rugs, treasure chest, chamber pots
• Pillows made of porcelain, wood, stone, rosewood
• Lightening torches, oil lamps, candles, and
  lanterns

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Chair, Body, and Health

• Influence of Buddhism
• monks played an important role in the use and
  spread of chair, sugar, and tea in China.
• Before the mid-Tang (8th century), people sat on
  mats on the ground
• Preferred method on sitting was to kneel
• On casual occasion, one could sit cross-legged
• Buddhist monks started to sit on chairs
• Beginning the 6th century or earlier, monks sat
  on chairs, which were often referred to as
  corded-chairs,
• Sitting on chairs cross-legged was form of
  seated-meditation
• It was to avoid the distraction caused by
  crawlers such as poisonous snake, spiders,
  insects etc.
• chairs spread from monasteries to living rooms,
  particularly in late Tang and Song households.

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Landscaping Architecture

• Garden in the yard
• Occupied half of the land for a stately home
• A lake or pond and bridge
• Fish, ducks, geese in the lake or pond
• Pleasure boats
• A bamboo grove
• Esteemed flowers and trees peonies, blue lotus
  flowers, white and purple magnolias, cassia trees
  and flowers, a fragrant bramble with yellow
  blossoms, azaleas, chrysanthemums, redbuds, pine
  and cypress, apricots, peaches, crabapples
• A pavilion (for playing zither or small
  gatherings)
• Rare rocks

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Pipa Pavilion Built in the Tang In honor of Bai
Juyi, who wrote Ballad of Pipa (Song of the
Lute)
Houses and pavilions tend to show bilateral
symmetry but gardens are asymmetrical
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Tang women and their costumes
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Clothing in the Tang

• Materials
• Felt (made from wool), used for hats, tents,
  saddle covers, and boots
• Camel hair, otter fur, bombycine, cotton, silk,
  used to make garments
• Major types of cloth
• Wool made from animal fur
• Linen made from woody fibers hemp, ramie, kudzu
• Silk made from insect filaments silkworms (which
  eat mulberry leaves) cocoons

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Mens and Womens Apparels

• Men
• Wore loose, baggy trousers, tunics that opened in
  the front, and sashes tied at the waist
• Slippers and sandals served as shoes
• Formal dress resembled modern bathrobes
• Boots for horse riding
• Women
• Wore trouser and outer skirt that was tied across
  or above the breasts

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Foodstuffs in Tang China

• Examples Sweeteners and Teas
• Sweeteners
• Chinese used maltose and honey as sweeteners in
  the pre-Tang period
• Monks first acquired the knowledge of
  sugar-making and were dispatched by Tang court to
  Indian monastery to learn the technique
• The steady stream of monks traveling between
  China and India accounted for the transfer of the
  sugar-making technology

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Left Gauze-dressed noble women in Tang
times Right Modern version
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Sugar-production

• Evidence indicates that monks first demonstrated
  sophisticated knowledge of sugar refining
• A monk invented sugar frost (known in the West as
  sugar candy, coffee crystals, or rock candy)
• Monasteries often possessed large fields and
  mills, making it possible to
• Cultivate sugarcane
• Extract juice from the cane
• Monks paid attention to sugar manufacturing
  because
• they had to follow the rule of eating two meals a
  day before noon

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Tea and Tea Drinking

• Tea drinking became fashionable among literati
  officials in the south during the 3rd to the 6th
  centuries
• It gained currency after the 7th century (Tang
  dynasty), and reached its climax in the 10th
  century
• The popularity of tea drinking led to
• the establishment of a tea-drinking ritual, or
  several refined rituals
• Refinement of the tea drinking culture entailed
  the use of good quality of waters for brewing tea
• Advocacy of the medicinal use of tea
• State levied tax on tea, indicating the thriving
  trade in tea leaves
• Poets composed verses praising merits of tea,
  creating a new genre of literaturetea poetry

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Beginning of Tea Manufacturing

• Scholars generally agree that tea manufacture
  (cultivation and using their leaves) originated
  in China.
• Tea cultivation and drinking throughout the world
  can for the most part be traced to China
• Even pronunciations of the words for tea in all
  modern languages derive ultimately from Chinese
• The modern Chinese word of tea, however, did not
  become the standard word for the plant until the
  eighth century

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Buddhism Helped Spread Tea

• The first Chinese author of tea, Lu Yu (b. 733),
  was raised by a monk and maintained close
  contacts with monks throughout his life
• Tea in monasteries popular because of
• its medicinal properties
• its value as a stimulant,
• Used as an aid in staying alert during meditation
• Monasteries offered tea to visiting literati
  officials

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Other Beverages

• Wine
• Most were products of glutinous millet or
  glutinous rice
• Grape wine was a result of newly developed wine
  technology
• spring wine celebrated in poetry, most popular
• Herb added to make it salubrious
• Milk
• Goat milk was regarded salubrious of special
  value to the kidneys
• Mare milk made into kumiss

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Northern Southern Foods

• Food in the north differed from that in the south
• North
• millet, barley, wheat, turnips, fruits (grapes,
  apricots, peaches, pears, apples, persimmons,
  pomegranates), pork, lamb
• South
• rice, sago flour, bamboo shoots, yams and taro,
  fruits (litchi, dragon eyes, oranges, tangerines,
  kumquats, loquats, seafood (jelly fish,oysters,
  squid, crabs, shrimps, turtles, puffers), monkey,
  frogs, pork
• Exotic foods
• Golden peaches, pistachios, dates, mangoes

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Foods and Health

• Foods yield different effects when eaten or
  prepared in different ways
• Cold food food generating cooling effect
• Warm food food generating heating effect
• Food combinations prone to the generation of
  toxicants
• Plums with the meat of songbirds or honey
• Turtle with pork, rabbit, duck or mustard
• Leeks with beef or honey
• Mussels with melons or radishes

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Culinary Arts

• A wide array of cooking methods
• Boiling
• Steaming
• Roasting
• Broiling
• Barbecuing
• Frying
• Stewing

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Feasts and Entertainments

• Regular imperial and private feasts accompanied
  by
• Performances of music and dance
• Poetry written to commemorate the occasions
  festivals, birthdays
• Buddhist feasts vegetarian
• Celebrated Buddhas birthday, anniversaries
• Beverages drunk in banquets
• Water, fruit juices, tea, wine, kumiss, ale
• Inebriation contributed to the excellence of
  artists or poets works