For the Chinese, humans had two souls, the hun (‘cloud soul’) and po (‘white soul’). While the hun went on to ascend to heaven, the po remained trapped in the realm of the tomb. If not adequately provided for, the po would become restless, breaking out of the tomb and wandering the Earth. It should be noted, however, that some popular Chinese religion envisaged both the hun and the po being trapped in the tomb. In order to provide for the entombed spirit, the early Chinese began to bury the dead with things their po might need. This included the live burials (xunzang) of service animals, servants and even wives. This grisly practice was supposedly outlawed by the Qin Dynasty around the third century, and several times thereafter, but it continued in Chinese practice until AD 1673. For most people, however, xunzang was neither practical nor desirable. Instead, the wealthy were buried with mingqi, ‘spirit goods’: representations (mostly in terracotta) of things the po might need, rather than the things themselves. These mingqi went far beyond the bare necessities. Soldiers, servants, attendants, musicians, foreign traders with exotic goods, and even entire houses, would be interred for the benefit of the po. The apogee of mingqi was the Tang Dynasty (AD 618 – AD 907), a period of unparalleled wealth and unity in Ancient China. Under the Tang, even relatively middle-ranking officials were buried with hundreds of mingqi, sometimes in painted terracotta, other times in the characteristic three-colour sancai glaze.

The importance of horses among mingqi cannot be overstated; they are among the most common figures apart from attendants. They range in size from small figures to perhaps a metre high, and display a variety of attitudes, including prancing, whinnying, biting their own backs, or standing firmly on the ground. Often, these poses give an indication as to where the figures were made. This piece is a hollow terracotta horse, about thirty centimetres high. His feet are planted firmly, his muscular torso expressing condensed energy. His head is twisted slightly to the side, staring downwards. The horse exudes elegance and nobility, with a short-cropped mane and tail, and sweeping muscular lines. He is saddled, ready to be ridden, and looks as though he is waiting for his master; it is possible that in antiquity, this figure had a removable rider which is now lost. Details are painted on the horse’s pale fur, including a bridle and the strapping for the saddle, his sad downturned eyes, and the detail of his mane. The colour survives remarkably well. From the pose of the horse, we can loosely attribute this piece to the capital city Chang’an, which produced strong and steady horses in a variety of clays.

The horse was always significant in Chinese culture; it represented the pure male energy (yang), and embodied the spirit of the mighty Yellow River. It was especially venerated in Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism, where the baima (white horse) became associated with Kanthaka, the horse companion of the Gautama Buddha. But the Chinese had been somewhat latecomers to the use of the horse, especially when compared to their nomadic neighbours to the north and west. China’s greatest monument, the Great Wall, was largely a bulwark against the incursions from the horse-riding Mongols. While horses were known in China from the Shang Dynasty, it was not until the Tang period that cavalry became a stalwart of the Chinese army. By AD 794, the Imperial herds numbered some 325,700 horses. It was also at this time that elite enjoyment of Arab stallions became most prominent, and sports such as polo were soon played among the elite.

References: a near-identical Tang horse can be found in London (Victoria and Albert Museum C.1179-1917).