AN ICONOGRAPHIC STUDY OF TWO LATE HAN FUNERARY MONUMENTS: THE OFFERING SHRINES OF THE WU FAMILY AND THE MULTICHAMBER TOMB AT HOLINGOR. (VOLUMESI AND II) (CHINA)

The purpose of this dissertation is to describe and then to interpret the imagery employed in two late Han funerary monuments, the offering shrines of the Wu family in Shantung (c. A.D. 147-168) and the multi-chamber chamber tomb near Holingor in Inner Mongolia (c. A.D. 180-185). Earlier monuments, paintings from Western Han tombs in Hunan and Honan, are studied first as examples of the patterns of Han funerary iconography. Early Eastern Han monuments, the shrine at Hsiao T'ang Shan and a tomb in the same vicinity near the village of Fei-ch'eng in Shantung, are considered next. It is suggested that the Hsiao T'ang Shan shrine provides a model for the later Wu shrines. The necessity to treat all the motifs in each shrine in relation to each other and to the function of the shrine is stressed. Similarly, all the paintings in the tomb at Holingor must also be interpreted as parts of a program of decoration. Finally, the need to differentiate between the meaning of the scenes in shrines and the same sort of scenes in tombs is noted.