Review: The Mingqi Pottery Buildings of Han Dynasty China by Qinghua Guo

Abstract

Qinghua Guo . The Mingqi Pottery Buildings of Han Dynasty China . Brighton, Portland, Toronto: Sussex Academic Press: 2010, 206 pp., 8 color and 330 b/w illus. $99.95, ISBN 9781845193218 Qinghua Guo's The Mingqi Pottery Buildings of Han Dynasty China is a study of an intriguing and important aspect of Chinese architecture and burial practice that has never been fully understood. Mingqi is a complex term referring to objects of almost any variety placed in Chinese tombs. The subset of Han grave goods discussed in this book are pottery works shaped like buildings. More architectural mingqi are found in Han (206 BCE–220 CE) tombs than in earlier or later periods; thousands survive and hundreds are illustrated in the book. Guo tells the reader at the outset that she will not attempt to discuss the origins or evolution of mingqi . Rather, her purpose is to present salient points of an architectonic nature . . . from the standpoint of architectural representation (1). Still, Guo must begin with a definition of this Chinese term, which comprises two characters, ming and qi . Turning to the primary definitions of the characters in modern Mandarin, Guo chooses spirit as the English translation, which was earlier proposed by Wu Hung for mingqi of the Warring States period (ca. 475–221 BCE).1 Guo also writes that mingqi can be defined as specially manufactured articles moulded on objects of daily life for the dead to use in the afterlife (1). She tells us thus that she will argue that these burial goods, made in the shape of buildings, are based on actual structures. Guo also lays out her other beliefs about mingqi in the introduction. She postulates that they were symbolic rather than ritual objects; that those of the second century BCE …