The Zhaoling Museum is built on the site of the tomb of Li Ji,
a minister to three emperors in the Tang Dynasty.
Li Ji was named Xu Shiji originally, aliased Maogong. He took
part in the Wagang Peasant Insurrection Army at the age of 17.
Later he capitulated to Li Yuan, assisting Emperor Li Shimin, and
Li Zhi, in governing the country. He was appreciated by Tai Zong
for the great feats he had performed in numerous battles. On the
occasion that he was ill, Tang Taizong even served him personally.
After Li Ji's death, Tang Gaozong had Li Ji's tomb built into
three gO-metre-high hillocks representing mountains of Yinshan,
Tieshan and Wudejian, the bottoms of which were joined together.
And the three peaks form the shape of an inverted Chinese charac-
ter "~"(pin), which is in praise of his achievements in defeating
Tujue ( a nomadic tribe then). There is a 5. 6-metre-high stone
tablet in front of the tomb,with a 1. g-metre-long large stone tor-
toise as its base and six dragons carved on the top. The article on
the tablet was composed by Li Zhi (Gao Zong) himself. When Wu
Zetian came into power, Xu Jinye, the grandson of Li Ji, raised a
rebelion. Not only was Li Ji deprived of his aristocratic title, but al-
so his tomb was uncovered and his coffin was cut into pieces. After
Wu Zetian had died, Tang Zhongzong recovered Li Ji's title and re-
built his tomb. Now here is the tomb rebuilt after Li Ji had been re-
habilitated,with a couple of stone figures on the facade, three cou-
ples of stone sheep on the left and stone tigers on the right.
Besides Li Ji's tomb, there are also two exhibition rooms for
stone tablets and exhibition halls for antiques, carvings and paint-
steles have great value in the art of calligraphy;therefore this muse-
um is also called "The Stone Tablets of Zhaoling Mausoleum".
It was fashionable to install steles before tombs in the Tang
Dynasty. It was unique to the rank and the great number of the
satellite tombs of Zhaoling, leaving a large scale of first-class tablet
inscriptions. Tang Taizong and Tang Gaozong were fond of callig-
raphy. On the initiative of the two emperors, the calligraphic art
was becoming better and approaching perfection day by day. Every
inscription here is the superb work of the calligraphy. For most of
the steles were inscribed originally and they were not later carved or
imitated. The way of inscribing the tablet at that time is:grinding
the stone flat first, then writing the article in red on the flat stone.
This is called "Shu Dan". (Now the way of inscribing is writing the
article on the paper and sketching it by the stonemason on the
stone. ). So the strokes are very clear without losing shape at all.
The Inscriptions of Zhaoling have had much renown ever since be-
fore, just for its assemblance of the cream of the calligraphy in the
early Tang Dynasty, the Stone Tablets of Zhaoling are first class in
China.
From the work of the epigrapher in the Song Dynasty, there
had been over 80 tablets around Zhaoling. Also somebody had sold
the books of rubbings in a set named "The Rubbings of Zhaoling".
But it was pity that the books did not get careful protection in old
China, so there were only 22 types left until 1949. In the recent 40
years, with the efforts of the archaeologists and the general survey
of the antiques, mord than 20 steles have been found gradually and
over 20 epitaphs unearthed, forming the present scale of the Stone
Tablets of Zhaoling.
Exhibition Room I
Over 20 tablets on display here are the better part of the well-
known Stone Tablets of Zhaoling. Tl~ese are all the steles of the fa-
mous people's tombs with large shapes, and delicate engravings,
written by the famous calligraphers in the early Tang Dynasty. The
regular script was fashionable at that time. The most famous callig-
raphers such as Ou Yangxun, Chu Suiliang, Yu Shinan and Xue Ji
were called "the Four Masters in the Early Tang Dynasty". Here
we can appreciate the standard work of their manuscripts. For in-
stance,the article for Fang Xuanling was written by Chu Suiliang,
with elegant and plump strokes. And the article for Wen Yanbo was
written by Ou Yangxun with vigorous strokes and characters in best
frame, which is also the last manuscript Ou Yangxun left for
world.
The blemish of this great work is that all the tablets in this
room were damaged more or less. These treasures of art suffered
the severe damage in the twenties of this century. The wars broke
out among the warlords and nobody cared about the steles at all.
Some illegal booksellers, concluding with the local officials, sold the
rubbings of these steles with the price as high as 2,000 taels of sil-
ver. In order to get more profit from it, they even destroyed the
key words after rubbing, such as the time, the names of the persons
and the places, which made it impossible to rub the complete arti-
cles any more. The criminals later followed suit so that some of the
steles were broken into pieces.
Exhibition Room l
These tablets and epitaphs on display were newly discovered or
reunearthed in the recent 40 years. On this room there are 40
tablets and 20 epitaphs, which are not only valuable texual materials
for the study of the Chinese'calligraphy, but also rare written data
for the further research of the Tang Period. Because these inscrip-
tions not only offered detailed records about the ranks, positions,
important contributions of the buried and the years of their out-
standing services, but also eulogized their virtues and achievements.
These records were closely related to the significant events at that
time,such as political, economic and military affairs.
In order to help know about the intactness of the stone carvings
system before the satellite tombs in Zhaoling, the Museum inte~t-
tionally retains the original state and locations of Li Ji's tomb-stone
and the stone carvings around it. Li Ji's tomb-stone was written by
Emperor Gao Zong personally. He appreciated Wang Xizhi's callig-
raphy very much, and his style was deeply affected by his elegant,
free and easy style. The tomb-stone, 5.56 metres in height, and 15
tons in weight (not including the tortoise seat), stands erect in the
centre of the museum.
Exhibition Room for Unearthed Relics and Paintings
In recent scores of years, dozens of satellite tombs have been
excavated one after another around Zhaoling Tomb. Although some
0f them were robbed in early years, a large number of relics were
still unearthed in them, including murals, tomb guardians, gold
and silver wares, bronze mirrors, pottery figures and so on. San
Liang Jin De Royal Crown was the only Tang crown discovered so
far. Both this and a sword were unearthed from Li Ji's tomb. It is
said that this was reburied after Emperor Tang Zhongzong re-
dressed and rehabilitated him.
Among the unearthed relics, pottery figures are the largest in
quantity. These were the earliest of Tang figures, which have life-
like images, various shapes and postures, bright and sprightly
coloured. And the manufacturing of these painted and glazed pottery
figures were very special. In the process of making them, the first
step was to make the molds out of porcelain clay. After the molds
were fired into the desired shapes, and painted with lead glaze, they
were fired again until they turned into glazed figures. The glazed
pottery figures unearthed in Zhaoling are in beautiful shapes and
various postures, looking happy and gay. The different kinds of
hair styles, dresses and adornments reflect the material civilization
and the rich and colourful cultural life at that time. For instance,
the standing pottery male figures wearing long gowns with turn-
down collars, the standing pottery lady figures wearing robes with
turn-down collars and the lady figures on horse-backs, wearing bol-
wer hats, ect. Besides, there are pottery figures of various chara-
teristics, heavy beards, big noses, sunken eyes, wearing bowler
hats and garments unbuttoned. Obviously this is the image of the
minorities in the western frontier..But the camels carrying water
calabashes, pheasants and hares depict the scene of merchants
trudging over a long distance on the Silk Road. The painted and
glazed pottery figures were fashionable only in the early Tang, and
were the peculiar products of this period as well. They offered valu-
able factual materials for the study of the culture and art of this pe-
riod.