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Read an Excerpt:
The Forms and Functions of Mat Weights, by Michelle C. Wang, co-curator of the exhibition
Download the Introduction (PDF): Includes Table of Contents, Forward by Director Anne Hawley, and Introduction by Curator Alan Chong
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Michelle C. Wang
With walls of iris, of purple shells the chamber;
Perfumed pepper shall make the hall
With beams of cassia, orchid rafters,
Lily-tree lintel, a bower of peonies,
With woven fig-leaves for the hangings
And melilotus to make a screen;
Weights of white jade to hold the mats with,
Stone-orchids strewn to make the floor sweet.
Qu Yuan, Elegies of Chu, ca. 300 BC
The literary, visual, and archaeological evidence relating to mat weights suggests that these small, portable objects may have been used for a variety of purposes both during the life and after the death of their owners. Crafted of such precious materials as bronze and jade, and often gilded or inlaid with gold, silver, and gemstones, the objects conveyed the social status of their owners. Their highly decorative qualities represent the height of craftsmanship of the Warring States Period (475–221 BC) and Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220).
Many bronze weights were filled with lead in order to increase their weight. Lead made the objects heavy enough to perform their function of holding down the corners of a mat used either for seating or for the board game known as liubo. Most excavated mat weights have been discovered in tombs in the area around Xi’an, the site of the Western Han capital Chang’an. However, their distribution ranges as far west as Gansu province, as far east as Zhejiang province, as far north as Inner Mongolia, and as far south as Guangxi province. They seem to have been created in sets of four, as befits their function.
For the most part, mat weights depict felines such as tigers and leopards, as well as pairs of animals engaged in combat. Other animals represented include bears, winged beasts known as bixie, oxen or buffalo, sheep, and camels. Among the more unusual animals are deer and turtles, which were formed of cowrie shells set in bronze mounts. Mat weights also appear as mountains and even human figures. Typically, the bodies of the animals represented are coiled so as to produce a circular shape, and sometimes the animals rest on a low circular base. The four weights of a set were usually made to be nearly identical, all facing the same direction, rather than forming pairs in mirror image or four different forms. Human-shaped weights are an exception to this, which typically adopt different poses.
Animals, particularly in the form of a stylized animal mask, or taotie, were the primary decorative motif on bronzes during the Shang dynasty (ca. 1500–1050 BC). By the late Warring States Period, animal decoration on bronzes had all but disappeared. What emerged instead were depictions of animals in the round, typically as supports for bronze or lacquer vessels, musical instruments, and articles of furniture. For the first time, the bodies of animals received as much attention as did their facial features. While drawing on this tradition, mat weights are unique in early Chinese bronze sculpture in that they were conceived as independent animal forms, mobile in nature, yet bound to certain display practices dictated by their function. The very mobility of weights makes it difficult to pin down their exact function, and the available visual, literary, and archaeological evidence does not rule out the possibility that one set of mat weights may have served multiple functions, although some scholars have attempted to arrive at a typology of weights.
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Animals in Combat
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Mat weights ensured that seating or liubo mats would not shift while in use. The domestic interiors of early China were open spaces, and the few pieces of furniture that were used could be moved for different functions. As mats were frequently rolled up and moved, weights were used to keep the corners from curling. During the Warring States and Han periods, people either sat directly on the ground or on low lacquered wood or stone platforms. Mats were placed on the ground or atop a seating platform; their use ensured not only comfort but also warmth. Not until the Tang dynasty (618–907) did the use of Western-style chairs become common. It is very likely that chairs were introduced from India to be used for meditation, and later spread outside this monastic context. Chairs were very likely in use by the 4th century. |
Seating mats were woven from a variety of materials, including silk, hemp, cotton, bamboo, straw, vines, and reeds. They could be layered to provide greater comfort and warmth, and were sometimes adorned with decorative patterns. Mats were also made from the fur and skins of animals like bears, tigers, leopards, and wolves. These thick pelts were considered appropriate for use during the cold winters. Since mats were made from perishable materials which wore down from use, only a few have been excavated from tombs, including some Warring States period tombs in Changsha ( Hunan province).
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The use of mat weights for holding down seating mats is reflected in a number of literary sources dating from the Warring States Period to the Han dynasty. The Han writer Zou Yang wrote in his poem “Rhapsody on Wine” (Jiu fu), “Set in place a spacious
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seat, line up the carved screens; with silk for mats and horn ornaments as mat weights.” Miscellaneous Tales of the Western Capital (Xijing zaji) states that in the Hall of Brilliance (Zhaoyang dian) there were mats measuring more than two chi in length (approximately 46 cm), upon which were placed “four jade weights, all shining brightly, without any flaws.”
These passages describe opulent furnishings and the decorative qualities of the mats and mat weights. Miscellaneous Tales of the Western Capital confirms that mat weights were placed on the four corners of a mat. The specific appearance of the weights is not described, apart from their luminosity, which provided fodder for poetic description. It is puzzling that most of the extant mat weights were cast in bronze, while those most often described in literary sources, carved in jade, seem to be the exception. Moreover, the use of weights on seating mats does not appear to be reflected in the representations of Han material culture found in the pictorial bricks and paintings that decorated the walls of tombs. This puzzling contradiction might be explained by the fact that their use was so widespread that their presence was assumed, and, as a result, omitted from depictions. It is also possible that their omission may simply have been a convention of visual representation.
Mat weights also appear in references to the game liubo, although here again the representation of mat weights is inconsistent. In the Shuowen dictionary mat weights were explicitly identified as weights for liubo. A board game played by two people, liubo was popular from the Warring States to the Han periods. A liubo set consisted of a square game board, twelve small rectangular playing pieces, and six sticks, called bo, that were thrown like dice to determine the moves of a player. (Liu is the Chinese word for the number six, hence the name of this game means “six sticks.”) The bo sticks often bore geometric patterns; in some instances, round 18-sided dice were used instead. |
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