The result of thermoluminescence tests, Oxford 666w22 and Oxford 666w23, are consistent with the dating of this lot

Several pottery figures of the same type, also naked and lacking arms, were discovered at Xian in Shaanxi Province in a side pit to the mausoleum of Guandi, the Western Han emperor who ruled between 73 and 49 B.C.; see Kaogu, 1984, no. 10, p. 892, fig. 7, where it is mentioned that small bronze belthooks were found near the figures, suggesting that they were originally dressed in silk clothes. Compare two similar grey pottery nude male figures, but with arms intact, in the Tokyo National Museum and illustrated in Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 10, fig. 169