This tower is unusual in that it has been fired as one piece as opposed to the more common practice of placing several different sections together to form a whole structure. A very similar tower was excavated from Sanshengwan, Lingbao county, Henan province in 1958, and is illustrated by Candice Lewis in her article, 'Tall Pottery Towers and their Archaeological Contexts', for the the exhibition Catalogue, Spirit of Han, Ceramics for the After-Life, Southeast Asian Ceramic Society, Singapore, 1991, p. 54, fig. F; and again by The Museum of Chinese History, ed., in A Pictorial Reference of Chinese Ancient History, The Han Period, Shanghai, 1990, p. 154

In her essay, op. cit., pp. 50-58, the author states, "There is a marked difference between the architectural models from northern and southern China. In general, the models from southern China are only one or two storeys high and comprised a simple house with an attached courtyard or a courtyard complex". The examples from the north, to which the present lot belongs, "seem deliberately to avoid representing the courtyard arrangement" and "represent single tall towers"

Other examples of similar towers, all rising from circular moats, with simple roofs and horizontally pierced balconies, include two from the exhibition, Spirit of Han, op. cit., nos. 184 and 188; and another from the Freer Gallery of Art, illustrated in Oriental Ceramics, The World's Great Collections, vol. 9, Tokyo, 1981, fig. 7

The result of Oxford thermoluminescence test no. 766h93 is consistent with the dating of this lot