EASTERN HAN DYNASTY, CIRCA 3RD CENTURY AD

These figures may represent recitative figures or Liubo players. A similar group of four bronze figures, illustrated by M. Wang et al., in the exhibition catalogue, A Bronze Menagerie: Mat Weights of Early China, 2006, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, p. 111, no. 12, was described as Liubo players. Another set of similar weights excavated in Lingtai, Gansu province, found with three Liubo game pieces, is illustrated in Kaogu, 1979:2, pl. 7, fig. 3. See, also, the set of four figures unearthed in 1971, Xian City, Shaanxi province, illustrated in Treasures from the Han, The Empress Place Museum, Singapore, 1990, p. 59. Another set in the Musées Royaux d'Art et d'Histoire, Brussels, is illustrated by C. Deydier, Chinese Bronzes, Paris, 1980, p. 133, pl. 102.