A MASSIVE SANCAI-GLAZED POTTERY FIGURE OF A BACTRIAN CAMEL

This massive and exceptionally handsome camel is a particularly fine example of the type of figure that was made to go into the tombs of the Tang elite. Such models, which would have been very expensive to purchase, provided an obvious indication of the wealth of a family who could afford to inter such costly goods with their deceased relative. Not surprisingly, camels have been found among the burial items in a number of the Tang imperial tombs, as well as some of those belonging to other members of the Tang nobility.

The two-humped Bactrian camel was known in China as early as the Han dynasty, having been brought from Central Asia and Eastern Turkestan as tribute. Its amazing ability to survive the hardships of travel across the Asian deserts was soon recognized, and imperial camel herds were established under the administration of a special Bureau. These herds, numbering several thousand, were used for a range of state duties, including the provision of a military courier service for the Northern Frontier. Camels were not only prized as resilient beasts of burden, their hair was also used to produce a cloth, which, then as now, was admired for its lightness and warmth. Even camel meat was regarded as a delicacy, with the hump being noted as particularly flavorsome.

A striding camel of slightly smaller size (84 cm. high), also with head raised and mouth opened in a bray, with brown-glazed tufts of hair, in the British Museum, London, is illustrated in Sekai toji zenshu, vol. 11, Tokyo, 1976, p. 148, no. 136.