Hollow Tile: Lintel from Tomb-Chamber Doorway

About this artwork

Striding tigers (top), racing horsemen (right column), and reverent officials (left column) are stamped into the surface of this underground portal to a tomb. The doorway preserves in stone the post-and-lintel structure, a basic element of Chinese wooden architecture. By the first century CE, a revolution in Chinese tomb construction and furnishing had taken place. Tombs lined with decorated bricks and tiles replace the earlier tombs constructed with only rammed-earth walls. Ceramic surrogates o...