Ceramic Models of Wells in the Han Dynasty (206 BC to AD 220), China

Introduction The ancient Chinese believed that after a person died, he would take a journey to the next life. He needed all the things he had in his earth life: food, clothes, money, entertainment, household items, and protection from evil spirits for his journey to the afterlife. The family would prepare a tomb for the dead person and fill it with all these things. This was how they honored their ancestors and kept their spirit happy on the journey to paradise (Johnson Museum of Art 2008). By doing this, the deceased’s family members could also ensure their own good fortune. The items buried in a tomb with a dead person are called mingqi in Chinese, which has been translated into various English terms such as grave goods, funerary wares, spirit wares, and tomb figures. Many of the mingqi are miniature models of objects from daily life. Some were replicas of actual possessions of the deceased. Fashioned primarily of clay, but also of wood and bronze, they included miniature figures of all kinds, including models of pigsties, pigs, goat pens, goats, chickens, dogs, lamps, farmhouses, watchtowers, granaries, grain mills, stoves, and wells. Among all the materials, pottery was the most popular medium for mingqi and also the most durable. The custom of burying pottery mingqi in tombs became most popular in the Han Dynasty (206 BC to AD 220), which can be divided into Western Han (206 BC to AD 8) and Eastern Han (25 to AD 220). Between them, there was a short period called Wang Mang’s Xin Dynasty (8 to AD 22). The Han Dynasty was the second great Chinese imperial dynasty. It was a period of a unified China with a strong and powerful military. Art, culture, literature, astronomy, and the economy—all flourished during the Han Dynasty. The Han nobility would have highly impressive, elaborate, and even multiroom tombs. Royalty and nobility might be buried with expensive, specially made objects of jade and bronze, but most people bought objects that were probably mass produced. These mingqi provide a wonderful picture of everyday life in the Han Dynasty. The well mingqi, among many other mingqi, have been described in the western literature on Chinese antiques, ceramic arts, and archeology and collected and displayed in museums in western countries beginning in the 1900s (Hobson 1925–1928; Lefebvre d’Argence 1967; Shoten 1969), but the hydrogeological community does not seem to be aware of their existence. Although wells have been used at least since the early Chinese Neolithic Age (Jiao 2007), many ground water specialists still do not know what ancient Chinese wells looked like. For hydrogeologists, therefore, the most interesting mingqi are the models of various wells. These well models provide valuable and vivid information on the wells used by Chinese people living about 2000 years ago. Recently, the author has been fascinated by the wonderful well mingqi and purchased a dozen of them. The author has also collected hundreds of images of well mingqi from the literature, the Internet, and the museums. This historical note includes photographs of a few typical well mingqi and presents a brief description of their style, structure, functions, and distribution in the Han Dynasty of China.