Miho funerary couch
{{Infobox artefact
| name = Miho funerary couch
| image = Turkic horsemen with unidentifiable ambassadors on top.jpg
| image_caption = Turkic horsemen with long hair on the Miho funerary couch. Circa 570 CE. Northern Dynasties, China.{{cite book |last1=Inagaki |first1=Hajime |title=Galleries and Works of the MIHO MUSEUM |publisher=Miho Museum |pages=120–124 |url=https://www.academia.edu/34579548}}{{cite journal |last1=Yatsenko |first1=Sergey A. |title=Early Turks: Male Costume in the Chinese Art |journal=Transoxiana |date=August 2009 |volume=14 |url=http://www.transoxiana.com.ar/14/yatsenko_turk_costume_chinese_art.html}}
| image_size = 250px
| material =
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| created = Circa 570 CE.Late 6th to early 7th centuries in {{cite web |title=Relief Carvings from a Funerary Couch - MIHO MUSEUM |url=https://www.miho.jp/booth/html/artcon/00000432e.htm |website=www.miho.jp}}
| discovered = Northern China
| location =
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| map =
{{Location map|Continental Asia#China
|width = 270
|float = center
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|relief = yes
|AlternativeMap=
|overlay_image =
|label = Taiyuan
|label_size =
|position = right
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|lat_deg = 37
|lat_min = 52
|lat_sec = 10
|lat_dir = N
|lon_deg = 112
|lon_min = 33
|lon_sec = 37
|lon_dir = E
}}}}
{{Sogdian tombs in China}}
The Miho funerary couch is a Northern Dynasties period (439-589 CE) funeral monument to a Sogdian nobleman and official in northern China. The tomb is now located in the collections of the Miho Museum. Its structure is similar to that of the Anyang funerary bed. It has been dated to circa 570 CE. It is rumoured to have been excavated in Taiyuan in the 1980s, before being sold on the American art market.{{cite book |last1=GRENET |first1=Frantz |title=Histoire et cultures de l'Asie centrale préislamique |date=2020 |publisher=Collège de France |location=Paris, France |isbn=978-2-7226-0516-9 |url=https://journals.openedition.org/annuaire-cdf/pdf/15896|page=324}}
The tomb
The stone couch is composed of 11 stone slabs and 2 gate pillars, decorated with reliefs showing the life of the deceased and scenes of the afterlife. Many elements of Zoroastrianism appear in the reliefs.
The owner of the tomb was probably in charge of commercial affairs for foreign merchants from Middle Asia doing businesses in China, as well as Zoroastrian affairs. He probably held the official Chinese title "Sàbǎo" (薩保, "Protector, Guardian", derived from the Sogdian word s’rtp’w, "caravan leader"), used for government-appointed leaders of the Sogdian immigrant-merchant community.{{cite journal |last1=Xu |first1=Jin 徐津 |title=The Funerary Couch of An Jia and the Art of Sogdian Immigrants in Sixth-century China |journal=The Burlington Magazine |date=1 January 2019 |url=https://www.academia.edu/40962371}}
Ethnographical aspects
Numerous Turkic men appear in the reliefs of the Miho funerary couch. As for the Tomb of An Jia, the depictions in the tomb show the omnipresence of the Turks (at the time of the First Turkic Khaganate), who were probably the main trading partners of Sogdian merchants. The Hephthalites are essentially absent from the Tomb of An Jia, but appear in four panels of the Miho funerary couch with somewhat caricatural features and characteristics of vassals to the Turks.{{cite journal |last1=GRENET |first1=FRANTZ |last2=RIBOUD |first2=PÉNÉLOPE |title=A Reflection of the Hephtalite Empire: The Biographical Narrative in the Reliefs of the Tomb of the Sabao Wirkak (494–579) |journal=Bulletin of the Asia Institute |date=2003 |volume=17 |page=138 |jstor=24049311 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24049311 |issn=0890-4464}} The Hephthalites probably had been replaced by Turkic hegemony by that time (they were destroyed by the alliance of the Sasanians and the Turks between 556 and 560 CE).{{cite journal |last1=Grenet |first1=Frantz |last2=Riboud |first2=Pénélope |title=A Reflection of the Hephthalite Empire: The Biographical Narra- tive in the Reliefs of the Tomb of the Sabao Wirkak (494-579) |journal=Bulletin of the Asia Institute |date=2003 |volume=17 |pages=141–142 |url=https://www.podgorski.com/main/assets/documents/A_reflection_of_the_Hephtalite_empire.pdf}} In contrast, the Hephthalites are omnipresent in the Tomb of Wirkak, who, although he died at the same time of An Jia was much older at 85: Wirkak may therefore have primarily dealt with the Hephthalites during his active years.
File:Turanid looking Western Gokturk–Ak-Hun Turkic men, Miho Museum.jpg|Türks in the Kazakh steppe.{{cite book |last1=Mierse |first1=William E. |title=Artifacts from the Ancient Silk Road |date=1 December 2022 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-4408-5829-1 |page=126 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WQuXEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA126 |language=en}} "In the upper scene, long-haired Turkic servants attend an individual seated inside the yurt proper, and in the lower scene, hunters are seen riding down game. The setting must be the Kazakh steppes over which the Turks had taken control from the Hepthalites."
File:Miho couch central panel.jpg|Miho couch central panel, with Zoroastrian fire ceremony scene.{{cite journal |last1=Huang |first1=Bing |title=Deciphering the Shi Jun Sarcophagus Using Sogdian Religious Beliefs, Tales, and Hymns |journal=Religions |date=December 2021 |volume=12 |issue=12 |pages=1060 |doi=10.3390/rel12121060 |language=en |issn=2077-1444 |doi-access=free }}
External links
- [https://www.miho.jp/booth/html/artcon/00000432e.htm Miho funerary couch (Miho museum)]