Let's talk about the burial figurines of the Tang Dynasty, Tri-colored glazed pottery of the Tang Dynasty is not just for burial purposes!

During the Tang Dynasty, the practice of lavish burials was prevalent. The Tang people would place tomb-guarding beasts and Heavenly King figurines symmetrically inside the tomb gates during burials. The tomb-guarding beasts originated from the ancient Chinese directional deities, considered to be the spirits of mountains and rivers, serving the purpose of guarding the tomb and warding off evil. Scholars have verified that the four guardian spirits of the Tang Dynasty tombs can be identified as 'Dang Cun', 'Dang Ye', 'Zu Ming', and 'Zu Si'. Among them, 'Dang Cun' and 'Dang Ye' are a pair of Heavenly King figurines, 'Zu Ming' is a beast-headed tomb-guarding creature, hence it can be inferred that 'Zu Si' is the human-headed tomb-guarding creature. The Heavenly King figurines are a new type of burial figurine that appeared during the Tang Dynasty, with one leg standing on the body of a bull, and the other stepping on the bull's head. The military attire worn by the Heavenly King figurines is similar to that of the contemporary warriors, reflecting the sinicization and secularization of Buddhism, and they are full of a sense of power and imagination. Pagoda-shaped jars, which are made in the shape of pagodas, were mainly used as burial objects during the Tang Dynasty. Tri-colored glazed pottery of the Tang Dynasty belongs to lead-glazed ceramics and was not solely used for burial purposes; it was also used for daily life and exported to foreign countries. The figurines of the Tang tri-colored glazed pottery often have 'open faces', meaning that the heads of the figurines are not glazed, and after firing, facial features are painted on with pigments, making them more vivid and lifelike.