Mortuary Figures of the Zodiac Signs
500s
- Medium
- gray earthenware with traces of slip
- Classification
- Sculpture
- Dimensions
- Overall: 22.6 cm (8 7/8 in.)
- Culture
- China, Northern Wei dynasty (386–534 CE)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Chinese Art
- Credit line
- The Norweb Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
The twelve-animal zodiac series—rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and boar—signifies a traditional Chinese concept of time structured in a cyclical order. The twelve animals are also linked to the art of fortune-telling that underlies human existence in connection with the changes of the universe. The use of the twelve zodiac animals as tomb furniture suggests they provided a cosmological structure for the afterlife.
