Research on the Lacquered Channel Figurine Excavated from a Han Tomb in Tianhui

Abstract

Apart from the seven medical treatises excavated from Laoguanshan Tomb M3, there were also medical artifacts: an iron mortar and pestle for medicine, remains of plants that seem to be medicine, and a tiny figurine decorated with red and white lacquered lines. In accordance with the Han period funerary practice of “serving the dead as serving the living” (shi si ru shi sheng 事死如事生), these funerary medical artifacts are likely related to the profession and daily life of the tomb’s occupier, in this case, very probably a medical official. This article introduces the lacquer figurine and the “channels” (jingmai 經脈) it illustrates in relation to roughly contemporaneous textual accounts of similar channels that have been excavated from tombs that were sealed in the Western Han (202 BCE–9 CE) period, as well as to accounts in the medical classics that were passed down and printed over one thousand years later than the date of the Laoguanshan tomb.