Bronze figure of a kneeling man representing a Southerner at The British Museum, London by Scan The World

Description

Though similar to small castings found in the provinces of the Southwest, including Guanxi, such figures have been found in royal tombs in the North, and may represent tribute bearers. The Han dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms period. Spanning over four centuries, the Han period is considered a golden age in Chinese history. To this day, China's majority ethnic group refers to itself as the "Han people" and the Chinese script is referred to as "Han characters". It was founded by the rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han, and briefly interrupted by the Xin dynasty. This interregnum separates the Han dynasty into two periods: the Western Han or Former Han and the Eastern Han or Latter Han. The emperor was at the pinnacle of Han society. He presided over the Han government but shared power with boththe nobility and appointed ministers who came largely from the scholarly gentry class. The Han Empire was divided into areas directly controlled by the central government using an innovation inherited from the Qin known as commanderies, and a number of semi-autonomous kingdoms. These kingdoms gradually lost all vestiges of their independence, particularly following the Rebellion of the Seven States. From the reign of Emperor Wu onward, the Chinese court officially sponsored Confucianism in education and court politics, synthesized with the cosmology of later scholars such as…