214 



Chinese Clay Figures 



in operation toward effecting that uniform oblong, rectangular shape 

 which we are wont to designate as "plate." There is, for lack of 

 monuments, as yet no means of exactly ascertaining the date when this 

 type of regular iron plate armor sprang up in China. The term fie cha 

 employed by Chung Ch'ang-t'ung, discussed above, is very tempting in 

 leading us to assume that it existed at least toward the end of the 

 Posterior Han period in the third century a.d.; the word cha relates to 

 the rectangular wooden writing-slips still prominent in the administra- 

 tive system of the Han, and the application of this word to the plates of 



Fig. 34. 

 Bronze Scales of Armor of Han Period (half of actual size). 



an armor is most happy. As these wooden slips possessed regular forms, 

 we are allowed to infer that also the iron plates in the armor of the Han 

 were gradually adapted to the same uniform standard. In the age of 

 the T'ang (618-906) iron plate armor presents itself as an accomplished 

 fact, and was made with a technical perfection which must have been 

 preceded by centuries of diligent and intelligent practice (see Chapter V) . 

 The existence of protective lammas of rectangular shape under the 

 Han may be inferred also from another matter peculiar to that age. 1 

 In the biography of Ho Kuang, who died in B.C. 68, the great "king- 

 maker" of the Han dynasty, as Mayers calls him, mention is made of 

 "jade clothes" (yii i). Yen Shi-ku (579-645), the famous commentator 

 of the Han Annals, explains this term as denoting a coat of the form of an 

 armor (k x ai), consisting of jade slabs joined together by means of gold 

 threads; these jade slabs were shaped into regular plates (cha), one foot 

 long and two inches and a half wide; they formed a perfect enclosure, and 

 reached down to the feet. Another style of this garment, compared 

 likewise with armor by Yen Shi-ku, was composed of strung pearls or 



1 The following information is drawn from the Han tsien (No. 1648) of Kua Ts'ang- 

 lin of the Sung; the edition before me is by Wu Ki-ngan of the Ming, and was pub- 

 lished in 1600. This is a most valuable work for the study of Han culture, being ar- 

 ranged in the form of a glossary of subject-matters (corresponding to our archaeologi- 

 cal dictionaries) extracted from the Han Annals together with the commentaries; 

 it allows us to ascertain at a glance what objects of culture existed under the Han. 



