Sword-bearer lamp, 4th–2nd century B.C.3D Model
According to tomb inventories (qiance) this type of lamp is called zhuyong (“lamp-figurine”), and similar lamps have been found in Warring States and Western Han (206 B.C.–A.D. 9) burials. Such lamps may have been used in tombs to provide light during burial rituals, to guide the deceased soul on their afterlife journey, or to embody the soul in the form of an eternal flame during funerary ceremonies. This solemn figure wears ear plugs (possibly symbolic of a guard’s duty to keep what is overheard in confidence) and bears a duck-bill sword, both of which find precedents in the Warring States bronze figural supports for a lacquered bell rack from the Marquis of Yi of Zeng’s tomb (ca. 433 B.C.) at Leigudun, Suizhou, Hubei province.
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