Denver's dynasty

One of the largest and most extraordinary displays of Chinese art is making the rounds in the American hinterlands, not the usual New York-Washington-San Francisco nexus. The exhibition, "Imperial Tombs of China," presents more than 250 artifacts unearthed from the tombs and palaces built over the course of 2,400 years, and includes some of the most beautiful Chinese court and funerary objects. The show opens in Denver on Nov. 2, having stopped in Provo, Utah; Portland, Ore.; and Memphis.

"You'd expect an exhibit of this size to be on the coasts," says Amy Tekansik, spokeswoman for the Denver Museum of Natural History. "But it was important to the Chinese that it go places that don't already have a large Chinese community. They wanted to expose other Americans, besides Asian-Americans, to Chinese culture."

The exhibit covers seven periods of Chinese history from 475 B.C. to the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, but the stars of the show are four terra-cotta soldiers and a horse from the massive tomb of Qin Shihuangdi. Qin unified China at the end of the Warring States period (475-221 B.C.), conquering his rivals one by one. He commissioned a massive tomb complex covering five acres which still is being excavated.

"Burying an emperor was not a simple task," guest curator Chuimei Ho tells Insight. "Elaborate fixed protocol had to be observed. The Qin Dynasty started the tradition of planning for the ruler's mausoleum as soon as the emperor came to the throne.... The goal was to build an underground palace for the afterlife."

Bob Pickering, chairman of the anthropology department et the Denver museum, points out that the faces of all 5,000 terra-cotta warriors are different -- "pretty clearly portraits of an army. That gives them some power that just putting in a thousand figurines would not." Like the Egyptians, the Chinese believed the afterlife would be much like the one they left behind, requiring food, servants, soldiers and wealth.

Another showpiece in "Imperial Tombs": an empress' phoenix crown which, according to exhibit developer Nancy Knepper, belonged to the wife of Emperor Wanli of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 A.D.). The crown (and another buried with the emperor's concubine) is covered with brilliant blue kingfisher feathers and adorned with gold, pearls and precious stones.

The bronzes on exhibit "are very sophisticated for how early they are," adds Knepper. "There are abstracted designs that people are still debating the meaning of." (The Marquis Yi, who ruled the state of Zeng from 475 to 433 B.C., was interred with more than 10 tons of bronze.) Also on display is the heaviest gold object ever found, a five-pound gold bowl and spoon.

"Imperial Tombs of China" will run at the Denver Museum of Natural History, the nation's fifth largest, through March 16, 1997. When it leaves Denver, the exhibit will make a final stop in Orlando, Fla.

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