This is a funerary couch of a merchant from Samarkand or another of the Sogdian city states who lived and died in sixth-century China. The merchant travelled over 2500 km from his hometown across the Pamir Mountains, around the Taklamakan and Gobi Deserts and into the plains of northern China. Here he joined a substantial Sogdian community to live and work. Panels of the couch shows him banqueting and watching Chinese and Sogdian dancers with his wife. The camel caravan suggests he died while on a journey and his faith, Zoroastrianism, is indicated by the priest with a mouth-cover to prevent him defiling the sacred fire. The four-armed figure is the Sogdian goddess, Nana. Turks on horse and in a yurt with their long plaits from the north of the Silk Road and Indian princes on elephants from the south are also shown.
Pigments and gold on marble
Miho Museum, Shiga, SF04.040 & SF04.014