Abstract:

The Sanmin Village cemetery is situated in Sanmin Village, Zaoyuan Street, Lianhu District, Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province. In this cemetery, fifty-seven tombs of palace maids from the early Tang Dynasty have been discovered. These tombs are neatly arranged and uniformly shaped. The area surrounding Sanmin Village was originally located in the southwest suburbs of Chang’an City during the Tang Dynasty. Multiple discoveries of palace maids’ tombs and related epitaphs have been made here, and it is known as “Gongrenxie,” the burial place for Tang Dynasty palace maids.

As the capital of the Sui and Tang dynasties, Chang’an City had a large population, among which palace maids were the most numerous special group of women in the harem. In the past, research on Tang Dynasty palace maids was mostly based on traditional literature and palace maid poems rather than on physical characteristics. A total of twenty-nine specimens were extracted from the Tang Dynasty palace maids’ tombs in the Sanmin Village cemetery, including six female skulls that could be observed and measured for craniofacial features. All of these were concentrated in the young and post-adolescent periods.

This article refers to the methods listed in the “Anthropometric Manual” to analyze the craniofacial morphological characteristics of human bones unearthed from the Tang Dynasty palace tombs in Sanmin Village. The results show that the distribution of various features of the female skulls in the Sanmin Village cemetery is relatively concentrated. It is similar to the overall craniofacial morphology of female residents in the northern part of the Tang Dynasty, with only differences in facial width, forehead shape, and orbital shape. Compared to other female groups in the Tang Dynasty, women in the Sanmin Village cemetery have a narrower upper face, a wider forehead shape, and a higher orbital shape. However, these differences are not significant enough to exceed the overall characteristics of northern women in the Tang Dynasty. Based on epitaphs and literature, it is further speculated that in the early Tang Dynasty and even throughout the entire Tang Dynasty, palace maids mainly came from the north. There should be certain standards and aesthetic preferences in the selection of palace maids in the Tang Dynasty. Women with a wider forehead and a narrower upper face may have certain advantages in selection, which is consistent with the social aesthetics of the early Tang Dynasty reflected in the female figurines and murals of Tang Dynasty tombs.

Key words: Tang Chang'an City, Palace maid, Craniofacial morphology, Aesthetic preference