Jar (Hu) with MusicalScenes, 1st-3rd century CE, Bronze, painted with lacquer-like pigments, 7 1/4 × 4 5/16 × 4 5/16 in. (18.4 × 11 × 11cm), Alternating figures of musicians and dancers decorate this bronze vessel. The musicians sit side by side, calmly playing their instruments, while the dancers move exuberantly, lifting their arms so their drapery flows dramatically behind them. This scene may depict performers during a ritual in which the souls of the dead were invoked to return to their bodies. The imagery coincides with the function of the vessel itself: as a funerary offering, this spirit good, or mingqi vessel, was deposited in a tomb, where the sounds and dances it portrays would have accompanied the dead in theafterlife. , China, Chinese, Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 C.E.), Containers -Metals