Black immigrants in Tang Dynasty

During the Tang Dynasty, Chang 'an (now Xi 'an) City gathered overseas people from all over the world, including many black friends from Africa. In the cultural exhibition "Towards the Prosperous Tang Dynasty" on display in Hunan Museum, two black pottery figurines of the Tang Dynasty conveyed to the audience their participation in the civilized construction of the prosperous Tang Dynasty.

These two black clay figurines were unearthed from a Tang tomb in the southern suburbs of Xi. They are 14.5cm tall, with curly hair and thick lips. Chen Jianming, director of the Hunan Provincial Museum, analyzed that from the images they showed, the Tang people did not discriminate against them.

"Peaceful Magnolia" records the story of a Kunlun slave. With his courage and wisdom, he helped his master scholar to date his beloved woman, which led to a happy marriage. There is also a vivid description of Kunlun slaves in the Tang poem Kunlun II: Kunlun lives in Haizhou and barbarians will visit China in the future. They love their skin as black as paint and walk half naked.

Scholars in China have studied that from Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to Sui and Tang Dynasties, the word Kunlun is often used to describe something black or nearly black. So Kunlun slaves refer to black handmaiden. Chen Jianming said.

In fact, there are many physical historical materials about men in black in Tang Dynasty. The reporter learned that black images can be found in Dunhuang Tang Dynasty murals and some famous paintings handed down from ancient times, such as Yan's Palace Map and Zhou P's Straight Palace Map. Chen Jianming said that there are also records about black handmaiden in ancient documents such as Old Tang Shu, Yuan Gui of Bookstore and Tang Yaohui.

Some experts in literature and history in Hunan Province believe that the number of blacks in the Tang Dynasty may be quite large. They crossed the ocean to China. Except for a few people engaged in commercial trade, most of them were probably sold to the powerful people at that time as slaves by * * * merchants, and stayed in China all their lives to witness and participate in the construction of Tang civilization.