Tang Homes, Furnishings and Household Objects: Domestic Spaces and Material Life

Tang households used rooms, courtyards and household goods for sleeping, cooking, storage, work and receiving visitors. A home’s arrangement depended on its land and resources. Studies of Dunhuang properties and Bai Juyi’s residence at Luoyang show different ways to combine buildings and open space, while preserved vessels, mirrors and seating reveal how particular domestic tasks were performed.

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Urban homes within the Tang city

Tang Chang’an occupied the site of the Sui capital Daxing. Its outer city was divided into roughly 110 walled wards, with gates regulating movement between residential districts and the streets beyond. Common residents lived in the outer city alongside religious institutions and other occupants. The city’s markets and public supply systems connected urban households to goods arriving from surrounding regions and farther afield.

Dunhuang documents describe properties outside the city with space for cultivation as well as residence. Research identifies one- and two-courtyard arrangements during the Tibetan occupation, followed by hall-fronted houses under the Guiyijun regime, which began in the ninth century. The size of the plot and its productive uses affected where residents put rooms, gardens and work areas.

Changing ways of sitting and resting

Tang furniture belonged to a long transition in sitting habits. People had used mats and low platforms with low tables, while taller seats and tables gradually became more common. Tang examples include early forms of round chairs and chairs with a yoke-shaped back, associated with elite use. Stools and higher tables joined mats and low platforms among the available furnishings.

Low tables and raised platforms supported eating, conversation and rest alongside mats. A stool or chair lifted the sitter higher and required a table suited to that height. Households could combine these forms rather than replace every low furnishing at once. Moving between floor-level and raised seating consequently changed the relationship between the user and the surface holding a meal or writing materials.

Food, water and fuel in Chang’an

Chang’an’s canals carried supplies, including charcoal and firewood, and served parts of its water network. Other settlements used different arrangements. At Jiaohe, an oasis town near Turfan occupied before and during Tang rule, excavations found wells associated with houses. Some well-heads were reached through sunken chambers and corridors, giving residents access below the hot surface.

One well beside Jiaohe house 2 descended more than twenty metres to groundwater. A jar on a rope raised water, which could then be carried into the house through the access passage. This was a regional response to an arid environment. In Luoyang, excavation-based research on the wealthy poet Bai Juyi’s home instead identifies a northern residential area and a southern pool supplied by diverted water.

Ceramic vessels and the practice of tea

Xing ware, made in northern China in what is now Hebei province, was a prominent Tang white ceramic. Its fine body was generally covered with a thin, clear glaze, sometimes with a bluish cast. Kiln workers fired the pieces with wood and placed them in saggars, protective containers used during firing. Tang production included both fine and coarser wares. A Tang scholar, Li Zhao, wrote that Xing ceramics were used by rich and poor alike, suggesting a range of quality rather than a single kind of household tableware.

Lu Yu’s Classic of Tea , written in the eighth century, offers a detailed account of tea as a managed process. Its ten chapters address the tea plant and its growing regions, tools for harvesting and processing leaves, equipment for preparation and drinking, water and brewing. Lu describes making compressed tea cakes: leaves were processed and dried, then the cake was ground for preparation. In the method associated with his instructions, the tea powder was added to boiling water, heated briefly and then served in bowls. It also shows how vessels and utensils could be selected for specific stages of preparing and drinking a beverage.

Lu compared the white Xing ware of the north with the green Yue ware of the south, using their different colours to distinguish the ceramics. Xing ware was used at the Tang court, and archaeological finds bearing marks associated with imperial storehouses have been found at the Daming Palace and at kiln sites. Court use and the broader range described by Li Zhao together show that Tang ceramics circulated across different levels of society, without making every vessel or quality equally accessible.

Bronze mirrors and what objects can tell us

Tang bronze mirrors were not glass mirrors. Their reflective side was a polished metal surface, while the back could carry cast decoration. Tang examples varied in size and shape; a mirror decorated with animals and grapes is dated to about 690. The back supplied decoration while the polished face reflected the user’s features for arranging hair or dress. Their placement in tombs also gave mirrors a role among the possessions provided for the dead.

A ninth-century account of China and India, compiled in 851, reports the use of paper for cleansing after defecation. It supplies a particular observation of personal sanitation, alongside the more detailed archaeological evidence for water sources and domestic containers.

For the wider setting, see Tang Households: Marriage, Status and Domestic Life in China.