Source: Michael Gunther Gansu Provincial Museum The Flying Horse of Gansu, Bronze Running Horse ( 铜奔马 ), Galloping Horse Treading on a Flying Swallow ( 马踏飞燕 ) Eastern Han Dynasty (25 - 220 AD) Bronze/ 34.5 ╳ 45.6 cm Excavated in 1969 from the Leitai Tomb belonging to General Zhang of Zhang Ye, Wuwei County, Gansu Province Gansu Provincial Museum, Lanzhou, China This is a realistic, three-dimensional, bronze sculpture of a galloping and neighing horse that has its right hoof treading on a flying bird. It was found together with 38 other bronze horse statues with chariots, of which some where inscribed with the name of General Zhang of Zhang Ye. Similar images of horses in full gallop have been found in other Eastern Han tombs and were painted on stone and brick reliefs. Before and during the Han Dynasty horses as were status symbols and greatly desired by the Han elite and military society. Archaeologists believe these horses might represent the "he
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