Stone Ostrich

846 AD
Beilin Museum, Xi'an

The ostrich was yet another exotic import into Tang China. This one was carved for emperor Wuzong (ruled 840-846), who initiated the Great Persecution of "foreign religions" (Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, etc.) during his reign. Wuzong's actions, like Henry VIII's dissolution of the English monasteries, had both religious and economic motives: Wuzong was a Daoist, and sought the conversion of Buddhist and other revenues to his own use. Although Buddhism revived after his reign, the other persecuted religions, by and large, did not.