Famed Chinese Emperor Taizong, second emperor of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) who laid the foundations of the dynasty, has a meaningful statement about the success of governance, recorded in the Old Book of Tang, a history of the dynasty compiled in 945 after it had fallen. “When one uses a bronze mirror, one can adjust the attire. When one uses history as a mirror, one comprehends the rise and fall of a nation. When one uses a person as a mirror, a remonstrator, one sees the success and missteps.” 

Bronze mirrors have a special political, social and cultural implication in the long river of Chinese history.  In the first installment of what will be a two-part feature, we discuss how the decorated bronze mirrors from the Tang Dynasty bore witness to the rise and fall of trade and governance.