Incense burner, Han dynasty (-206 - 220), h 13.5 cm × d 19.2 cm. Courtesy Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

This incense burner represents a mythical mountain where immortals roam. Such objects in the form of a mountain may have symbolized the entrance to the supernatural world, which the Han Chinese believed could be accessed from the highest mountain tops. A second possibility is that this is Mount Penglai, the mystical island of paradise in the Eastern Sea.