Top Story of a Tower (Tomb Model), Eastern Han dynasty (A.D.25–220). Earthenware with green lead glaze, 44.5 × 37.5 × 38 cm. Art Institute of Chicago, Lucy Maud Buckingham Collection, 1924.227.

As burial practices filtered down from the Han aristocracy to officials and landowners, tomb models related to farming, an honored occupation, became increasingly popular. These models provide rough but lively impressions of rural compounds. The granary, used to store millet, barley, and wheat, was depicted either as a jar or as a small building. This building combines realistic and imaginative details: angular brackets support a tiled roof with ridgepoles and roundels and crowned with an oversize bird and floral roof ends.