Curated by Sheri Lullo, Associate Professor of Art History; Sarah Mottalini, Collections Manager/ Registrar of the Permanent Collection; Frances Maloy, College Librarian; and Caroline Welsh, Art and Museum Consultant.

Union College’s Stone Lion is a cultural artifact that is the product of millennia of artistic development and sustained cultural exchange across Eurasia through the Silk Roads, a vast network of land and sea trade routes that began around the 2nd century BCE, during China’s Han Dynasty and continued through the mid-15th century CE.

Stone lions first appear in China’s material record as early as the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 CE), where they were installed in aboveground monument groups in front of tombs to mark and protect a shen dao, or spirit path leading to the deceased’s final resting place.

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