Thanks to my colleagues with expertise in Asian materials, we believe we found half a dozen Chinese blocks or tiles with poems on one side and a carved image on the other side. The blocks were found broken into pieces but happily, have been reassembled. Each one has the same title, which loosely translates as “Poem(s) of the Emperor.” We have not yet found such a poem or series of poems. These are not printing blocks. Perhaps they were part of a poetry game?
For information on Imperial Chinese poetry, see
Jack Wei Chen, The Poetics of Sovereignty: on Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2010). East Asian Library (Gest): Western, PL2677.T39 Z55 2010
