The Southern Northern Dynasty is the time after the Han Dynasty. China split into many small states or small kingdoms. This was a time which was always considered to be a time of chaos. These small states were fighting against each other, each one of them wanting to take over the entire country. So for the three and four hundred years, China was really, really in a big, big turmoil.

But this was also the time when China had a most active contact with the West. By West, we mean Central Asia, West Asia, and through Central and West Asia, China had contact with Europe. So from all this sculpture here, you could see these were not the Chinese faces. They had a very high nose and large beard. It's very un-Chinese face, because this was a time a lot of people who moved into China and lived in China with the Chinese, they were really Central Asians or people from the North.