The Courier Brick Mural – The Ancestor of the Express Delivery Industry

✔ Chinese Name: "Courier Mural" Brick

1️⃣ Location: Gansu Provincial Museum
2️⃣ Era: Wei and Jin Dynasties
3️⃣ Excavation Site: Tomb No. 5, Wei and Jin Tomb Cluster, Jiayuguan City
4️⃣ Excavation Year: 1972

✔ Features of the Image and Text: A Historical Moment Captured in Simple and Expressive Style

1. Composition and Technique

- The mural brick measures 35cm × 17cm, with a beige background and black contour lines, combining realism and freehand brushwork.
- The main subject is the courier:
- Wearing a black headscarf and a black-edged collar jacket;
- Holding a wooden tablet with documents (a pass) in the left hand, reins in the right hand;
- Riding a red-maned horse with all four hooves off the ground, showing dynamic tension and speed.
- Key detail: The courier’s face notably lacks lips, symbolizing the ancient postal system’s confidentiality requirements, highlighting the design’s profound meaning.

2. Artistic Achievement

- With just a few strokes, it sketches the Silk Road postal scene so vividly that the sound of horse hooves and the desert wind seem perceptible, embodying the "vivid spirit" of Wei and Jin painting.

II. Historical Value: Concrete Evidence of Ancient Chinese Postal System

1. A Living Fossil of the Postal System

- Excavated from the Wei and Jin tomb cluster in Jiayuguan (220-420 AD), it is the earliest existing image of the postal system in China, confirming records in the "Book of Later Han" and "Postal Regulations."
- It verifies that the postal system served multiple functions including communication, transportation, and diplomatic reception, such as the Han dynasty’s "separation of courier and postal routes" (stations every 30 li, postal pavilions every 10 li).

2. Key Witness to Silk Road Transportation

- Reflects the postal network in the Hexi Corridor with "a beacon every 5 li, a mound every 10 li, and a fortress every 100 li," ensuring central government control over the Western Regions (e.g., the Xuánquán postal station).

III. Cultural Environment: The Civilizational Confluence at the Silk Road’s Throat

1. Geography and Strategic Position

- Gansu is a crucial choke point on the Silk Road; the postal system connected Chang’an with the Western Regions, facilitating the exchange of goods, documents, and envoys.
- The Han bamboo slips unearthed at Dunhuang’s Xuánquán station record dozens of Western Region states passing through, highlighting the station’s role as a diplomatic hub.

2. Social and Cultural Background

- The tomb cluster’s excavation suggests the social status of courier officials; the mural brick as a burial item expresses admiration for "efficient governance."

IV. Far-reaching Significance: From Historical Symbol to Cultural Totem

1. Cultural Origin of Modern Postal Services

- In 1982, it became the prototype for China’s first postal stamp; in 1995, it was adopted as the logo for postal savings cards, embodying the industry spirit of "efficiency and confidentiality."

2. Symbol of Civilizational Exchange

- The courier image condenses the history of Silk Road information transmission, echoing the "family and national affairs and cultural exchange" recorded in the Xuánquán Han slips, becoming a cultural symbol of Sino-foreign communication.
- It evidences the Chinese postal system’s contribution to world postal history, having established a complete system a millennium before Europe.

✔ Profound Impression
The "Courier Mural" is an artistic historical snapshot linking ancient systems, the Silk Road artery, and modern civilization heritage. The silent courier without lips is a powerful cultural voice resonating through millennia—amid the sound of hooves on the desert, it witnesses an empire’s control over its frontier, an ancient road stitching civilizations together, and a symbol eternally engraved in national memory.