The sunflower-shaped silver bowl unearthed in the western suburbs of Xi’an city in 1976, has been regarded as an object of the Tang dynasty. But on its outer surface there are eight little deep ditches stretching from the top to the bottom, therefore making obvious ridges appear on its interior surface and the bowl bear a shape of raised eight petals. The bowl feet assume polyhedrons and the bottom circle of them is decorated with chain pearls design. The interior surface of the bottom has a design of two layers of chain pearls; while the exterior surface, the design of entwining veins. This characteristic is neither the style of traditional Chinese objects, nor that of the Tang silver vessels, but resemble to Sogd silver of Central Asia. So the bowl got its name. Sogd is a strange nationality, of which the people ever did business in Asia and Europe, and had a close relationship with the Tang China.
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