Urban landscape and symbolic ornamentation: The role of Liao Tricolor in multi-ethnic architecture

Liao Sancai—also known as Liao tricolor ceramics—has long been treated and dismissed as purely funerary ware. This study argues that such a view is too narrow and obscures the role of these ceramics in the everyday and urban visual culture of the Liao dynasty (907–1125 CE). Drawing on Umberto Eco’s semiotics of ornament and concepts of non-verbal communication, the present study combines archaeological evidence from kiln sites with a typological analysis of ceramic motifs. Dragons, lotus scrolls, and vegetal arabesques are interpreted as more than decorative efflorescences: They functioned as a unifying visual language that helped bind a multi-ethnic state. Produced in ethnically diverse kilns (such as Longquanwu, Gangwayao, and Balinyouqi) and distributed to city centers like Dalian, Liao Sancai adorned not only funerary vessels but also sacred and civic architecture. Their repeated ornamental patterns structured urban experience, creating a semiotic infrastructure that mediated cultural plurality without imposing assimilation. This article, therefore, proposes the notion of “visual diplomacy” to describe how Liao Sancai crossed ethnic boundaries and articulated a shared imperial identity within a politically and culturally stratified field. The study further situates Liao decorative strategies within broader comparative perspectives on symbolic rule in multi-ethnic polities, and examines how contemporary Chinese museums are rebranding Liao Sancai. By mobilizing themes of harmony and common heritage, these institutions recast Liao tricolor ceramics as a vehicle for narratives of ethnic unity and cultural coexistence that continue to resonate today.