 Tibet dissolved into political chaos for over 100 years, and from the 10th century onward the cultural initiative passed to a line of kings in western Tibet. For temple decorations, such as wood carving of doorways and posts, decorative painting on ceilings and woodwork, temple frescoes, and terra-cotta and stucco images, they drew heavily on the cultural resources of pre-Islāmic Kashmir. Surviving monasteries and temples, with their magnificent contents, were made known to the Western world in the 1930s. With the establishment of religious hegemonies in central Tibet from the 11th century onward, cultural contacts with Nepal and the Buddhist centres in the main Ganges Valley flourished as never before. Conversely, cultural contacts with China dwindled for several centuries, at least in central and southern Tibet. From this time until the 20th century, Tibetan religious art and Nepalese Buddhist art remained a single unified tradition. Meanwhile, eastern Tibet, where the ancient pre-Buddhist crafts of metalwork had never died out, began to develop religious styles under the influence of craftsmen from central Tibet. From that time, the spread of Tibetan culture and art became coterminous with the spread of Tibetan religion; and, thus, from the 13th century onward, when Tibetan lamas began to convert the Mongols (Mongol), Mongolian religious art developed as a branch of Tibetan art. Through the Mongols, China began to extend its political influence over Tibet, and this led to a steady increase in Chinese cultural influence, especially in the east. From 1721, when the Chinese emperors became the suzerains of Tibet, Chinese influence was felt much more strongly throughout central as well as eastern Tibet, and Tibetan religious paintings and especially domestic decoration reveal distinct Chinese features.In the main temple (fo-khang) of Lhasa there is a pre-Buddhist silver jug with a long neck surmounted by a horse's head; and there are textual references to all kinds of articles made of gold: a large golden goose holding seven gallons of wine, a wine vase, a miniature city decorated with gold lions, and golden bowls. Gold animals (animal) are mentioned as decorating the camp of King Ral-pa-can when a Chinese envoy visited him in 821. These early Tibetan skills lived on through the Buddhist period. Tibetan metalworkers have excelled in producing fine things for ritual and domestic use: ritual lamps, vases, bowls, bells, prayer wheels, decorated trumpets and horns, for the temples, and, for home use, ornamented teapots, jars, bowls, ladles, and especially beautiful stands, often in silver or gold, to hold porcelain teacups, capped by finely worked lids of precious metals. Hand-woven rugs of magnificent Central Asian and Chinese designs, always adapted to Tibetan preferences, cover low seats, and tables and cabinets of carved and painted wood were commonplace in prosperous homes.From the 7th to 9th centuries there survive pre-Buddhist carved-stone pillars decorated with Chinese, Central Asian, and Indian motifs and also a stone lion showing traces of Persian influence.The art of casting images in bronze and other metals (metalwork) entered Tibet from Nepal and India. Having first followed foreign models, the Tibetans gradually developed their own styles and began to depict their own lamas and teachers as well as the vast pantheon of buddhas, gods, and goddesses inherited from India, each distinguished iconographically by posture, hand gestures, and accoutrements. (Of lesser divinities and especially of lamas, the identification is often difficult. It is rare that an image is named in an inscription and even rarer to find a date. Because of the extremely conservative nature of Tibetan art, correct dating within several centuries is often impossible.) Images of vast size, rising up through two or three stories, are quite often seen in Tibetan temples, and their construction and dedication is considered a work of vast religious merit.Since images are mainly cast or molded, carving is restricted to decorative motifs, especially o