A really good start

I do hate to interrupt the dope limerick championship that is being thrown down in the comments section of my previous post (please do continue!), but Laura has requested more art history, and I just happened to have had a very good day. I arrived in Xiamen yesterday afternoon and checked into my hotel, and I then contacted a researcher at Xiamen University, whom I had been in touch with about a year ago. He very graciously agreed to take me to the Xiamen University museum, which was closed because of the recent typhoon from Taiwan (I apparently have more of those to look forward to in the month that I am here), and I had about an hour to look at their collection of Hindu sculptures from the 13th century. I made a few very interesting observations, the first being that foundation inscriptions from both mosques and Hindu temples were carved from the same kind of stone. On my Munsell rock color chart, the precise designation is "5YR 8/1", a pinkish gray stone with black specks. This is really important to know because it tells us that no matter what religion, patrons were selective with the types of stone they used: the foundation inscription is one of the most important parts of a monument because it identifies the donor and asks gods and countrymen for benediction, thus it seems likely that a more expensive stone would have been used. Below is an image of a foundation inscription from an Islamic tomb, I think in Arabic.
And here is the Tamil inscription, which I have also recently translated and analyzed, carved on the same type of stone. My camera really can't capture the colors very well, so I'll have to rely on this soil chart I think. That or I can just lie.
A "kudu" like arch that must have spanned a niche of some kind. I don't know for sure if it would have been used in the Hindu temple of Quanzhou. I'm going to try and find some other 13th century examples of Chinese architecture while I am here for comparison. It is definitely not in the style of the Late Chola architecture I have been researching.And the most exciting find of all today. . . Chola bronzes!!! This is pretty major, people. I'm researching a 13th century Hindu temple in China, for which there is practically no record other than bits of rubble, and these sculptures, which I didn't know existed before today because they have never been published, are very important for providing information about this community. We know very little about what kind of religion this community practiced, or where they got ideas for their imagery. In other instances of religions practiced by diaspora communities throughout history --take for example, Buddhism--the knowledge of what the deities actually looked like were transported from India to China in the form of small devotional deities. These small objects were easily portable, and provided the impetus for Chinese Buddhist iconography. Over time, the Chinese developed their own version of what the Buddha "looked like," but when you first start to see Buddhist icons in China (around the 3rd century), they really look a lot like the Indian icons.
And here they are! These small bronzes were very clearly made in south India and carried over to China. Basically, I'm going to have to look at these icons and identify them so I can tell who the community was worshipping, and then, I will look and see if these designs are reflected at all in the Chinese made sculptures at Quanzhou.Brahma, I think? Perhaps some Harihara variant? Laura?

I'm also having a temporary blank on this guy. It kind of looks like a Mahisasuramardini, but I think that it's a dude. Laura, again, your input would be appreciated. Also found, but not posted this time, are a bunch of white stone painted Siva lingams, and home made "tobacco" pipes. Awesome.

UPDATE: The director of the Quanzhou Maritime museum informed me that the bronzes are most likely modern, brought from India by the museum's founder in the 1940s. So, I'm full of it. Oh well. Also, sorry the pictures didn't show up but it is just too complicated to fix it. I will post some more on that later.