The epitaph is a ritual tool of stone inscription in ancient times done to remember a person who has died, buried with the coffin. So far, the statistics show that the Tang Dynasty has the most unearthed epitaphs. The epitaph does not only record the genealogy, birth, death, and behavior of the owner, but also the social state of the society. Therefore, the epitaph of the Tang Dynasty naturally becomes the first-hand material to study the historical events of the Tang Dynasty. In recent years, archeological data of ancient tombs have been abundant. These unearthed objects and records are often the most powerful evidence of historical data. By comparing and contrasting them with the traditional documents, the origin and development of epitaphs can be clearly identified. It was learned after the inspection that the epitaphs gradually took shape during the Jin Dynasty and Sixteen Kingdoms Periods, and the formation was not established until the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Later, the Sui and Tang Dynasties inherited this system and it became popular—it became a necessity for funerals. The Tang Dynasty was the heyday of ancient China. It was wealthy and strong. Its culture was splendid. Also, the art of calligraphy was crowned in history. Due to the system and ethos of the Tang Dynasty, the calligraphy of the Dynasty was flourishing, and there were abundant talented calligraphers. It had the most calligraphers recorded in the history of calligraphy. Therefore, the history tells us that all people of the Tang Dynasty were good at calligraphy without exception. Among them, the leading and influential calligraphers could be divided into four types of people: monarchs and royal relatives in power; officials and scholars who perform official duties; monks and believers of Buddhism; “Shu-Dai-Zhao,” those who were summoned by emperors because of their talents in calligraphy, and “Shu-Shoum,” those who were transcribing documents for emperors. These four types of people were the key factors that determined the trend of calligraphy in the Tang Dynasty. The research methods of the calligraphy of epitaph often take the traditional history of calligraphy as a longitude, and then adopt several epitaphs with similar styles as the latitude, as indirect evidence of the history of calligraphy. This article does not follow the convention: I adopt epitaph 4495 of the Tang Dynasty as a sample and make a database to sift and analyze the style, author of calligraphy in the Tang Dynasty and the manifestations of the calligraphy of its era and region, etc. These help to seek confirmation and supplement to the history of calligraphy. People get used to attributing the problem of calligraphy style of epitaphs to the writer, but often overlook the fact that carvers are also the key factors that influence the manifestation of the calligraphy of epitaphs. The calligrapher was in charge of “Shu-Dan” first, and then the carvers continued with knives. Whether a book could be presented faithfully depends on the skill of carvers, so it was commonly known that chiseling is the second creation. The Tang people were also concerned about this issue. Officials used the management system, while folks relied on family traditions to cultivate talents to meet
