Life and Afterlife in Ancient China

(Paperback)

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An epic new history of Ancient China told through the prism of a dozen extraordinary tombs The three millennia up to the establishment of the first imperial Qin dynasty in 221 BC cemented many of the distinctive elements of Chinese civilisation still in place today. Records of these early achievements, and their diverse and unexpected expressions, often lie not in written history but in the ways people marked the end of their lives. Jessica Rawson here explores twelve grand tombs - each from a specific historical moment and place - showing how they reveal wider political, dynastic and cultural developments, culminating in the lavish ambition of the First Emperor's monument, guarded by his army of terracotta warriors. Drawing on the latest archaeological discoveries, Life and Afterlife in Ancient China illuminates a constellation of beliefs about life and death very different from our own and provides a remarkable new perspective on one of the oldest civilisations in the world.

Reviews

The story of China is written in the objects buried in its tombs over many millennia, but for most of us they are as hard to read as Chinese characters. Jessica Rawson is the master-interpreter. In a dozen tombs she tells the story of China across thousands of years, pointing out again and again the profound ways in which the Chinese are not like us. If you want to understand China today, start by visiting these twelve tombs in the enlightening company of Jessica Rawson. A dozen tombs - an underground journey to the heart of China. -- Neil MacGregor
Time and time again, Jessica Rawson has demonstrated her extraordinary ability to explain the unfamiliar in terms that everyone can understand. Life and Afterlife in Ancient China is a perfect book for someone new to China. Unusually, it is also ideal for the more knowledgeable because it offers such an up-to-date portrayal of the complex relations between the ancient Chinese and their neighbors -- Valerie Hansen, author of The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the Worldand Globalization Began
No book better attests to the most basic point of history - and not just China's - that we are profoundly shaped by our cultural heritages. Rawson's lucid and intimate account of the extraordinary contents of twelve ancient tombs stretching four millennia into the past brings readers inside Chinese culture and mentality in ways that instruct, surprise, and delight. A masterwork -- Timothy Brook, author of Vermeer's Hat and Great State
Jessica Rawson understands the long history of China through a lifetime's engagement with its ancient sites and artefacts. Her book evokes both the internal dynamics and external influences of China's deep past with great clarity, allowing us to appreciate their continuing force and importance to the present -- Chris Gosden, Professor of European Archaeology, University of Oxford

Author Bio

Jessica Rawson, Professor of Chinese Art and Archaeology and former Warden of Merton College, Oxford (1994-2010), was made Honorary Professor in the School of Archaeology and Museology at Peking University in 2019. For over twenty years before moving to Oxford, she worked in the Department of Oriental Antiquities (now the Asia Department) at the British Museum, as Keeper from 1987 to 1994. In 2005-06, she led the group of curators of the China- The Three Emperors, 1662-1795 exhibition at the Royal Academy, bringing to London magnificent works of art from the Palace Museum in Beijing. For more than forty years, she has visited, researched and lectured in most of China's provinces, including at archaeological sites on both sides of its borders with Mongolia and South Siberia.