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Although they existed more than a millennium apart, the great
civilizations of New Kingdom Egypt (ca. 1548-1086 BCE) and Han
dynasty China (206 BCE-220 CE) shared intriguing similarities. Both
were centered around major, flood-prone rivers-the Nile and the
Yellow River-and established complex hydraulic systems to manage
their power. Both spread their territories across vast empires that
were controlled through warfare and diplomacy and underwent periods
of radical reform led by charismatic rulers-the "heretic king"
Akhenaten and the vilified reformer Wang Mang. Universal justice
was dispensed through courts, and each empire was administered by
bureaucracies staffed by highly trained scribes who held special
status. Egypt and China each developed elaborate conceptions of an
afterlife world and created games of fate that facilitated access
to these realms. This groundbreaking volume offers an innovative
comparison of these two civilizations. Through a combination of
textual, art historical, and archaeological analyses, Ancient Egypt
and Early China reveals shared structural traits of each
civilization as well as distinctive features.
Ying Zheng, founder of the Qin empire, is recognized as a pivotal
figure in world history, alongside other notable conquerors such as
Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and Julius Caesar. His
accomplishments include conquest of the warring states of ancient
China, creation of an imperial system that endured for two
millennia, and unification of Chinese culture through the promotion
of a single writing system. Only one biased historical account,
written a century after his death in 210 BCE, narrates his
biography. Recently, however, archaeologists have revealed the
lavish pits associated with his tomb and documents that demonstrate
how his dynasty functioned. Debates about the First Emperor have
raged since shortly after his demise, making him an ideological
slate upon which politicians, revolutionaries, poets, painters,
archaeologists, and movie directors have written their own biases,
fears, and fantasies. This book is neither a standard biography nor
a dynastic history. Rather, it looks historically at
interpretations of the First Emperor in history, literature,
archaeology, and popular culture as a way to understand the
interpreters as much as the subject of their interpretation.
Early China is best known for the dazzling material artifacts it
has left behind. These terracotta figures, gilt-bronze lamps, and
other material remnants of the Chinese past unearthed by
archaeological excavations are often viewed without regard to the
social context of their creation, yet they were made by individuals
who contributed greatly to the foundations of early Chinese
culture. With Artisans in Early Imperial China, Anthony
Barbieri-Low combines historical, epigraphic, and archaeological
analysis to refocus our gaze from the glittering objects and
monuments of China onto the men and women who made them. Taking
readers inside the private workshops, crowded marketplaces, and
great palaces, temples, and tombs of early China, Barbieri-Low
explores the lives and working conditions of artisans, meticulously
documenting their role in early Chinese society and the economy.
First published in 2007, winner of top prizes from the Association
for Asian Studies, American Historical Association, College Art
Association, and the International Convention of Asia Scholars, and
now back in print, Artisans in Early Imperial China will appeal to
anyone interested in Chinese history, as well as to scholars of
comparative social history, labor history, and Asian art history.
The "Wu Family Shrines," one of the most important cultural
monuments of early China, comprise approximately fifty stone slabs
from the so-called Wu cemetery in Shandong province. Depicting
emperors and kings, heroic women, filial sons, and mythological
subjects, these famous carved and engraved reliefs may have been
intended to reflect such basic themes as loyalty to the emperor,
filial piety, and wifely devotion; centuries later, they vividly
bring to life the art, social conditions, and Confucian ideology of
the Eastern Han.This generously illustrated book examines the stone
slabs and their rubbings as artifacts with a complex cultural
history from the second century to the present, and addresses
questions about the traditional identification of the structures as
Han dynasty shrines of the Wu family. Written by a team of
distinguished scholars in the fields of Chinese art and history,
the book includes a novel examination of Han burial items in
relation to burial belief, pictorial carvings, and funerary
architecture. Distributed for the Princeton University Art Museum
Exhibition Schedule: Princeton University Art Museum, March 5 -
June 26, 2005
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