Jessica Rawson | Life and Afterlife in Ancient China
Life and Afterlife in Ancient China
Author:Jessica Rawson
Publisher : University of Washington Press (September 26, 2023)
Language : English
Hardcover : 448 pages
The three millennia up to the establishment of the first imperial Qin dynasty in 221 BC cemented many of the distinctive elements of Chinese civilization still in place today: an extraordinarily challenging geography and environment; formidable infrastructure; a society based on the strict hierarchy of the family; a shared written script of characters; a cuisine founded on rice and millet; a material culture of ceramics, bronze, silk, and jade; and a unique concept of the universe, in which ancestors continue to exist alongside the living. Records of these early achievements and their diverse expressions often lie not in written history but in how people marked the end of their lives: their dwellings for the afterlife. Tombs and the treasures within them are almost the only artifacts to survive from Ancient China; their scale and sophistication rivals their equivalents in Ancient Egypt.
Jessica Rawson, one of the most eminent Western scholars of China, 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. Beautifully illustrated and drawing on the latest archaeological discoveries, Life and Afterlife in Ancient China illuminates a constellation of beliefs about life and death and provides a remarkable new perspective on one of the oldest civilizations in the world.
Editorial Reviews
Review
"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 Chinese culture is like no other. 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, author of A History of the World in 100 Objects
"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 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
"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 becuase it offers such an up–to–date protrayal of the complex relations between the ancient Chinese and their neighbours."―Valerie Hansen, author of The Year 1000
"Jessican 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 Archeology, University of Oxford
"Jessica Rawson's Life and Afterlife in Ancient China is an innovative and important account of ancient Chinese culture for the general reader. . . . A sophisticated, eye-opening work."―China Books Review
作者介紹(來自維基百科):
傑西卡·羅森女爵士,DBE,FBA(Dame Jessica Rawson,1943年1月20日—),英國藝術史學家 、 考古學家、漢學家。現任牛津大學中國藝術與考古教授(2000-),曾任牛津大學墨頓學院院長(1994-2010)、牛津大學副校長(2006-2011)。已婚,育有一名女兒。
羅森教授畢業於劍橋大學與倫敦大學亞非學院,1976-1994年間擔任大英博物館東方部代理主任與主任,1994年被選為牛津大學墨頓學院院長,成為該學院成立七百多年來的第一位女院長。2002年因對東方學研究的貢獻被授予女爵士頭銜。羅森教授的學術研究領域為中國藝術與考古,尤其是商周青銅器與漢代墓葬。2022年榮獲唐獎漢學奬。