Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Lai highlights the richness and complexity of the region’s archaeological record while demonstrating the nuance that well-considered material culture can add to knowledge of early religion."
* Choice *
"[I]mmensely interesting. . . Excavating the Afterlife should be of interest to Sinologists and researchers of Chinese studies, archaeologists and art historians, scholars and students of comparative religions."
-- Zbigniew Wesolowski * Monumenta Serica *
"This book provides a very nuanced, detailed, and vivid account of the ‘mortuary religion’ of southern China from the Warring States to the Han period. . . . A very valuable resource for future studies in this field. . . . The bold but always well-founded stance that Lai takes on these topics combined with the richness of source material and exemplary nature of this approach make this volume a true milestone in the study of early religion in southern China."
-- Anke Hein * Journal of Chinese Religions *
"Lai offers his reader an extraordinary wealth of both facts and interpretations"
-- John Lagerwey * Arts Asiatiques *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Chronology of Early Chinese Dynasties
Introduction
1. The Dead Who Would Not Be Ancestors
2. The Transformation of Burial Space
3. The Presence of the Invisible
4. Letters to the Underworld
5. Journey to the Northwest
Conclusion
Notes
Glossary of Chinese Characters
Bibliography
Index
