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Book Synopsis

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: 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 and unexpected 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 artefacts to survive from Ancient China; their scale and sophistication rivals their equ

Life and Afterlife in Ancient China

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    A Paperback by Jessica Rawson

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      Book details

      Publisher Penguin Random House Group
      Imprint Penguin Books Ltd
      Published 7 March 2025
      ISBN-13 9780141994512
      978-0141994512
      ISBN-10 0141994517
      Also in:
      Art & Photography History of art

      Description

      Book Synopsis

      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: 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 and unexpected 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 artefacts to survive from Ancient China; their scale and sophistication rivals their equ

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