In Excavating the Afterlife, Guolong Lai explores the dialectical relationship between sociopolitical change and mortuary religion from an archaeological perspective. By examining burial structure, grave goods, and religious documents unearthed from groups of well-preserved tombs in southern China, Lai shows that new attitudes toward the dead, resulting from the trauma of violent political struggle and warfare, permanently altered the early Chinese conceptions of this world and the afterlife. The book grounds the important changes in religious beliefs and ritual practices firmly in the sociopolitical transition from the Warring States (ca. 453–221 BCE) to the early empires (3rd century–1st century BCE).
A methodologically sophisticated synthesis of archaeological, art historical, and textual sources, Excavating the Afterlife will be of interest to art historians, archaeologists, and textual scholars of China, as well as to students of comparative religions.
Art History Publication Initiative. For more information, visit http://arthistorypi.org/books/excavating-the-afterlife
Honorable Mention for the 2016 Society for American Archaeology Book Award in the Scholarly Category
Table of Content
Acknowledgments
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
About the author
Guolong Lai is associate professor of Chinese art and archaeology at the University of Florida. He is the author of Excavating the Afterlife: The Archaeology of Early Chinese Religion (University of Washington Press, 2015).More ebooks from the same author(s) / Editor
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