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Six Dynasties Civilization
The Six Dynasties, also known as the "Dark Age” of Chinese history, was a period of political disunity and conflict but also one of important developments in the arts, religion, and culture. This comprehensive and extensively illustrated book covers the material culture of the Six Dynasties, A.D. 220 to 589. Albert E. Dien, a foremost expert on the period, draws on the archaeological findings of mainland China journals as well as historical and literary sources to clarify and interpret the database of over 1,800 tombs developed for this volume. During the Six Dynasties, the influences of non-Chinese nomads, the flourishing of Buddhism, and increasing numbers of foreign merchants in the capitals brought about widespread change. The book explores what the archaeological artifacts reveal about this era of innovation and experimentation between the Han and Tang dynasties.
Warfare in China to 1600
Chinese military history has emerged as one of the most promising and radical fields of Chinese studies. China's rapidly increasing military power make understanding the place of war in Chinese culture, as well as the role of the military, and Chinese strategic thought, vital to dealing with this possible threat. The recent flourishing of scholarship in this area has begun to allow an equivalent comparison with western and world military history, leading to a new understanding of war as a historical and cultural phenomenon, as well as revising earlier analyses of the significance of war in Chinese history. Assembled in this volume is a selection of articles that present earlier approaches to Chinese military history as well as the most recent trends in research. The introductory essay provides an overview of the field of Chinese military history and its significance in the study of China, as well as pointing out encouraging new developments in recent scholarship.
The Cambridge History of China: Volume 2, The Six Dynasties, 220–589
The Six Dynasties Period (220–589 CE) is one of the most complex in Chinese history. Written by leading scholars from across the globe, the essays in this volume cover nearly every aspect of the period, including politics, foreign relations, warfare, agriculture, gender, art, philosophy, material culture, local society, and music. While acknowledging the era's political chaos, these essays indicate that this was a transformative period when Chinese culture was significantly changed and enriched by foreign peoples and ideas. It was also a time when history and literature became recognized as independent subjects and religion was transformed by the domestication of Buddhism and the formation of organized Daoism. Many of the trends that shaped the rest of imperial China's history have their origins in this era, such as the commercial vibrancy of southern China, the separation of history and literature from classical studies, and the growing importance of women in politics and religion.
Technicians and Artisans of Heaven-and-Earth
Technicians and Artisans and Heaven-and-Earth reconstructs memories of significant but often overlooked figures from a remarkably diverse yet understudied period of Chinese history. The book includes translations of three biographical collections from the official dynastic histories of the Northern Wei, Northern Zhou, and Sui featuring the lives of “technicians and artisans.” Through a comparative, intertextual, and literary analysis of these works, Stephan N. Kory not only sheds light on the roles and functions of diviners, physicians, and craftsmen in the imperial courts of mid-medieval North China, but also provides us with fascinating insights into medieval Chinese court life and society.
Empires of the Steppes
An epic history of how the so-called 'barbarians of the steppes' shaped the modern world. 'A rollercoaster of historical narration' History Today 'This is a history of epic scope that brings together the empires of the steppe land with the caravan cities of the Silk Road and imperial China' Martyn Rady, author of The Middle Kingdoms 'A sweeping account of forty-five centuries of nomadic tribes' Gillian Tett, Financial Times 'Flips the script to present the booted, felt-capped, leather-trousered and kaftan-wearing nomads as the bearers of civilisation . . . Harl's exhaustively researched book will ensure they rejoin the narrative of world history' Marc David Baer, Guardian The barbarian nomad...
Monks and Merchants
Stunning works in precious metals, glass, and stone -- many recently excavated and virtually unknown outside China -- shed new light on a pivotal epoch in Chinese history. From the 4th through 7th century, monks and merchants freely traveled along the fabled Silk Road, linking China with the west, propagating Buddhism, and purveying exotic goods and artifacts that fundamentally transformed Chinese culture and society. This sumptuous volume, the first to explore the magnificent treasures and sites of China's northwest section of the Silk Road, accompanies an exhibition at the Asia Society in New York. The text by an international team of scholars illuminates the importance of the region in this period of fertile cross-cultural exchanges between Eastern and Western Asia.
The Excavation of the Prehistoric Burial Tumulus at Lofkend, Albania
The burial tumulus of Lofkend lies in one of the richest archaeological areas of Albania (ancient "Illyria"), home to a number of burial tumuli spanning the Bronze and Iron Ages of later prehistory. Some were robbed long ago, others were reused for modern burials; few were excavated under scientific conditions. Modern understanding of the pre- and protohistory of Illyria has largely been shaped by the contents of such burial mounds. What inspired the systematic exploration of Lofkend by UCLA was more than the promise of an unplundered necropolis; it was also a chance to revisit the significance of this tumulus and its fellows for the emergence of urbanism and complexity in ancient Illyria. In addition to artifacts, the recovery of surviving plant remains, bones, and other organic material contribute insights into the environmental and ecological history of the region.
Divine Consumption
Kirikongo is an archaeological site composed of thirteen remarkably well-preserved discrete mounds occupied continually from the early first to the mid second millennium AD. It spans a dynamic era that saw the growth of large settlement communities and regional socio-political formations, development of economic specializations, intensification in interregional commercial networks, and the effects of the Black Death pandemic. The extraordinary preservation of architectural units, activity areas and industrial zones provides a unique opportunity to discern the cultural practices that created stratified mounds (tells) in this part of West Africa. Building from a new detailed zooarchaeological ...
The Archaeology of Grotta Scaloria
Grotta Scaloria, a cave in Apulia, was first discovered and explored in 1931, excavated briefly in 1967, and then excavated extensively from 1978 to 1980 by a joint UCLA-University of Genoa team, but it was never fully published. The Save Scaloria Project was organized to locate this legacy data and to enhance that information by application of the newest methods of archaeological and scientific analysis. This significant site is finally published in one comprehensive volume (and in an online archive of additional data and photographs) that gathers together the archaeological data from the upper and lower chambers of the cave. These data indicate intense ritual and quotidian use during the Neolithic period (circa 5600-5300 BCE). The Grotta Scaloria project is also important as historiography, since it illustrates a changing trajectory of research spanning three generations of European and American archaeology.
