Picturing Heaven In Early China

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Picturing Heaven in Early China

Lillian Lan-ying Tseng
Picturing Heaven in Early China Book PDF

Author : Lillian Lan-ying Tseng
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 479 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2020-03-17
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781684175093

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Picturing Heaven in Early China by Lillian Lan-ying Tseng Pdf

Tian, or Heaven, had multiple meanings in early China. It had been used since the Western Zhou to indicate both the sky and the highest god, and later came to be regarded as a force driving the movement of the cosmos and as a home to deities and imaginary animals. By the Han dynasty, which saw an outpouring of visual materials depicting Heaven, the concept of Heaven encompassed an immortal realm to which humans could ascend after death. Using excavated materials, Lillian Tseng shows how Han artisans transformed various notions of Heaven—as the mandate, the fantasy, and the sky—into pictorial entities. The Han Heaven was not indicated by what the artisans looked at, but rather was suggested by what they looked into. Artisans attained the visibility of Heaven by appropriating and modifying related knowledge of cosmology, mythology, astronomy. Thus the depiction of Heaven in Han China reflected an interface of image and knowledge. By examining Heaven as depicted in ritual buildings, on household utensils, and in the embellishments of funerary settings, Tseng maintains that visibility can hold up a mirror to visuality; Heaven was culturally constructed and should be culturally reconstructed.

Imagining Heaven

Ellen W. Williams
Imagining Heaven Book PDF

Author : Ellen W. Williams
Publisher : McFarland
Page : 331 pages
File Size : 55,9 Mb
Release : 2024-01-01
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781476690452

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Imagining Heaven by Ellen W. Williams Pdf

Over the centuries, humans have conjured images--the stuff of dreams, convictions, and ardent desire--to describe our afterlife. The vision of heaven can appear as simple as a place among the stars or as complex as a universe filled with a multitude of busy souls. Positioned at the intersection of art, religion, and culture, this book sheds new light on human creativity in its portrayal of the afterlife. Beginning with prehistoric burial objects that help with one's heavenly needs, it travels through history to probe ancient texts, examines enigmatic carvings, dissects the meaning of paintings, and discusses contemporary perspectives in film and media. The author demonstrates that humans around the world have always had the capacity to confront the "final frontier" in spirited, hopeful, and beautiful ways.

Astrology and Cosmology in Early China

David W. Pankenier
Astrology and Cosmology in Early China Book PDF

Author : David W. Pankenier
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 617 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2013-10-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9781107292246

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Astrology and Cosmology in Early China by David W. Pankenier Pdf

The ancient Chinese were profoundly influenced by the Sun, Moon and stars, making persistent efforts to mirror astral phenomena in shaping their civilization. In this pioneering text, David W. Pankenier introduces readers to a seriously understudied field, illustrating how astronomy shaped the culture of China from the very beginning and how it influenced areas as disparate as art, architecture, calendrical science, myth, technology, and political and military decision-making. As elsewhere in the ancient world, there was no positive distinction between astronomy and astrology in ancient China, and so astrology, or more precisely, astral omenology, is a principal focus of the book. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including archaeological discoveries, classical texts, inscriptions and paleography, this thought-provoking book documents the role of astronomical phenomena in the development of the 'Celestial Empire' from the late Neolithic through the late imperial period.

Public Memory in Early China

K. E. Brashier
Public Memory in Early China Book PDF

Author : K. E. Brashier
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 528 pages
File Size : 49,8 Mb
Release : 2020-10-26
Category : History
ISBN : 9781684170753

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Public Memory in Early China by K. E. Brashier Pdf

In early imperial China, the dead were remembered by stereotyping them, by relating them to the existing public memory and not by vaunting what made each person individually distinct and extraordinary in his or her lifetime. Their posthumous names were chosen from a limited predetermined pool; their descriptors were derived from set phrases in the classical tradition; and their identities were explicitly categorized as being like this cultural hero or that sage official in antiquity. In other words, postmortem remembrance was a process of pouring new ancestors into prefabricated molds or stamping them with rigid cookie cutters. Public Memory in Early China is an examination of this pouring and stamping process. After surveying ways in which learning in the early imperial period relied upon memorization and recitation, K. E. Brashier treats three definitive parameters of identity—name, age, and kinship—as ways of negotiating a person’s relative position within the collective consciousness. He then examines both the tangible and intangible media responsible for keeping that defined identity welded into the infrastructure of Han public memory.

Ancient China

John S. Major,Constance A. Cook
Ancient China Book PDF

Author : John S. Major,Constance A. Cook
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 418 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2016-09-22
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317503651

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Ancient China by John S. Major,Constance A. Cook Pdf

Ancient China: A History surveys the East Asian Heartland Region – the geographical area that eventually became known as China – from the Neolithic period through the Bronze Age, to the early imperial era of Qin and Han, up to the threshold of the medieval period in the third century CE. For most of that long span of time there was no such place as "China"; the vast and varied territory of the Heartland Region was home to many diverse cultures that only slowly coalesced, culturally, linguistically, and politically, to form the first recognizably Chinese empires. The field of Early China Studies is being revolutionized in our time by a wealth of archaeologically recovered texts and artefacts. Major and Cook draw on this exciting new evidence and a rich harvest of contemporary scholarship to present a leading-edge account of ancient China and its antecedents. With handy pedagogical features such as maps and illustrations, as well as an extensive list of recommendations for further reading, Ancient China: A History is an important resource for undergraduate and postgraduate courses on Chinese History, and those studuing Chinese Culture and Society more generally.

The Art of Terrestrial Diagrams in Early China

Michelle H. Wang
The Art of Terrestrial Diagrams in Early China Book PDF

Author : Michelle H. Wang
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 243 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2023-11-21
Category : Technology & Engineering
ISBN : 9780226827476

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The Art of Terrestrial Diagrams in Early China by Michelle H. Wang Pdf

A study of early Chinese maps using interdisciplinary methods. This is the first English-language monograph on the early history of maps in China, centering on those found in three tombs that date from the fourth to the second century BCE and constitute the entire known corpus of early Chinese maps (ditu). More than a millennium separates them from the next available map in the early twelfth century CE. Unlike extant studies that draw heavily from the history of cartography, this book offers an alternative perspective by mobilizing methods from art history, archaeology, material culture, religion, and philosophy. It examines the diversity of forms and functions in early Chinese ditu to argue that these pictures did not simply represent natural topography and built environments, but rather made and remade worlds for the living and the dead. Wang explores the multifaceted and multifunctional diagrammatic tradition of rendering space in early China.

Divination and Prediction in Early China and Ancient Greece

Lisa Raphals
Divination and Prediction in Early China and Ancient Greece Book PDF

Author : Lisa Raphals
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 499 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2013-10-17
Category : History
ISBN : 9781107010758

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Divination and Prediction in Early China and Ancient Greece by Lisa Raphals Pdf

This book compares the intellectual and social history and past and present contexts of mantic practices (divination) in Chinese and Greek antiquity.

Mind and Body in Early China

Edward Slingerland
Mind and Body in Early China Book PDF

Author : Edward Slingerland
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 352 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2018-11-23
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780190842321

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Mind and Body in Early China by Edward Slingerland Pdf

Mind and Body in Early China critiques Orientalist accounts of early China as the radical, "holistic" other. The idea that the early Chinese held the "strong" holist view, seeing no qualitative difference between mind and body, has long been contradicted by traditional archeological and qualitative textual evidence. New digital humanities methods, along with basic knowledge about human cognition, now make this position untenable. A large body of empirical evidence suggests that "weak" mind-body dualism is a psychological universal, and that human sociality would be fundamentally impossible without it. Edward Slingerland argues that the humanities need to move beyond social constructivist views of culture, and embrace instead a view of human cognition and culture that integrates the sciences and the humanities. Our interpretation of texts and artifacts from the past and from other cultures should be constrained by what we know about the species-specific, embodied commonalities shared by all humans. This book also attempts to broaden the scope of humanistic methodologies by employing team-based qualitative coding and computer-aided "distant reading" of texts, while also drawing upon our current best understanding of human cognition to transform our basic starting point. It has implications for anyone interested in comparative religion, early China, cultural studies, digital humanities, or science-humanities integration.

The Oxford Handbook of Early China

Elizabeth Childs-Johnson
The Oxford Handbook of Early China Book PDF

Author : Elizabeth Childs-Johnson
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
Page : 825 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 2020
Category : China
ISBN : 9780199328369

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The Oxford Handbook of Early China by Elizabeth Childs-Johnson Pdf

A chronological and interdisciplinary study of early China from the Neolithic through Warring States periods (ca 5000-500BCE).

Routledge Handbook of Early Chinese History

Paul R. Goldin
Routledge Handbook of Early Chinese History Book PDF

Author : Paul R. Goldin
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 726 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2018-05-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317681915

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Routledge Handbook of Early Chinese History by Paul R. Goldin Pdf

The study of early China has been radically transformed over the past fifty years by archaeological discoveries, including both textual and non-textual artefacts. Excavations of settlements and tombs have demonstrated that most people did not lead their lives in accordance with ritual canons, while previously unknown documents have shown that most received histories were written retrospectively by victors and present a correspondingly anachronistic perspective. This handbook provides an authoritative survey of the major periods of Chinese history from the Neolithic era to the fall of the Latter Han Empire and the end of antiquity (AD 220). It is the first volume to include not only a comprehensive review of political history but also detailed treatments of topics that transcend particular historical periods, such as: Warfare and political thought Cities and agriculture Language and art Medicine and mathematics Providing a detailed analysis of the most up-to-date research by leading scholars in the field of early Chinese history, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Chinese history, Asian archaeology, and Chinese studies in general.

Books of Fate and Popular Culture in Early China

Anonim
Books of Fate and Popular Culture in Early China Book PDF

Author : Anonim
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 545 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2017-11-06
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9789004349315

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Books of Fate and Popular Culture in Early China by Anonim Pdf

Books of Fate and Popular Culture in Early China is a comprehensive introduction to the manuscripts known as daybooks, examples of which have been found in Warring States, Qin, and Han tombs (453 BCE–220 CE). Their main content concerns hemerology, or “knowledge of good and bad days.” Daybooks reveal the place of hemerology in daily life and are invaluable sources for the study of popular culture. Eleven scholars have contributed chapters examining the daybooks from different perspectives, detailing their significance as manuscript-objects intended for everyday use and showing their connection to almanacs still popular in Chinese communities today as well as to hemerological literature in medieval Europe and ancient Babylon. Contributors include: Marianne Bujard, László Sándor Chardonnens, Christopher Cullen, Donald Harper, Marc Kalinowski, Li Ling, Liu Lexian, Alasdair Livingstone, Richard Smith, Alain Thote, and Yan Changgui.

The Netherworld in Ancient Egypt and China

Mu-chou Poo
The Netherworld in Ancient Egypt and China Book PDF

Author : Mu-chou Poo
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 171 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2023-11-16
Category : History
ISBN : 9780567702012

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The Netherworld in Ancient Egypt and China by Mu-chou Poo Pdf

Considering the striking similarities between the treatment of the dead and conceptions of the netherworld in ancient Egypt and China, how can we compare the two traditions? Mu-chou Poo considers this question, and provides a new perspective on archaeological materials, including tomb structures and funerary texts, by addressing them in the context of universal human problems such as death, the future of the dead, and the search for happiness in life. Poo chronologically reconstructs the emergence of the idea of the netherworld and its evolution in both ancient Egypt and ancient China. He explores the relationship between religious beliefs and social ethics in these civilizations, considers why similar social and material conditions could have produced varied expressions of the afterlife, and what such variations reveal about each culture. Poo argues that a comparison between both visions of the netherworld and their relationship to life experience gives further insight into the nature of each civilization. Through this analysis, Poo shows that thematic comparison of ancient civilizations is not only possible, but also relevant to modern society.

A Companion to Chinese Art

Martin J. Powers,Katherine R. Tsiang
A Companion to Chinese Art Book PDF

Author : Martin J. Powers,Katherine R. Tsiang
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 596 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 2022-04-26
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781119121695

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A Companion to Chinese Art by Martin J. Powers,Katherine R. Tsiang Pdf

Exploring the history of art in China from its earliest incarnations to the present day, this comprehensive volume includes two dozen newly-commissioned essays spanning the theories, genres, and media central to Chinese art and theory throughout its history. Provides an exceptional collection of essays promoting a comparative understanding of China’s long record of cultural production Brings together an international team of scholars from East and West, whose contributions range from an overview of pre-modern theory, to those exploring calligraphy, fine painting, sculpture, accessories, and more Articulates the direction in which the field of Chinese art history is moving, as well as providing a roadmap for historians interested in comparative study or theory Proposes new and revisionist interpretations of the literati tradition, which has long been an important staple of Chinese art history Offers a rich insight into China’s social and political institutions, religious and cultural practices, and intellectual traditions, alongside Chinese art history, theory, and criticism

Modeling Peace

Jie Shi
Modeling Peace Book PDF

Author : Jie Shi
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 407 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2020-03-24
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780231549202

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Modeling Peace by Jie Shi Pdf

Among hundreds of thousands of ancient graves and tombs excavated to date in China, the Mancheng site stands out for its unparalleled complexity and richness. It features juxtaposed burials of the first king and queen of the Zhongshan kingdom (dated late second century BCE). The male tomb occupant, King Liu Sheng (d. 113 BCE), was sent by his father, Emperor Jing (r. 157–141 BCE), to rule the Zhongshan kingdom near the northern frontier of the Western Han Empire, neighboring the nomadic Xiongnu confederation. Modeling Peace interprets Western Han royal burial as a political ideology by closely reading the architecture and funerary content of this site and situating it in the historical context of imperialization in Western Han China. Through a study of both the archaeological materials and related received and excavated texts, Jie Shi demonstrates that the Mancheng site was planned and designed as a unity of religious, gender, and intercultural concerns. The site was built under the supervision of the future occupants of the royal tomb, who used these burials to assert their political ideology based on Huang-Lao and Confucian thought: a good ruler is one who pacifies himself, his family, and his country. This book is the first scholarly monograph on an undisturbed and fully excavated early Chinese royal burial site.

For the Love of Mars

Matthew Shindell
For the Love of Mars Book PDF

Author : Matthew Shindell
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 255 pages
File Size : 45,7 Mb
Release : 2023
Category : Astronomy
ISBN : 9780226821894

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For the Love of Mars by Matthew Shindell Pdf

"Mars and its secrets have fascinated and mystified humans since ancient times. Its vivid color and visibility to the naked eye, its geologic kinship with Earth, its potential as our best hope for settlement-Mars embodies everything that inspires us about space and space exploration. In this book, National Air and Space Museum Curator Matthew Shindell captures the majesty of the red planet and the work done by people on Earth to explore it. He connects our current period of human exploration of Mars to the work done through the centuries and across cultures by asking how the quest to understand Mars has shaped our knowledge of ourselves, our own planet, our solar system, and beyond. For the Love of Mars reveals why Mars has piqued scientists' interest for centuries. It brings to light how difficult and sometimes flawed martian discoveries could be for earth-bound planetary explorers and, by focusing on the human stories behind the telescopes and behind the robots we have come to know and love, shows how Mars exploration became more sophisticated through the years in ways that helped expand knowledge about other facets of space and the universe. A must read for everyone curious about Curiosity and the Red Planet"--