Discover an epic new story of Ancient China through the perspective of a dozen exceptional tombs. The three millennia leading up to the establishment of the First Qin Empire in 221 BC defined many of the distinctive elements of Chinese culture that still exist today: an extremely challenging geography and environment, imposing infrastructure, a society based on strict family hierarchy, a shared script of characters, a cuisine centered around rice and millet, a material culture of ceramics, bronze, silk, and jade, and a unique concept of the cosmos, where ancestors continue to exist alongside the living.

The records of these early achievements, and their diverse and mysterious expressions, are often not found in written history but in the way people marked the end of their lives: their dwellings for the afterlife. The tombs and treasures within them are almost the only artifacts that have survived from Ancient China, and their scale and complexity rival those of Ancient Egypt.

Jessica Rawson, one of the most prominent Western scholars of China, explores twelve majestic tombs — each from a specific historical moment and location — showing how they reveal broader political, dynastic, and cultural developments, culminating in the luxurious ambition of the First Emperor's mausoleum, guarded by the Terracotta Army.

Beautifully illustrated and based on the latest archaeological discoveries, Life and Afterlife in Ancient China sheds light on a range of beliefs about life and death that differ greatly from our own and offers a remarkable new perspective on one of the world's oldest civilizations.

Pages: 560, Dimensions: 12.9x12.9cm