Ancient China

If you are interested in Ancient Chinese art, you can look through sources in a particular area of your interest and find a starting point there. Further research and reading will be required if you pick your own topic. I can help.

Major Journals abbreviated below

AAA Archives of Asian Art

AB Art Bulletin

AO Ars Orientalis

AA Artibus Asiae

AAS Arts Asiatique

BMFEA Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities

EA Early China

HJAS Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies

JAS Journal of Asian Studies

OA Oriental Art

OT Orientations

The headings below indicate various areas of concentration in the study of Ancient China

General overviews

Chang, K.C. Early Chinese Civilization: Anthropological Perspective. Cambridge, Mass., 1976.

———. Art, Myth, and Ritual: the Path to Political Authority in Ancient China. Cambridge, Mass., 1983.

———. Archaeology of Ancient China. 4th ed., New Haven, 1986.

Chang K. C., et al. The Formation of Chinese Civilization: An Archaeological Perspective. New Haven, 2005.

Hansford, H. Chinese Carved Jades. London, 1968.

Ledderose, Lothar. Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art. Princeton: N.J., 2000.

Lewis, Mark Edward. Sanctioned Violence in Early China. Albany, 1990.

Linduff, Katheryn, ed. Gender and Chinese Archaeology. Walnut Creek, Ca., 2004.

Rawson, Jessica. Ancient China: Art and Archaeology. London, 1980.

———. The British Museum Book of Chinese Art. London, 1992.

———. Mysteries of Ancient China. London, 1996. (Ask me for a copy)

Steinhardt, Nancy S., et al. Chinese Architecture. New York, 2002.

Wen, Fong, ed. The Great Bronze Age of China. Exh. cat. New York, 1980.

Whitfield, Roderick, et al. Exploring China’s Past: New Discoveries and Studies in Archaeology and Art. London, 1999.

Yang, Xiaoneng, ed. The Golden Age of Chinese Archaeology. Washington, DC, 1999.

Religion and Ritual theories

Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. Oxford, 1992.

*Cannadine, David, & Simon Price, eds. Rituals of Royalty: Power and Ceremonial in Traditional Societies. Cambridge, 1987, pp. 1-19.

Congyun, L. 1996. "Neolithic Sites of Religious Significance." In Mysteries of Ancient China, edited by J. Rawson, 232-9. London and New York: G. Braziller.

Dianzeng, Z. 1996. “The Sacrificial Pits at Shanxingdui.” In Mysteries of Ancient China, edited by J. Rawson, 232-9. London and New York: G. Braziller.

*Durkheim, Emile. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. New York, 1915, pp. 51-57.

*Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane. New York, 1959; ch. 3, “The Sacredness of Nature and Cosmic Religion,” pp. 116-159.

———. Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy. Princeton, 1964.

Lei, C. 1996. “The Ancestor Cult in Ancient China.” In Mysteries of Ancient China, edited by J. Rawson, 269-272. London and New York: G. Braziller.

Major, John S. Heaven and Earth in Early Han Thought. (1993)

Nivison, David. “Li,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 8.

*Poo, M. “Ideas Concerning Death and Burial in Pre-Han and Han China,” Asia Major 3 (1990): 25-62.

Robinet, Isabelle. Taoism: Growth of a Religion. Stanford, 1997.

Seidel, Anna. “Afterlife, Chinese concepts,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 1.

Smith, David Howard. Chinese Religions. New York, 1968.

Thompson, Laurence. Chinese Religion: An Introduction. Belmont, 1996.

——— “Confucian Thought,” in The Encyclopedia of Religion, vol. 4.

*Wechsler, Howard J. Offerings of Jade and Silk. New Haven, 1985, pp. 9-36

Prehistoric Period

Congyun, L. 1996. "Neolithic Sites of Religious Significance." In Mysteries of Ancient China, edited by J. Rawson, 232-9. London and New York: G. Braziller.

Dianzeng, Z. 1996. “The Sacrificial Pits at Shanxingdui.” In Mysteries of Ancient China, edited by J. Rawson, 232-9. London and New York: G. Braziller.

Goepper, R. 1996. “Precursors and Early Stages of the Chinese Script.” In Mysteries of Ancient China, edited by J. Rawson, 273-281. London and New York: G. Braziller.

Higham, C. 2006. "Crossing National Boundaries: Southern China and Southeast Asia in Prehistory." In Uncovering Southeast Asia's Past, edited by E. Bacus, I. Glover, and V. Pigott. Singapore: NUS Press. University of Hawaii Press. (Unavailable locally)

Lei, C. 1996. “The Ancestor Cult in Ancient China.” In Mysteries of Ancient China, edited by J. Rawson, 269-272. London and New York: G. Braziller.

Weichao, Y. 1996. “The State of Chu.” In Mysteries of Ancient China, edited by J. Rawson, 266-8. London and New York: G. Braziller.

Yang, Y. 1996. “The Chinese Jade Culture.” In Mysteries of Ancient China, edited by J. Rawson, 225-231. London and New York: G. Braziller.

Zhenxiang, Z. 1996. “The Royal Consort Fu Hao and Her Tomb.” In Mysteries of Ancient China, edited by J. Rawson, 240-7. London and New York: G. Braziller.

Shang and Zhou Dynasties

*Allan, Sarah. “Chinese Bronzes Through Western Eyes,” in Whitfield & Wang Tao, eds., Exploring China’s Past. London, 1999, pp. 63-76.

*Bagley, Robert. “A Shang City in Sichuan Province,” Orientations (Nov 1990): 52-67.

Bagley, Robert, ed. Ancient Sichuan: Treasures from a Lost Civilization. Seattle & Princeton, 2001.

Chang, K.C. Shang Civilization. New Haven, 1980.

*———. “The Animal in Shang and Chou Bronze Art,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 41, no. 2 (1981): 527-554.

*———. “An Essay on Cong,” Orientations (June 1989): 37-43.

Ch’u Yuan (Qu Yuan). The Nine Songs: a Study of Shamanism in Ancient China. Ed. Arthur Waley. San Francisco, 1973.

*Eno, Robert. “Deities and Ancestors in Early Oracle Inscriptions,” in Donald Lopez, ed. Religions of China in Practice. Princeton, N.J., 1996, pp. 41-51.

*Qu, Yuan, et al. The Songs of the South. David Hawks, trans. Harmondsworth, 1985. “Shamanism and Chu Poetry,” pp. 42-51; “Zhao hun ‘Summons of the Soul,’” pp. 219-31.

Keightley, David N. Sources of Shang History: the Oracle-bone Inscription. Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1985.

*———. “Art, Ancestors, and the Origins of Writing in China,” Representations 56 (1996): 68-95.

*Kesner, Ladislav. The Taotie reconsidered: Meanings and Functions of Shang Theriomorphic Imagery,” Artibus Asiae 51.2 (1991): 29-53.

Li, Chi. Anyang. Seattle, 1977.

*Linduff, Katheryn M. “Many Wives, One Queen in China,” in Sarah M. Nelson, ed., Ancient Queens: Archaeological Explorations. Walnut Creek, CA, 2003, pp. 59-75.

*Loehr, Max. “The Bronze Styles of the Anyang Period,” Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America 7 (1953), pp. 42-53.

*Paper, Jordan. “The Meaning of the ‘T’ao-tieh’,” History of Religions 18, no. 1 (1978): 18-41.

Rawson, Jessica. “The Ritual Bronzes of the Shang and Zhou,” in Rawson, Mysteries of Ancient China, pp. 248-57.

So, Jenny, ed. Music in the age of Confucius. Washington, D.C., 2000.

So, Jenny, & Emmy Bunker. Traders and Raiders on China’s Northern Frontier. Exh. cat. Washington, D.C., 1995.

Thorp, Robert. China in the Early Bronze Age: Shang Civilization. Philadelphia, 2006.

Zheng, Zhenxiang. “The Royal Consort Fu Hao and Her Tomb,” in Rawson, Mysteries of Ancient China, pp. 240-47.

Qin and Early Han Dynasties

Cotterell, Arthur. The First Emperor of China. New York. 1981.

*Kesner, Ladislav. “Likeness of No One: (Re)presenting the First Emperor’s Army,” Art Bulletin 77 (1995): 115-32.

*Ledderose, “A Magic Army for the Emperor,” in Ten Thousand Things, Princeton, 2000, pp. 50-73.

Loewe, Michael. Ways to Paradise: the Chinese Quest for Immortality. London, 1979.

———. Chinese Ideas of Life and Death: Faith, Myth and Reason in the Han Period (202 BC-AD 220). London, 1982.

Pirazzoli-t’Sertevens, M. The Han Dynasty. Oxford, 1982.

Powers, Martin J. Art and Political Expressions in Early China. New Haven, 1991.

*Silbergeld, Jerome. “Mawangdui, Excavated Materials, and Transmitted Texts: A Cautionary Note,” Early China 8 (1982-83): 79-87.

*Sima, Qian. Records of the Grand Historian: Qin Dynasty. Burton Watson, trans. New York, 1993, pp. 62-64.

*Wu, Hung. “Xiwangmu: the Queen Mother of the West,” Orientations (Apr 1987): 23-35.

———. The Wu Liang Shrine: the Ideology of Early Chinese Pictorial Art. Stanford, 1989.

*———. “Art in a Ritual Context,” Early China 17 (1992): 111-44.

*Yü Ying-shih. “‘O Soul, Come Back!’: A Study in the Changing Conceptions of the Soul and Afterlife in Pre-Buddhist China,” HJAS 47:2 (1987): 363-95.