Ancient Egypt And Early China

Author : Anthony J. Barbieri-Low
Publisher : University of Washington Press
ISBN 13 : 0295748907
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.00/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ancient Egypt and Early China written by Anthony J. Barbieri-Low and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2021-07-17 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although they existed more than a millennium apart, the great civilizations of New Kingdom Egypt (ca. 1548–1086 BCE) and Han dynasty China (206 BCE–220 CE) shared intriguing similarities. Both were centered around major, flood-prone rivers—the Nile and the Yellow River—and established complex hydraulic systems to manage their power. Both spread their territories across vast empires that were controlled through warfare and diplomacy and underwent periods of radical reform led by charismatic rulers—the “heretic king” Akhenaten and the vilified reformer Wang Mang. Universal justice was dispensed through courts, and each empire was administered by bureaucracies staffed by highly trained scribes who held special status. Egypt and China each developed elaborate conceptions of an afterlife world and created games of fate that facilitated access to these realms. This groundbreaking volume offers an innovative comparison of these two civilizations. Through a combination of textual, art historical, and archaeological analyses, Ancient Egypt and Early China reveals shared structural traits of each civilization as well as distinctive features.

Author : Anthony J Barbieri-Low
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780295748894
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ancient Egypt and Early China written by Anthony J Barbieri-Low and published by . This book was released on 2021-06-17 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although they existed more than a millennium apart, the great civilizations of New Kingdom Egypt (ca. 1548-1086 BCE) and Han dynasty China (206 BCE-220 CE) shared intriguing similarities. Both were centered around major, flood-prone rivers--the Nile and the Yellow River--and established complex hydraulic systems to manage their power. Both spread their territories across vast empires that were controlled through warfare and diplomacy and underwent periods of radical reform led by charismatic rulers--the "heretic king" Akhenaten and the vilified reformer Wang Mang. Universal justice was dispensed through courts, and each empire was administered by bureaucracies staffed by highly trained scribes who held special status. Egypt and China each developed elaborate conceptions of an afterlife world and created games of fate that facilitated access to these realms. This groundbreaking volume offers an innovative comparison of these two civilizations. Through a combination of textual, art historical, and archaeological analyses, Ancient Egypt and Early China reveals shared structural traits of each civilization as well as distinctive features.

Author : Bruce G. Trigger
Publisher : American Univ in Cairo Press
ISBN 13 : 9789774243653
Total Pages : 174 pages
Book Rating : 4.5X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Early Civilizations written by Bruce G. Trigger and published by American Univ in Cairo Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An important scholarly contribution not only to the study of early civilizations, but also to archaeological theory. . . . It should be required reading for any course on ancient civilization." --Kathryn A. Bard, Journal of Field Archaeology

Author : John S. Major
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317503651
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ancient China written by John S. Major and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-22 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Author : Mu-Chou Poo
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1316514676
Total Pages : 215 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ghosts and Religious Life in Early China written by Mu-Chou Poo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-27 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What did ghosts look like, what did they do, and what can they tell us about Chinese culture and society?

Author : Ralph D. Sawyer
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0465023347
Total Pages : 576 pages
Book Rating : 4.49/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ancient Chinese Warfare written by Ralph D. Sawyer and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of China is a history of warfare. Rarely in its 3,000-year existence has the country not been beset by war, rebellion, or raids. Warfare was a primary source of innovation, social evolution, and material progress in the Legendary Era, Hsia dynasty, and Shang dynasty--indeed, war was the force that formed the first cohesive Chinese empire, setting China on a trajectory of state building and aggressive activity that continues to this day. In Ancient Chinese Warfare, a preeminent expert on Chinese military history uses recently recovered documents and archaeological findings to construct a comprehensive guide to the developing technologies, strategies, and logistics of ancient Chinese militarism. The result is a definitive look at the tools and methods that won wars and shaped culture in ancient China.

Author : K.E. Brashier
Publisher : BRILL
ISBN 13 : 1684170567
Total Pages : 487 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ancestral Memory in Early China written by K.E. Brashier and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-10-26 with total page 487 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancestral ritual in early China was an orchestrated dance between what was present (the offerings and the living) and what was absent (the ancestors). The interconnections among the tangible elements of the sacrifice were overt and almost mechanical, but extending those connections to the invisible guests required a medium that was itself invisible. Thus in early China, ancestral sacrifice was associated with focused thinking about the ancestors, with a structured mental effort by the living to reach out to the absent forebears and to give them shape and existence. Thinking about the ancestors—about those who had become distant—required active deliberation and meditation, qualities that had to be nurtured and learned. This study is a history of the early Chinese ancestral cult, particularly its cognitive aspects. Its goals are to excavate the cult’s color and vitality and to quell assumptions that it was no more than a simplistic and uninspired exchange of food for longevity, of prayers for prosperity. Ancestor worship was not, the author contends, merely mechanical and thoughtless. Rather, it was an idea system that aroused serious debates about the nature of postmortem existence, served as the religious backbone to Confucianism, and may even have been the forerunner of Daoist and Buddhist meditation practices.

Author : Haicheng Wang
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1107028124
Total Pages : 435 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Writing and the Ancient State written by Haicheng Wang and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-05-12 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writing and the Ancient State is a comparative study of the use of writing to create and maintain order in early states.

Author : Mu-chou Poo
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0567702030
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Netherworld in Ancient Egypt and China written by Mu-chou Poo and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-11-16 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Author : Charles Keith Maisels
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134837305
Total Pages : 508 pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Early Civilizations of the Old World written by Charles Keith Maisels and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-12-16 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this new paperback edition of Early Civilizations of the Old World, Charles Keith Maisels traces the development of some of the earliest and key civilizations in history. In each case the ecological and economic background to growth, geographical factors, cross-cultural intersection and the rise of urbanism are examined, explaining how particular forms of social structure and cultural interaction developed from before the Neolithic period to the time of the first civilizations in each area. This volume challenges the traditional assumption of a band-tribe-chiefdom-state sequence and instead demonstrates that large complex societies can flourish without social classes and the state, as dramatically shown by the Indus civilization. Such features as the use of Childe's urban revolution theory as a means of comparison for each emerging civilization and the discussion of the emergence of archaeology as a scientific discipline, make Early Civilizations of the Old World a valuable, innovative and stimulating work.