Remembrance in Clay and Stone

Early Memorial and Funerary Art of Southwest China

By: Hajni Elias

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Hardcover | 25 March 2025 | Edition Number 1

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Hardcover
360 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
23.49 x 15.55

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This book explores the memorial and funerary artistic traditions of Southwest China during the Eastern Han dynasty (25-220 CE). In early imperial times, the art of this region--present-day Sichuan province--differed in both style and content from tomb and memorial art produced in other parts of the Han empire, especially that of the Central Plains, considered the heartland of Chinese civilization. Although this region was described in contemporaneous accounts as an uncultured backwater, it had a vibrant and sophisticated artistic tradition.

Hajni Elias examines the Southwest's rich material culture, which includes pictorial brick tiles, mingqi or spirit vessels, pottery figurines, decorated stone sarcophagi, architectural gate towers, and commemorative and ancestral stelae. She sheds light on the distinct traits and practices that arose from the region's complex geographical, cultural, and economic tapestry. Elias also places the Southwest in a broader Han cultural framework, offering a new perspective on early Chinese society and its mortuary and memorial practices. Showcasing the quality and breadth of the achievements of the Southwest's artisans and craftsmen, Remembrance in Clay and Stone reveals the distinctive and sophisticated ways in which people of this era recorded and memorialized their lives.

Industry Reviews

Southwestern tomb reliefs, clay figurines and cemetery stelae here become springboards to vignettes about (for example) indigenous salt miners, bare-chested entertainers, and increasingly powerful regional governors, respectively. Yet as Elias adeptly argues, these artifacts aren't just ideal representations or afterlife fantasies; they're preserved pictures of daily life and lived ritual. -- K.E. Brashier, Thomas Lamb Eliot Professor of Religion and Humanities, Emeritus, Reed College
A major contribution to our understanding of Han memorial and funerary culture hitherto predominantly studied through the lens of the Central Plains. Elias approaches the art and material culture of the Southwest with refreshing nuance and visual literacy. This wide-ranging study will substantively enrich our picture of the region's distinct identity. -- Roel Sterckx, University of Cambridge
Through a perceptive analysis of Eastern Han (25-220) Sichuan's rich material culture, Elias shows us the world of lesser elite families and the area's unique regional culture. She boldly argues that these artifacts do not merely depict a happy afterlife, but also lavish funerary celebrations that underscored the goodness of life in this world. -- Keith N. Knapp, co-editor of the Cambridge History of China, Volume 2: The Six Dynasties, 220-589

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