Writing and Materiality in Ancient China

Fifty years ago, the discoveries of a perfectly preserved corpse in one tomb at Mawangdui and a substantial library in another tomb there astounded the scholarly world, giving rise to thousands of technical studies over the following decades. Now, Luke Waring’s Writing and Materiality in Ancient China provides a comprehensive overview of the tombs, of the lives and deaths of the people buried in them, and especially of the numerous kinds of writings buried with them. Probing in its detail, yet always attentive to broader questions of how to understand ancient culture, this is a model of what scholarship should be. – Edward L. Shaughnessy, University of Chicago
This thoughtful, well-informed, and methodologically sophisticated book situates the early textual materials excavated from the tombs at Mawangdui in the lives of those who produced and handled them. Beautifully demonstrating the importance of archaeological context, Waring advances a new understanding of what literacy meant in second-century BC China. – Lothar von Falkenhausen, University of California, Los Angeles
If a single word could characterize Waring’s discussions of writing, reading, visuality, and materiality in the early empires in China, it would be “judicious.” Waring’s focused analyses of two spectacular tombs at Mawangdui (Changsha) are informative, balanced, and elegantly written. Regardless of academic field, novices and seasoned experts alike will find this book to be a classic by the standards of the very Han dynasty it considers: it says neither too little nor too much, and it rewards careful reading and rereading. – Michael Nylan, University of California, Berkeley
In this book, Luke Waring presents a comprehensive and detailed discussion of the uniquely important Mawangdui manuscripts. Waring demonstrates masterfully what is gained when we consider manuscript texts not just in their specific materiality but also in their funerary and broader social context of text production. – Matthias L. Richter, University of Colorado at Boulder
This well-researched and carefully structured monograph undeniably contributes significantly to Mawangdui studies. It also presents an important case study in employing a material approach to manuscript studies, particularly relevant to elite tombs. When integrated with studies of manuscripts recovered from the tombs of low-level officials, frontier sites, and discarded wells and storage pits, this work paints a fuller picture of the textual culture of early China. – Tsang Wing Ma, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University * Journal of Chinese History *

Luke Waring is an assistant professor of Asian studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

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