Writing and Materiality in Ancient China: The Textual Culture of the Mawangdui Tombs

Fifty years after their excavation, the three Han dynasty tombs at Mawangdui (early-to-mid second century BCE) continue to generate exciting new scholarship. As a result of fresh discoveries, technological innovations, and new evidence supplied from other sites, our understanding of these tombs and the miraculous artifacts that were retrieved from them has been transformed. Drawing on my recently published book, I will introduce some of these sources and developments, explore certain unresolved questions, and suggest new directions for further research. In particular, I will discuss the different forms of writing that were found at Mawangdui: manuscripts made of silk, wood, and bamboo, as well as inscriptions on various surfaces (wood, silk, lacquerware). Approaching these sources as things—artifacts that were produced, stored, performed, visualized, and eventually buried—I show how writing functioned as part of the elite material culture of the Han dynasty.