Liao architecture
By: Nancy Shatzman Steinhardt.
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Honolulu
Language: eng
Number of pages: 497
Subjects: Monasteries, Buddhist -- China -- Liao River Region; Building, Wooden -- China -- Liao River Region; Sepulchral monuments -- China -- Liao River Region; Architecture -- China -- Song-Yuan dynasties, 960-1368
Description: Liao Architecture is a study of Buddhist halls, tombs, and pagodas built primarily through the patronage of Northeast Asian lords of Qidan nationality from the mid-tenth through the first decades of the twelfth century. During those years, North China was part of a larger Qidan empire known as the Liao dynasty. The Qidan, in the ninth century, were a seminomadic tribe living along China's northern and northeastern borders.

Less than fifty years later, by the early years of the tenth century, they and other North Asia groups were confederated under the leadership of a Qidan chieftain named Abaoji. In 947 Abaoji's son established a Chinese-style dynasty named Liao. Liao territory stretched from the Gobi Desert, across Mongolia, into China's Northeast provinces (former Manchuria), and into Korea. It also included sixteen prefectures of North China.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 447-486) and index.