The golden age of Chinese archaeology
Subtitle: celebrated discoveries from the People's Republic of China
By: edited by Xiaoneng Yang
Contributors: National Gallery of Art (U.S.); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Asian Art Museum of San Francisco
Publisher: National Gallery of Art; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Yale University Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Washington, D.C; Kansas City; New Haven
Language: eng
Number of pages: 584
Copyright date: 1999
Subjects: Exhibitions; Antiquities; Prehistoric Antiquities; Civilization; Prehistoric peoples
Other titles: Chinese archaeology
Description: "In the last fifty years, archaeological discoveries have altered traditional beliefs on the formation and development of the civilization of ancient China. This book and the exhibition that it accompanies cover the period from 5000 BCE to the 10th-century C.E. presenting more than 170 masterpieces in jade, stone, ivory bone, pottery, bronze, lacquer, bamboo, gold, and silver. Together these astonishing objects demonstrate that highly advanced artistic cultures originated in and flowered throughout a vast area. Earlier generations of scholars believed that a much smaller area, the Yellow River Valley, was the principal source and locus of Chinese civilization."--Jacket.
Notes: Exhibition dates: National Gallery of Art, Washington, 19 September 1999-2 January 2000 ; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 13 February-7 May 2000 ; Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 17 June-11 September 2000.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 564-579) and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: A History of Modern Chinese Archaeology / Xiaoneng Yang; title: Catalogue. The Foundation of Chinese Civilization: Late Prehistoric China c. 5000-2000 B.C.E. The Epic of the Three Dynasties: Bronze Age China c. 2000-771 B.C.E. The Flamboyance of Eastern Zhou: Chu and other Cultures c. 770-221 B.C.E. The Grandeur or Empires: Early Imperial China 221 B.C.E.-924 C.E. Afterword / Su Bai. New Understandings of Chinese Prehistory / Zhang Zhongpei. The Bronze Age of China / Zou Heng. Issues Concerning the Formation, Development, and Demise of Chu Culture / Yu Weichao. The Han and Tang Dynasties / Xu Pingfang.