By examining the tomb images and artifacts from a religious perspective, combined with a cognitive approach that strives to uncover the essentials of the Han belief system, the author convincingly shows how Han belief represented the dimension of faith in the national power structure while reconstructing the history of religious Daoism at the time. This is the first historical study on the subject using this new methodology.
Sheng JIANG, Ph.D.(1995), is Chair Professor of History at Shandong University, and Changjiang Distinguished Professor of History awarded by the Ministry of Education, China. Based on his methodology of understanding history through religious studies, he has published monographs and many articles on the ancient history of China, including Textual and Iconographic Evidence of the First Emperor of the Han: Imperial Power and Religious Authority (Journal of Literature, History and Philosophy, No.3: 57-95, 2023) which is selected Top Ten Best Papers in Historical Studies in China 2023 by CASS.
