Washington University Press Search Results Page

Life and Afterlife in Ancient China

By Jessica Rawson

The three millennia up to the establishment of the first imperial Qin dynasty in 221 BC cemented many of the distinctive elements of Chinese civilization still in place today: an extraordinarily challenging geography and environment;...

Ancient Egypt and Early China

State, Society, and Culture

By Anthony J. Barbieri-Low

Although they existed more than a millennium apart, the great civilizations of New Kingdom Egypt (ca. 1548–1086 BCE) and Han dynasty China (206 BCE–220 CE) shared intriguing similarities. Both were centered around major, flood-prone rivers—the...

Defining Dvāravatī

By Anna Bennett, Hunter Watson

The earliest phase of Thai history is an exciting but little understood period that bridged the gap between protohistory and the fully developed historical period. Ten international scholars examine the inception of the Dvāravatī period...

Protecting Asia’s Heritage

Yesterday and Tomorrow

By The Siam Society Under Royal Patronage

Asian activists, organizers, critics, teachers, artists, and entrepreneurs have become passionately involved in protecting Asia’s heritage. In this book, twelve principal authors from eleven of the region’s countries present their experience of what has been...

Ancient Ink

The Archaeology of Tattooing

By Lars Krutak, Aaron Deter-Wolf

The human desire to adorn the body is universal and timeless. While specific forms of body decoration and the motivations for them vary by region, culture, and era, all human societies have engaged in practices...

Early Rock Art of the American West

The Geometric Enigma

By Ekkehart Malotki
Ellen Dissanayake

A CHOICE OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC TITLE The earliest rock art - in the Americas as elsewhere - is geometric or abstract. Until Early Rock Art in the American West, however, no book-length study has been devoted...

Before Yellowstone

Native American Archaeology in the National Park

By Douglas H. MacDonald

Since 1872, visitors have flocked to Yellowstone National Park to gaze in awe at its dramatic geysers, stunning mountains, and impressive wildlife. Yet more than a century of archaeological research shows that the wild landscape...

Ozette

Excavating a Makah Whaling Village

By Ruth Kirk
Foreword by Meredith Parker

Makah families left the coastal village of Ozette in the 1920s to comply with the federal government’s requirement that they send their children to school, and by doing so they ended nearly two thousand years...

Excavating the Afterlife

The Archaeology of Early Chinese Religion

By Guolong Lai

In Excavating the Afterlife, Guolong Lai explores the dialectical relationship between sociopolitical change and mortuary religion from an archaeological perspective. By examining burial structure, grave goods, and religious documents unearthed from groups of well-preserved tombs...

Building a Sacred Mountain

The Buddhist Architecture of China's Mount Wutai

By Wei-Cheng Lin

By the tenth century CE, Mount Wutai had become a major pilgrimage site within the emerging culture of a distinctively Chinese Buddhism. Famous as the abode of the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī (known for his habit of...

Is It a House?

Archaeological Excavations at English Camp, San Juan Island, Washington

By Amanda K. Taylor, Julie K. Stein

Prehistoric houses on the Northwest Coast were built from wood, often within piles of discarded shells, leaving little archaeological evidence from which to confirm their presence. Is It a House? uses multiple lines of evidence...

Gandharan Avadanas

British Library Kharosthi Fragments 1-3 and 21 and Supplementary Fragments A-C

By Timothy Lenz

The Gandharan Buddhist Texts series presents editions, translations, and studies of the British Library’s unique collection of Buddhist manuscripts in the Gandhari language, dating from the first century AD. Gandharan Avadanas features editions and studies...

Four Gandhari Samyuktagama Sutras

Senior Kharosthi Fragment 5

By Andrew Stuart Glass
With Mark Allon

Four Gandhari Samyuktagama Sutras continues the study of Gandharan Buddhist texts and is the first investigation of a scroll from the Senior Collection of Kharosthi manuscripts. The Senior Collection, which is named after its owner,...

Archaeology in Washington

By Ruth Kirk and Richard D. Daugherty

Archaeology--along with Native American traditions and memories--holds a key to understanding early chapters of the human story in Washington. This all-new book draws together and brings up to date much of what has been learned...

Three Gandhari Ekottarikagama-Type Sutras

British Library Kharosthi Fragments 12 and 14

By Mark Allon
With Andrew Stuart Glass

Three Gandhari Ekottarikagama-Type Sutras continues the Gandharan Buddhist Texts studies of the first-century A.D. birch bark scrolls in the British Library's Kharosthi manuscript collection. It describes the text found on two fragments which constitute the...

A Gandhari Version of the Rhinoceros Sutra

British Library Kharosthi Fragment 5B

By Richard Salomon
With Andrew Glass

Prominent in several Buddhist traditions, the Rhinoceros Sutra espouses the virtues of solitude, explaining the dangers of attachments, prescribing a solitary spiritual life, and discussing the nature of friends and friendship. British Library Fragment 5B...

Recent Archaeological Discoveries and Biblical Research

By William G. Dever

Archaeology and Bible--two simple terms, often used together, understood by everybody. But are they understood properly? If so, why are both subject to such controversy? And what can archaeology contribute to our understanding of the...