Key research themes
1. How do regional cultural identities influence the stylistic and symbolic characteristics of Chinese tomb statuary?
This theme investigates how distinct regional cultures within ancient China shaped the production, style, and symbolic meanings of tomb statuary, particularly focusing on hybrid zoomorphic sculptures. Understanding this is essential for comprehending the diversity of mortuary art and its role in expressing local identity, beliefs, and political power during the Eastern Zhou through Warring States periods.
2. What roles do steles and inscribed stone monuments play in the public transmission of authority and historical memory in Chinese imperial contexts?
This theme explores the multifaceted functions of stone steles beyond textual inscription—as material objects conveying authority, embodying public communication, and shaping historical narratives. These monuments act as enduring media that intersect textual, visual, and material cultures, providing rich evidence for epigraphic and socio-political studies of imperial China.
3. How do funerary miniatures and tomb sculptures embody social, religious, and cosmological conceptions of the afterlife in early and imperial China?
Research under this theme focuses on the typologies, symbolic functions, and evolving meanings of tomb figurines and sculptures across periods, highlighting their role in constructing subterranean microcosms that reflect social status, religious beliefs, and afterlife ideologies. Such studies elucidate how material culture mediates between the living and the dead, offering insights into personal and collective identity and cosmology.























