Ancient Chin Ancient Civilization - 2406 Words

The chosen civilisation is Ancient China, with the focus on the Qin Dynasty (246 BCE - 210 BCE), the Shang Dynasty (1600 BCE - 1046 BCE), the Han Dynasty (206 BCE - 220 CE) and the Song Dynasty (960BCE - 1279 CE) Around these periods that were iconic and well-known. Burial items, ranging from Qin Shihuangdi’s Terracotta Army to Lady Dai, that the best preserved human body of our time denies from this ancient civilisation. I hypothesise that Ancient Chinese burial / funerary practices are complex and hold significant cultural, spiritual and societal meaning. Objects that are being studied include: Mingqi, as well as Joss paper, Zun, The Terracotta Army, The Lacquer Coffin of Western Han and Lady Dai herself will form the focus of this†¦show more content†¦Of all of the religions and traditions, Buddhism mentions ideas of personal cultivation to achieve an ideal life, and to be rewarded with afterlife salvation, like immortality, enlightenment or birth in a heavenly rea lm. Although salvation had a very small role to play in most pop-religions, the emphasis on passing into an ancestral realm and interacting with their ancestors in the afterlife formed the focus of these â€Å"pop-religions†. Here we have a â€Å"Bright Utensil†, â€Å"Spirit Objects†, â€Å"Vessels for Ghosts† or Mingqi.(Encyclopedia Britannica, 2014) (put å† ¥Ã¥â„¢ ¨ or 明å™ ¨ up or both) (you see, i’ve been learning Japanese for just over 3 years now, and it still doesn t help with reading these things, so I’ve got my good friend Google Translate here to help me pronounce these words.) These burial goods were often utensils, musical instruments, weapons, armour and intimate objects such as the deceased’s cap or bamboo mat. These items existed to provide the dead with things they might need in the next life, such as necessities and comforts. Hun (â€Å"é ­â€šÃ¢â‚¬  â€Å"Cloud Soul†) and Po (â€Å"é ­â€žÃ¢â‚¬  â€Å"White Soul†), â€Å"Every living human has both a hun spiritual, ethereal, yang soul which leaves the body after death, and also a po corporeal, substantive, yin soul which remains with the corpse of the deceased.† (Yà ¼, 363) Hun and Po are the sides to the yin-yang symbol. There was some debate about the amount of souls in a person. For example, Daoism promotes the â€Å"ä ¸â€°Ã© ­â€šÃ¤ ¸Æ'é ­â€žÃ¢â‚¬  structure, 3 hun and 7 po. The