Between the living and the dead: Han dynasty stone carved tomb doors (China)

The performance of mortuary ritual within the tomb was an innovation that occurred during the Eastern Han period. Within the Eastern Han tomb the concept of death was blurred and ambiguous, allowing the living and the dead to undergo paired social initiations resulting in their rebirths as changed social persona. During mortuary rites for a dead father, for example, the deceased underwent initiation in order to join the ranks of the ancestors. At the same time, his living son, in the role of the chief mourner, underwent social initiation to assume his father's place as family patriarch.; Tomb doors were another mortuary innovation of the Eastern Han period. This thesis analyzes tomb doors and thresholds as the organizational keys to tomb structure, decorative program, and the performance of ritual necessary to ensure linkages between and transformations between the worlds of the living and the dead. Archaeological material from the Eastern Han tombs at Yi'nan, Dongjiazhuang and Dahuting is presented as the primary evidence of these innovations. By using a holistic approach to the tombs, the doors are reintegrated into their original architectural setting as the structure of the thesis directs the reader through the tomb from south to north, following the path of the Eastern Han mortuary audience.; The carved stone doors signaled that the tomb was a locus of transformation to an audience of the living and the dead. Death, a system-endangering event of central importance, was defeated by the correct program of mortuary ritual at the site of the doors and doorways within the tombs. Mortuary ritual functioned as a homeostat, providing a mechanism to repair the tear in the fabric of Han society caused by the death of a family member. It accomplished this repair via the transmission of information at the site of the tomb doors. The doors were thus instruments linking the living and the dead and uniting the past, the present and the future for “ten thousand generations.”...