Kingly Splendor: Court Art and Materiality in Han China by Allison R. Miller (review)

permanence, as demonstrated for example by having placed stone inscriptions on mountaintops describing his accomplishments and (according to later legend) sending explorers out to find an elixir of immortality. Thousands of bronze–iron arrowheads, very similar to the bronze–bronze arrowheads, have been found in Chinese sites from the Warring States period and perhaps even earlier (see “Table of sites and remains” pp. 164–295, column 3; Barnard and Satō 1975:119); I believe it is correct to say that very few arrowheads made entirely of bronze, or perhaps none at all, are known in Chinese archaeology outside of this tomb complex. The bronze–iron arrowheads have the bronze tip cast onto the iron tang, just as the tips of the arrowheads in this study were cast onto bronze tangs. It is difficult to see a practical reason for the division of an arrowhead into two bronze parts (but see pp. 94–95), but it could be explained if we suppose that, within an ongoing, very large-scale production of bronze–iron arrowheads, bronze tangs were substituted for iron tangs to meet the demands of an obsessed Emperor for his tomb. Measurement of 126 ferrules, classified in three types, indicates close uniformity of outer dimensions but less uniformity of inner dimensions for each type. This is no doubt because the outer mould for the ferrule would have been used repeatedly, while the core would have been made separately for each casting. Foundrymen prefer a crushable mould-core because castings shrink as they solidify. At the other end of the long weapons, spearheads and dagger-axe heads were too few for statistical study, but the studies here of these artifacts do give more information on this type of artifact than we have otherwise had. One entire halberd was found, with ferrule, wooden shaft, spearhead, and daggeraxe head; its total length is 2.87 m. Appendices (pp. 151–221) give the details of dimensions, inscriptions, and exact find location of each of the hundreds of artifacts treated in the study. The conclusions to this study concerning standardization and production organization are general and rather tentative, but they will no doubt have a place in future wider studies of Qin production based on epigraphy, historical sources, and excavations of workshops. The great contribution of the book is its study and extended demonstration of a complex of methods to approach these questions. Its intensive study of the artifacts themselves will be widely useful in Chinese archaeology.