This course explores the art production of early China from earliest origins to the beginning of the seventh century. It investigates the meaning of art objects created during this time that traditional and modern historians have characterized as a dynamic series of competing polities and shifting territories. The course examines the ways people in power made claims to authority and how was this expressed in their art through a consideration of archaeological finds and contemporaneous texts. Special emphasis is given to the vibrant material culture of tombs as a means to understand varying locations of authority as communicated through relationships amongst society, individuals, and the cosmos.