Les Man du Fleuve Bleu : La fabrique d’un peuple dans la Chine impériale

Author: 

Alexis Lycas

Publication year: 

12 mai 2023

Publisher: 

Anacharsis

Abstract:
De la dynastie des Han (206 av. J.-C.) à la fin des Tang (907 apr. J.-C.), il a existé en Chine, sur le cours moyen du fleuve Bleu, une population insoumise qui n’a laissé nulle trace et dont on ignore à peu près tout. Ces mystérieux Man ont pourtant défié l’empire, l’ont parfois soutenu, se sont trouvés tantôt hors et dans les limites de la puissance chinoise.

Alexis Lycas se livre ici à une enquête fascinante sur les écrits des chroniqueurs, poètes, administrateurs ou militaires qui ont tenté un millénaire durant d’appréhender et définir ces populations rétives. À travers les circonvolutions de ces documents de diverses natures se déploie une « rhétorique de l’altérité » rapportant l’histoire d’une colonisation étirée sur plusieurs siècles, en même temps que se laisse deviner comment le pouvoir central a fabriqué un peuple pour mieux le dominer.

Rome, China, and the Barbarians Ethnographic Traditions and the Transformation of Empires

Author:
Randolph Ford

Publisher:
Cambridge University Press

Publication date:
June 2020

Abstract:
This book addresses a largely untouched historical problem: the fourth to fifth centuries AD witnessed remarkably similar patterns of foreign invasion, conquest, and political fragmentation in Rome and China. Yet while the western Roman empire was never re-established, China was reunified at the end of the sixth century. Taking a comparative approach to the study of the broader historiographical and ethnographic traditions in the classical Greco-Roman and Chinese worlds, the book turns to the late antique/early medieval period, when the western Roman Empire 'fell' and China was re-constituted as a united empire after centuries of foreign conquest and political division. Analyzing the discourse of ethnic identity in the original texts, with translations by Dr Ford, it explores the extent to which notions of Self and Other, of 'barbarian' and 'civilized', help us understand both the transformation of the Roman world as well as the restoration of a unified imperial China.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
1. Ethnography in the Classical Age

2. The Barbarian and Barbarian Antitheses

3. Ethnography in a Post-Classical Age: The Ethnographic Tradition in the Wars of Procopius and in the Jin shu 晉書

4. New Emperors and Ethnographic Clothes: The Representation of Barbarian Rulers
The Confluence of Ethnographic Discourse and Political Legitimacy: Rhetorical Arguments on the Legitimacy of Barbarian Kingdoms

Conclusion

The Way of the Barbarians: Redrawing Ethnic Boundaries in Tang and Song China

Author:
Shao-yun Yang

Publisher: 
University of Washington Press

Publication date:
October 22, 2019

Abstract:
Shao-yun Yang challenges assumptions that the cultural and socioeconomic watershed of the Tang-Song transition (800–1127 CE) was marked by a xenophobic or nationalist hardening of ethnocultural boundaries in response to growing foreign threats. In that period, reinterpretations of Chineseness and its supposed antithesis, “barbarism," were not straightforward products of political change but had their own developmental logic based in two interrelated intellectual shifts among the literati elite: the emergence of Confucian ideological and intellectual orthodoxy and the rise of neo-Confucian (daoxue) philosophy. New discourses emphasized the fluidity of the Chinese-barbarian dichotomy, subverting the centrality of cultural or ritual practices to Chinese identity and redefining the essence of Chinese civilization and its purported superiority. The key issues at stake concerned the acceptability of intellectual pluralism in a Chinese society and the importance of Confucian moral values to the integrity and continuity of the Chinese state. Through close reading of the contexts and changing geopolitical realities in which new interpretations of identity emerged, this intellectual history engages with ongoing debates over relevance of the concepts of culture, nation, and ethnicity to premodern China.

Table of Contents:
Han Yu, the Annals, and the origins of ethnicized orthodoxy
Han Yu, Liu Zongyuan, and the debate over Buddhism and barbarism
Ethnocentric moralism in two Late Tang essays
Ethnicized orthodoxy in the Northern Song guwen revival
Ideas of barbarization in eleventh-century Annals exegesis
Chineseness and barbarism in early Daoxue philosophy

[Dissertation] Représenter l’espace dans les textes du haut Moyen Âge chinois Géographie politique, humaine et culturelle de la région du Jingzhou [Representating Space in Early Medieval Chinese Texts. A Political, Human and Cultural Geography of Jingzhou]

Author:
Lycas, Alexis

Year:
2015

School:
École Pratique des Hautes Études

Advisor:
François MARTIN

Abstract:

The thesis examines the emergence of geographical knowledge in Early and Early Medieval China, by focusing on the political, human and cultural aspects of the representation of space that is conveyed in texts written from the Han to the Tang dynasty. Focusing on Ancient “Central” China (Jingzhou 荊州, i.e. modern Hubei and Hunan), we analyze geographical treatises, ethnographical notes that describe non Chinese peoples (the Man 蠻) and an Early geographical monograph written in the 6th Century by Li Daoyuan 酈道元 (d. 527), the Shuijing zhu 水經注 (Water Classic Commentary). This approach sheds light on the evolution of technical knowledge, the regionalisation of China in Early Medieval times, on the imperial integration of non Chinese peoples, and on the constitution of a geography of memory.

Table of Contents:

Introduction. L’espace et sa représentation en Chine

Partie I. Chorographie d’un milieu : géographie historique et politique du Jingzhou

Chapitre premier. Un espace-temps : le Jingzhou de l’Antiquité aux Tang
Chapitre II. Géographie et Empire : le Jingzhou dans les écrits antiques et impériaux

Partie II. Géographie humaine des Man 蠻 du Jingzhou

Chapitre III. Représentation des populations man dans les sources écrites
Chapitre IV. Intégration dans l’empire des Man du Jingzhou

Partie III. Une géographie culturelle du Jingzhou d’après le Shuijing zhu de Li Daoyuan

Chapitre V. La région du Jingzhou dans le Shuijing zhu
Chapitre VI. L’espace du Jingzhou comme lieu de mémoire

Conclusion

[Dissertation] Ethnographic Identities and the Politics of Legitimacy in Late Roman and Early Medieval Chinese Historiography

Author:
Ford, Randolph

Publication Year:
2016

School: 
New York University 

Advisors:
Levene, David S.; Tseng, Lillian

Abstract: 

The dissertation is a comparative study in the ethnographic traditions of Greco-Roman and Chinese civilizations from their beginnings up through the early medieval period. In concentrating on the ways in which the Wars of Procopius of Caesarea and the Jinshu [晉書] of the Tang Bureau of Historiography engaged with their classical ethnographic precedents, the dissertation examines the tension inherent in efforts to emulate and restore the ideals of the past while acknowledging and coming to terms with the realities of the present, a tension that characterized the cultural and political imaginations of literary elites of the Roman and Chinese Empires. 

This comparative approach throws into stark relief what appears as an all the more significant absence of ethnic identity as a criterion in the discourse of political legitimacy in the Wars of Procopius. It is argued here that this aspect of late antique political thought has its roots in the earlier Greco-Roman historiographical and political traditions, and that it allowed for the conceptual possibility of legitimate political centers of power within the former imperium that were not required to identify themselves ethnically with the Roman state. The officials of the Tang Bureau of Historiography, on the other hand, despite the fact that they worked under a ruling dynasty that itself had strong ties to the steppe and inner-Asian traditions, nevertheless re-drew a stark line of distinction between a Chinese center and a barbarian periphery. The dissertation thus provides an ideological explanation for the marked contrast in strategies of political identification in the late-Roman and early Tang periods.

The People between the Rivers: The Rise and Fall of a Bronze Drum Culture, 200-750 CE

Author:
Catherine Churchman

Publisher:
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Publication Date:
20160923

Abstract:

This fundamental study provides the first comprehensive history in any language of the lands between the Red and Pearl Rivers in southern China and the people who resided there over a span of a thousand years. Bringing to life the mysterious early people known as Li 俚 and Lao 僚 who inhabited the area, Catherine Churchman explores their custom of casting large bronze kettledrums. As the symbols of political authority and legitimacy for the Li and Lao rulers, the abundance of drums found in the archaeological record is an indication not only of the great number of such rulers, but also of their great wealth and power, which increased significantly from the third century CE even as the Chinese Empires tightened their control over surrounding districts. 

Drawing on a combination of Classical Chinese sources and scholarship in archaeology, anthropology, and historical linguistics, the author explains the political and economic factors behind the rise to power and subsequent disappearance of the indigenous leadership and its drum culture. She fills significant gaps in our understanding of the early interactions between China and northern Southeast Asia, challenging many widely held assumptions about the history of Chinese settlement and ethnic relations in the region, including those concerning the relationship between the Chinese Empires and the lands that would form the heart of a future Vietnamese state. A crucial work for understanding historical developments in the highland regions south of the Yangzi valley, it examines the first steps in the Sinic penetration of this highland world, one that has continued to the present. Bringing unprecedented attention to the historical identity of a previously overlooked region and a people, this book creates a new category in East Asian history.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Chapter One: Digging up Drums

Chapter Two: The Two Rivers and the Lands Between—a Geographical Outline

Chapter Three: Why are the Li and Lao?—The shifting meanings of Ethnonyms

Chapter Four: ‘Masters of their Small Domains’—Local and Imported Traditions of Leadership

Chapter Five: ‘To Overawe the Li and Lao’—Attempts at Military Conquest

Chapter Six: Gold, Silver, Snakes and Slaves: Highland-Lowland Trade Relations

Chapter Seven: ‘Last of the Bronze Drum Chiefs’—The Rise and Fall of the Great Families

Conclusion

Imperial China and Its Southern Neighbours

Editors:
Victor H Mair, Liam Kelley

Publication Year:
2015

Publisher:
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies

Table of Contents:

Imperial China and Its Southern Neighbours, by Victor H Mair, Liam Kelley

1. Introduction: Imperial China Looking South, by Wang Gungwu

2. Layers of Meaning: Hairstyle and Yue Identity in Ancient Chinese Texts, by Erica F. Brindley

3. Sinicization and Barbarization: Ancient State Formation at the Southern Edge of Sinitic Civilization, by Nam C. Kim

4. Clothes Make the Man: Body Culture and Ethnic Boundaries on the Lingnan Frontier in the Southern Song, by Sean Marsh

5. What Makes a Chinese God? Or, What Makes a God Chinese?, by Hugh R. Clark

6. Dragon Boats and Serpent Prows: Naval Warfare and the Political Culture of Chinas Southern Borderlands, by Andrew Chittick

7. Inventing Traditions in Fifteenth-Century Vietnam, by Liam Kelley

8. Epidemics, Trade, and Local Worship in Vietnam, Leizhou Peninsula, and Hainan Island, by Li Tana

9. Southeast Asian Primary Products and Their Impact on Chinese Material Culture in the Tenth to Seventeenth Centuries, by Derek Heng

10. New Evidence on the History of Sino-Arabic Relations: A Study of Yang Liangyao's Embassy to the Abbasid Caliphate, by Rong Xinjiang

11. The Peacock's Gallbladder: An Example of Tibetan Influence in Late Imperial China,  by Rebecca Shuang Fu, Xiang Wan

12. Transformation of the Yunnanese Community along the Sino-Burma Border During the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, by Yi Li

13. How the North Tried to Pacify the South Through Ritual Practices: On the Origins of the Guan Suo Opera in the Nineteenth Century, by Sylvie Beaud

14. Realms within Realms of Radiance, Or, Can Heaven Have Two Sons? Imperial China as Primus Inter Pares among Sino-Pacific Mandala Polities, by Andrew J. Abalahin

Ancient China and the Yue：Perceptions and Identities on the Southern Frontier, c.400 BCE–50 CE

Author: 
Erica Brindley

Publication Year:
2015

Publisher:
Cambridge Press

Abstract:
In this innovative study, Erica Brindley examines how, during the period 400 BCE–50 CE, an embryonic Chinese empire interacted with peoples referred to as the Yue/Viet along its southern frontier. Brindley provides an overview of current theories in archaeology and linguistics concerning the peoples of the ancient southern frontier of China, the closest relations on the mainland to certain later Southeast Asian and Polynesian peoples. Through analysis of warring states and early Han textual sources, she shows how representations of Chinese and Yue identity invariably fed upon, and often grew out of, a mutually defining process of centering the self while de-centering the other. Examining rebellions, pivotal ruling figures from various Yue states, and key moments of Yue agency, Brindley demonstrates the complexities involved in identity formation and cultural hybridization in the ancient world and the ancestry of cultures associated with southern China and Vietnam to the present day.

Table of Contents:

Part I. Orientations: Definitions and Disciplinary Discussions: Introduction: concepts and frameworks
1. Who were the Yue?
2. Linguistic research on the Yue/Viet
3. The archaeological record

Part II. Timelines, Maps, and Political Histories of the Yue State and Han-Period Yue Kingdoms, 500 BCE–110 BCE:
4. Political histories of the Yue state and Han-period Yue kingdoms, 500 BCE–110 BCE

Part III. Performing Hua-Xia, Inscribing Yue: Rhetoric, Rites, and Tags:
5. The rhetoric of cultural superiority and conceptualizations of ethnicity
6. Tropes of the savage: physical markers of Yue identity
7. Savage landscapes and magical objects

Part IV. Performing Yue: Political Drama, Intrigue, and Armed Resistance:
8. Yue identity as political masquerade and ritual modeling
9. Yue identity as armed resistance to the Han imperium

Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

東アジア古代における諸民族と国家

Author:
川本芳昭

Publisher:
汲古書屋

Publication Year:
2015

Table of Contents:
序　言

第一篇　漢唐間における北中国の動向―民族問題を中心として見た―
第一章　北朝国家論
　孝文帝による改革以前の北魏／「部」体制国家の形骸化と中国王朝への転身／同化と中華の理解をめぐって

第二章　北魏文成帝南巡碑について
   碑陰原文「復元」／研究史の整理／南巡碑陰についての若干の私見〔「内侍」の実態について・『魏書』の記載をめぐって〕

第三章　鮮卑の文字について―漢唐間における中華意識の叢生と関連して―
　『隋書』経籍志に見える「国語」／鮮卑の文字について／国語を用いた書物存在の意味するもの

第四章　三国期段階における烏丸・鮮卑について―交流と変容との観点から見た―
   前漢・後漢期の状況―属民化と傭兵化―／後漢末・魏晋期の状況―自立化と融合の始まり―〔固有の風俗の存続・自立化と融合の始まり（自立化・混淆化）〕

第五章　北魏内朝再論―比較史の観点から見た―
　北魏内朝についての近年の研究に対する若干の私見／内朝に関わる比較史の試論―北魏と倭国、および漢―

第二篇　漢唐間における東アジアの動向と古代日本の国家形成
第一章　漢唐間における「新」中華意識の形成―古代日本・朝鮮と中国との関連をめ
   ぐって―古代日本における中華意識の形成／古代朝鮮諸国の場合〔高句麗の場合・百済の場合・新羅の場合〕／古代日本・朝鮮における中華意識形成の先駆け／魏晋南朝の世界秩序と北朝隋唐の世界秩序

第二章　隋書倭国伝と日本書紀推古紀の記述をめぐって―遣隋使覚書―
　裴世清のもたらした国書をめぐる記述について／『日本書紀』の遣隋使関係史料の信憑性について／小野妹子の失書

第三章　倭国における対外交渉の変遷について―中華意識の形成と大宰府の成立との関連から見た―魏志倭人伝以前の外交〔奴国の外交／倭国の成立／伊都国と邪馬台国〕／倭の五王以降の日本と外交〔倭の五王の半島進出と沖ノ島・那津官家の設置〕／大宰府の成立をめぐって〔筑紫大宰と大宰府・大宰府と倭国の中華意識〕

第四章　倭の五王の自称と東アジアの国際情勢
　倭の五王時代における官号自称と除正／倭王の自称と治天下大王

第三篇　漢唐間における西南中国の動向
第一章　漢唐間における雲南と日本との関係について―比較史の観点から見た―
　滇王之印と漢委奴国王印／その後の西南中国の歴史展開―隋唐帝国出現以前―／隋唐の拡大と北中国・西南中国の動向

第二章　民族問題を中心として見た魏晋段階における四川地域の状況について
　四川西南部の状況／四川東部の状況／四川北部の状況

第三章　民族問題を中心として見た五胡十六国南北朝期段階における四川地域の状況について南朝期の四川〔劉宋時代の四川・南斉時代の四川・梁時代の四川〕／北朝期の四川―北魏・西魏時代の四川―

第四章　民族問題を中心として見た北朝後期段階における四川地域の状況について
　北周時代の四川／隋時代の四川／唐時代以降の推移

第四篇　漢唐間の民族をめぐる諸問題と東アジア
第一章　民族問題を中心として見た魏晋南北朝隋唐時代史研究の動向
　朴漢濟氏の所説をめぐって／当該時代における中国中南部地域の民族問題

第二章　遼金における正統観をめぐって―北魏の場合との比較―
   遼の正統意識について／金の正統意識について／北魏の場合との比較

第三章　崔致遠と阿倍仲麻呂―古代朝鮮・日本における「中国化」との関連から見た―唐朝官僚としての崔致遠の自他意識／阿倍仲麻呂と科挙登第／阿倍仲麻呂にとっての中国と日本／阿倍仲麻呂・崔致遠に対する後世の評価と国制の変遷

第四章　中国前近代における所謂中華帝国の構造についての覚書―北魏と元・遼、および漢との比較―遼との比較／漢との比較

あとがき―所謂「少数民族」の理解をめぐって―　　　　　　
索　引

Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change: The Mongols and Their Eurasian Predecessors

Editors:
Reuven Amitai & Michal Biran

Publication Year:
2014

Publisher:
University Of Hawaii Press

Abstract:

Since the first millennium BCE, nomads of the Eurasian steppe have played a key role in world history and the development of adjacent sedentary regions, especially China, India, the Middle East, and Eastern and Central Europe. Although their more settled neighbors often saw them as an ongoing threat and imminent danger—“barbarians,” in fact—their impact on sedentary cultures was far more complex than the raiding, pillaging, and devastation with which they have long been associated in the popular imagination. The nomads were also facilitators and catalysts of social, demographic, economic, and cultural change, and nomadic culture had a significant influence on that of sedentary Eurasian civilizations, especially in cases when the nomads conquered and ruled over them. Not simply passive conveyors of ideas, beliefs, technologies, and physical artifacts, nomads were frequently active contributors to the process of cultural exchange and change. Their active choices and initiatives helped set the cultural and intellectual agenda of the lands they ruled and beyond.

This volume brings together a distinguished group of scholars from different disciplines and cultural specializations to explore how nomads played the role of “agents of cultural change.” The beginning chapters examine this phenomenon in both east and west Asia in ancient and early medieval times, while the bulk of the book is devoted to the far flung Mongol empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This comparative approach, encompassing both a lengthy time span and a vast region, enables a clearer understanding of the key role that Eurasian pastoral nomads played in the history of the Old World. It conveys a sense of the complex and engaging cultural dynamic that existed between nomads and their agricultural and urban neighbors, and highlights the non-military impact of nomadic culture on Eurasian history.

Nomads As Agents of Cultural Change illuminates and complicates nomadic roles as active promoters of cultural exchange within a vast and varied region. It makes available important original scholarship on the new turn in the study of the Mongol empire and on relations between the nomadic and sedentary worlds.

Table of Contents:

Introduction: nomadic culture / Michal Biran --

Steppe land interactions and their effects on Chinese cultures during the second and early first millennia BCE / Gideon Shelach-Lavi --

The Scythians and their neighbors / Anatoly Khazanov --

From steppe roads to silk roads: inner Asian nomads and early interregional exchange / William Honeychurch --

The use of sociopolitical terminology for nomads: an excursion into the term buluo in Tang China / Isenbike Togan --

Population movements in the Mongolian era / Thomas T. Allsen --

The Mongols and nomadic identity: the case of the Kitans in China / Michal Biran --

Persian notables and the families which underpinned the Ilkhanate / George Lane --

The Mongol empire and its impact on the arts of China / Morris Rossabi --

The impact of the Mongols on the history of Syria: politics, society, and culture / Reuven Amitai --

The Tatar factor in the formation of Muscovy's political culture / Istvan Vasary --

Mongol historiography since 1985: the rise of cultural history / David Morgan.

Political Strategies of Identity Building in Non-Han Empires in China

Editors:
Francesca Fiaschetti and Julia Schneider

Publisher:
Harrassowitz Verlag 

Publication Date:
August 1, 2014

Abstract:
Long periods in Chinese history were determined by non-Han conquest rule. With this volume, which emerged from a workshop held in Munich in 2012, its editors and contributors aim at removing the blinders imposed by modern histories and their national boundaries, both territorial and intellectual, and at challenging the way in which we have thought and written about Chinese history so far.All chapters take a close look at the ways non-Han rulers, be they Jurchen, Mongols, or Manchus, used their specific cultural-ethnic backgrounds to strengthen their power in East Asia. Moreover, through a syncretic approach to the rhetoric and ideologies of other groups under their rule, the emperors and ruling elites developed invigorating methods to deal with the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural compositions of their often huge empires, whose influence is to be seen even in nowadays China. Only if we take their Inner and Northern Asian backgrounds into account will we be able to fully understand the historical and cultural impact of these dynasties on East Asian history. By doing so, the analysis of these periods must necessarily move beyond the focus of a China-centered narrative and take into account that the non-Han and Han identities of conquerors and conquered populations coming into contact became part of each other's histories. A closer look at these mutual influences will also enhance our understanding of these crucial historical periods beyond the limits of a perspective solely oriented towards ethnic and political boundaries.

Table of Contents:
Francesca Fiaschetti and Julia Schneider
Introduction  

East Asian Powers and Identities: 6th–12th Centuries

Shao-yun Yang
Fan and Han: The Origins and Uses of a Conceptual Dichotomy in Mid-Imperial China, ca. 500–1200

Hang Lin
Conquer and Govern: The Rise of the Jurchen
and Their Jin Dynasty (1115–1234) 

Julia Schneider
Sinicization and Nativistic Movement? The Middle Jurchen
Jin Period (1123–1189)

Multiethnic China and the Mongols

Veronika Veit
Characteristic Elements in the Process of Identity Building in Central Asia:
The Example of the Mongols (A Brief Excursion into History)

Francesca Fiaschetti
The Borders of Rebellion: The Yuan Dynasty and the Rhetoric of Empire

Oded Abt
Muslim Memories of Yuan-Ming Transition in Southeast China

The Manchu Qing Dynasty and its Neighbours

Evelyn S. Rawski
War Letters: Hongtaiji and Injo during the Second Invasion of Korea

Yadi Wu
Reactive Thrust to Sinicization by Manchu Officials of the Early Qing Dynasty-Ortai’s Dingji jiao

Zinan Yan, On the Divergent Implications of Archery: Discussing the Poetry of Nobles and Officials on Manchu and Han-Chinese Cultures 

Fan Zhang
Grass-root Official in the Ideological Battlefield: Reevaluation of the Study
of the amban in Tibet 

List of Contributors 


Index

[Dissertation] Mortuary Art in the Northern Zhou China (557–581 CE): Visualization of Class, Role, and Cultural Identity

Author:
Wu, Jui-Man

School:
University of Pittsburgh. 

Publication Year:
2010.

Primary Advisor: 
Katheryn M. Linduff.

Abstract:

The period of Six Dynasties (221-581CE) has traditionally been thought of as a time when "the Five Barbarians brought disorder to China." During this period, present-day Northern China was ruled by non-Han leaders, including the Xianbei, a pastoral people from China's northern frontier who founded the Northern Zhou Dynasty. In addition, Chinese historical texts from the Six Dynasties refer to "merchant barbarians" generally assumed to be Sogdians, who lived in oasis states in Central Asia in present-day Uzbekistan and came to China across the Silk Road. Most scholarship has assumed that the period of Northern Zhou ruled by non-Chinese leaders was "sinicized," and the adoption of Chinese features in burial and artifacts in foreigners' tombs is evidence of that acculturation process. 

This dissertation, however, uses newly excavated materials from tombs dated to the Northern Zhou period, including the tombs of Xianbei leaders, Xianbei and Chinese generals, and Sogdian merchants, and proposes that visual arts and mortuary ritual played a role in creating and/or maintaining multiple sociopolitical and cultural identities for these residents of Northern Zhou. The theorization of power, agency, and cultural identity in recent publications has helped me analyze the processes involved in the construction of individual identity, group boundaries, and the interrelationships between socio-cultural groups. Theories of agency have helped me focus on choices made by different social and occupational groups. 

This dissertation has explored how the patterns of use of mortuary objects documented multiple identities for these three classes listed above with specific ethnic backgrounds: the sovereigns who were Xianbei; the military class of Xianbei and Han-Chinese; and the merchant class of Sogdians. I have discussed how aspects of political, military, and merchant life in the Northern Zhou period created a setting that contributed to multiple roles and identities in each group. My study has demonstrated the construction of multiple identities among elites and how they consistently distinguished themselves from other members of society. This dissertation will be the first contextual analysis focused on the visualization of class, social roles and cultural affiliation by examining mortuary art in the Northern Zhou.