Cosmic Cycles of Life: New Perspectives on Mawangdui Tombs

Cosmic Cycles of Life offers a groundbreaking look at the Mawangdui Han tombs in China. With 3D visualization and interdisciplinary scholarship, it vividly reconstructs artifacts and reframes Mawangdui not as a static burial site but as a dynamic, cosmological model reflecting ancient Chinese understandings of life, death, and the universe.

Cosmic Cycles of Life offers a groundbreaking look at the Mawangdui Han tombs in China—one of the twentieth century’s most important archaeological finds—through the lens of cutting-edge digital technology and interdisciplinary scholarship. Emerging from a collaboration between Harvard CAMLab and the Hunan Museum, it features sixteen essays that examine Mawangdui through intersecting lenses, such as ancient philosophy, medicine, musicology, and taxonomy. With 3D visualization and annotated line drawings, this volume vividly reconstructs the tomb artifacts with unparalleled precision. Together, these contributions reframe Mawangdui not as a static burial site but as a dynamic, cosmological model reflecting ancient Chinese understandings of life, death, and the universe.