 Jeffrey
Riegel
Jeffrey Riegel is Professor of Classical Chinese
Language in the Department of East Asian Languages, University of
California at Berkeley. Professor Riegel teaches courses in Chinese
Thought, Culture, Religion and Language, and he is coeditor of the
Abstracts of Chinese Archaeology. Fluent in Chinese, he has served
as consultant on archaeology and the culture of west China for the
National Geographic Society and was part of the first National Geographic
expedition to the western deserts of the People’s Republic.
Professor Riegel has written books and articles on Chinese archaeology
and philosophy, and is currently preparing a manuscript on the Chinese
historical sources for Burma and Vietnam. He has traveled extensively
in South and Southeast Asia has led tours throughout Southeast Asia
and China for Archaeological Tours for the past ten years. The
Annals of Lü Buwei, a book by Professor Riegel and the
late John Knoblock, was published by Stanford University Press in
2001.
Keynote Address
'The Archaeology of the First Emperor's Tomb'
Now-famous pits containing a “Terracotta Army”—life-size
clay figures that appear to replicate the actual army of the First
Emperor—were discovered in 1974 in an area adjacent to the
First Emperor’s burial mound. Discovery of these pits has
made the First Emperor’s tomb the most important and well-known
archaeological site in China. In the twenty years following their
discovery, the pits have been partially excavated and the terracotta
figures they contained restored and studied. While the original
archaeological work at the site extended beyond these initial three
pits, it is only in the last ten years that systematic surveys and
excavations have taken place within the funerary park and its surrounding
area. Thanks in part to ground-penetrating radar and other “hi-tech”
methods, archaeologists have more recently discovered and unearthed
pits that contain figures and other artifacts quite different from
the “Terracotta Army” as well as gained insight into
the “underground palace” that lies beneath the First
Emperor’s burial mound.
Time and Date:
Wednesday 6 December 2006 from 9:30-10:30.
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