The three millennia up to the establishment of the first imperial Qin dynasty in 221 BC cemented many of the distinctive elements of Chinese civilisation still in place today. Records of these early achievements, and their diverse and unexpected expressions, often lie not in written history, but in how people marked the end of their lives: their dwellings for the afterlife. Tombs, and the treasures within them, are almost the only artefacts to survive from Ancient China; their scale and sophistication rivals their equivalents in Ancient Egypt. Jessica Rawson, one of the most eminent Western scholars of China, explores twelve grand tombs - each from a specific historical moment and place - showing how they reveal wider political, dynastic and cultural developments, culminating in the lavish ambition of the First Emperor's monument, guarded by his army of terracotta warriors.