Princeton Art and Archaeology Professor Robert Bagley Will Discuss Astonishing Discovery in Ancient Chinese Tomb Today

Robert Bagley, professor of art and archaeology at Princeton University, will speak on “An Underground Palace in Ancient China: The Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng” 4 p.m. today in Williams Center for the Arts room 108.

Free and open to the public, the talk is the annual Carol P. Dorian ’79 Memorial Lecture in Art History. A brief reception will follow.

The tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, who died in 433 BC, is the richest and most astonishing discovery ever made in Chinese Bronze Age archaeology. The lecture will describe the burial and examine its contents, focusing particularly on the musical instruments, which show a technological and musical sophistication unsuspected before the discovery of this tomb and unparalleled anywhere else in the ancient world.

Bagley is author of Shang Ritual Bronzes in the Arthur M. Sackler Collection, a contributor to The Great Bronze Age of China and The Cambridge History of Ancient China, and the coeditor of Art of the Houma Foundry (Princeton).

A specialist in pre-Han art and archaeology, Bagley’s current research focuses on the archaeology of music. His recent publications include the catalogue for an exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum that traveled to Fort Worth, New York, and Toronto; “Percussion,” chapter 2 in Music in the Age of Confucius (Sackler Gallery of Art, 2000); and serving as editor of Ancient Sichuan (Seattle Art Museum and Princeton University Press, 2001).

He has contributed numerous entries on Chinese archaeology and metallurgy in The Dictionary of Art (1996), chapters to a history of Chinese art published in Italian (Pirazzoli, La Cina, 1995); and many articles on Chinese archaeology and metal technology.

Bagley earned both his B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he taught fine arts before coming to Princeton in 1985.

Some previous Dorian lectures:

• Dora C.Y. Ching, Chinese art and archeology scholar: “Variations on Lines and Dots: Writing and Painting in Chinese Art”
• Katherine E. Martin, director of Scholten Japanese Art, New York: overview of Japanese woodblock prints
• Marcia B. Hall, professor of art history at Temple University: “Michelangelo’s Painting for the Sistine Altar Wall”