A painted pottery figure of a horse and rider from Tang China
Horse and rider, early 8th century
Marked Chang’an

SubjectIn outline · lessons being written

Tang China

The Tang dynasty ruled China in a golden age of poetry and painting, with a capital, Chang’an, of a million people from across Asia. Printing from carved wooden blocks began, and the oldest dated printed book, from 868, survives.

Date
AD 618 to 907VII · After the empires
Place
Chang’an · Luoyang · Dunhuang · GuangzhouAsia
Laid out as
An empireOne power across a long stretch of time: how it grew, held together, and came apart.
Lessons
6 planned, none written yet

The lessons we plan

Titles may change as they are written

  1. IChang’an, a world city
  2. IIWu Zetian, the only woman emperor
  3. IIILi Bai and Du Fu
  4. IVExams for officials
  5. VBlock printing
  6. VIThe An Lushan rebellion

Still to come

The people and objects these lessons will cover

People

  • Taizong
  • Wu Zetian
  • Li Bai
  • Du Fu
  • An Lushan

Objects

  • The Diamond Sutra of 868
  • Sancai glazed horses and camels
  • The Hejiacun hoard

Where it sits

All of human history, era by era

Early human ancestryOur species and the Old Stone AgeFarming and the New Stone AgeFirst cities and the Bronze AgeThe Iron Age and growing statesThe classical worldAfter the empiresMedieval networks and empiresOceans crossedRevolutions and the first factoriesIndustry, empire and world warThe world since 1945

AD 618 to AD 907. Each era is drawn the same width, so the earliest are squeezed: era II alone is over 300,000 years.

Nearby in time and place

This page is an outline. The summary above is a starting point; each lesson, when it is written, will give its sources, its pictures and where historians disagree. Spotted a mistake?