L’istituzionalizzazione della morte: traduzione del manoscritto di epoca Qin *Taiyuan you sizhe

This paper focuses on an annotated translation of the Peking University Qin manuscript *Taiyuan you sizhe 泰原有死者. The text outlines practices to be followed during a funerary ceremony, offering insights into the bureaucratic aspects of such ceremonies during the Qin imperial period (221–206 BCE). The first section briefly introduces the manuscript’s corpus, providing basic information on its contents and discovery. The second section discusses the *Taiyuan you sizhe specifically, outlining its main features. The final and main section presents an annotated translation of the text. The accompanying notes highlight the unique characteristics of the manuscript, illustrating how it functions as a hybrid between an administrative document and literary fiction.