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This talk focuses on variations in Qin emperors’ edicts on weights and measures, which were installed and reinstalled on these objects to commemorate unification, mandate standardization, eulogize the dynastic progenitor, and affirm his successor’s authority. It argues that subtle differences among surviving examples expose a tension between the imperial center’s ideal of uniformity and local implementation. Although models of standardization originated at the center, their reproduction depended on officials and artisans in particular sites; the very objects that proclaimed uniformity…