The Han Dynasty was a period of time when the style of epigraphs gained its start and foundation and when the growth of epigraphs reached the first peak. In this period rose numerous great epigraphers and epigraph works, of which Cai Yong was one of the bestknown. Hos epigraph works were of abundant implications, which attracted close concern and exploration from later critics, received high appreciation and praise from later men of letters, were selected and reedited by prose collectors and imitated by later scholars. This greatly advanced the course of canonization of steles in the Han Dynasty and gave an everlasting life to Cai Yong’s epigraphs, which were to be the model for epigraphs in China till the present times.

steles in the Han Dynasty; style of epigraph; Cai Yong; canonization; style of epitaph