Ban Biao

Ban Biao (born 3 ce, Anling, Fufeng [now Xianyang, Shaanxi province], China—died 54, China) was an eminent Chinese official of the Han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce) who is reported to have begun the famous Han shu (“Book of Han”), considered the Confucian historiographic model on which all later dynastic histories were patterned.

Ban Biao intended the work to supplement the Shiji (“Historical Records”) of the famous historian Sima Qian (c. 145–87 bce) and to cover the period from 104 bce, the last year covered by Sima. Ban died before the writing was completed, at which point it was taken over by his son Ban Gu. Ban Gu did not live to finish the work, which was ultimately completed by Ban Biao’s daughter Ban Zhao, China’s most famous woman scholar.