Bān Zhāo 班昭
Zì Huìbān 惠班; conventionally referred to as Cáo dàjiā 曹大家 (“the great Cáo lady”), her husband being Cáo Shìshū 曹世叔, who died young. Native of Ānlíng 安陵 in Fùfēng 扶風 (modern Xiányáng 咸陽, Shǎnxī). Daughter of the historian Bān Biāo 班彪 (3–54), younger sister of 班固 (Bān Gù) and the general Bān Chāo 班超 (32–102).
When Bān Gù died in prison in 92 with the Hànshū (KR2a0007) unfinished — specifically, the Bā biǎo 八表 and the Tiānwén zhì 天文志 — Bān Zhāo was summoned by Hàn Hédì 漢和帝 to the Dōngguān 東觀 imperial archive to bring the work to completion. She did so with technical assistance from Mǎ Xù 馬續 on the astronomical material, and instructed several leading Eastern Hàn scholars including Mǎ Róng 馬融 in the reading of the Hànshū. She was thereafter consulted by Empress Dèng (Dèng tàihòu 鄧太后) as a court adviser and on national-policy matters during her regency.
Her own writings include the Nǚ jiè 女誡 (Lessons for Women, in 7 piān) — one of the four canonical Hàn treatises on women’s conduct (the Sì shū 四書 of Confucian women’s writing), and a substantial fù corpus of which the Dōngzhēng fù 東征賦 survives. Her biography is in Hòu Hànshū 84 (KR2a0009), in the chapter on Eastern Hàn women.