Epitaph is of large quantities in Chinese ancient literature. Epitaphs represent not only biographical literature, it also provides materials for research in other academic fields. Therefore ancient epitaphs, especially newly unearthed ones, have always been paid great attention by scholars. But so far the origin of epitaphs and the establishment of the epitaph style are both controversial among scholars. It is an urgent task to probe into these two questions. The newly unearthed epitaphs and the great progress of the research on the evolvement of text style provide new empirical material and new perspective respectively for the analysis and clarification on these two matters. The first step to confirm the origin of epitaphs is to find the first appearance of ''epitaph，''which is generally agreed among the scholars studying on the epitaphs. After the investigation, it is found that the first piece of ''epitaph'' appeared as early as in the Eastern Han Dynasty, but its nature is the prisoner's tile epitaphs, rendering their relevance to the study in question. Even if the word of ''epitaph'' is used, it does not necessarily mean that that piece of work is ''epitaph'' in the real sense. Thus, the first step to investigate the origin of epitaphs is to establish the criteria of epitaphs based on the main functions of epitaphs. Based on the above statements, by concentrating around the newly unearthed stone inscriptions of Eastern Han Dynasty and referencing to other related records in ancient documents, this paper investigates the origin of epitaphs and the establishment of the epitaph style from a new perspective. Epitaphs originated in late Eastern Han Dynasty. Miao Yu's epitaph which was carved in the first year of Yuanjia (151) can be seen as an example of this first use of epitaphs. According to the ancient Tang records, Miao Xi (186-245) living in Cao Wei period was often regarded as the ancestor of the creation of epitaph. The earliest extant of epitaph created by literati was written by Fu Xuan (217-278) of Western Jin Dynasty. Therefore, we have reasons to believe that epitaphs with a definition of one literary style appeared as early as in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. The rapid development of the epitaphs style can be seen both in the Northern and Southern Dynasties. There were a large number of changes both in terms of the content and the form of epitaphs. As for the content, the notes and eulogy's function of the epitaph had been further emphasized. Not only the ''Thirteen things'' had been perfected, the content of the Mingwen also became more euphuistic and more elaborate. As for the form of the epitaph, the manner of writing became gradually stable and the order of its different parts with different content had been gradually stabilized. The epitaph also became more complete regarding its form. The phenomenon of increasing cooperation between writers of epitaphs among the Northern and Southern Dynasties represented the new changes with regard to the text form of the epitaph style. Before and after the sixth Century A.D, the writing manner and the text form of the epitaph style finally became standardized and was accepted and imitated by later authors. The changes in the epitaph creation in later times lied merely in addition and deletion of certain content under the names of specific epitaphs. The follow-up epitaphs can not be able to develop beyond the already fixed epitaph style paradigm established in the Northern and Southern Dynasties.