[Dissertation] Culture Change and Imperial Incorporation in Early China: An Archaeological Study of the Middle Han River Valley (ca. 8th century BCE - 1st century CE)

Author:
Glenda E. Chao

Thesis Advisor:
Li, Feng

School:
Columbia University

Defended:
2017

Abstract:

This dissertation analyzes historical and archaeological evidence of culture change and the effects of state and imperial expansion on local communities to show that early Chinese cultural history is enriched when commoners are taken into account. I do this by focusing on heretofore unexamined evidence in the middle Han river valley of north-central Hubei province in early China during the 8th century BCE to the 1strd century CE. I argue that this was a particularly important region because it was an important crossroads where multiple polities interacted in the period between the fall of the Western Zhou state and the rise of China’s first empires, the Qin and the Han. 

Traditional historiography attributes culture change during this period and in this region to the imposition of a holistic set of customs by elites representing state or imperial power on newly conquered lands. The sources used and analyses employed are disproportionately derived from elite contexts. As a result, current historical narratives privilege elite views of culture and society. By contrast, my dissertation employs a methodology that utilizes newly excavated archaeological data to enrich extant narratives of the early cultural history of this region. I do this in two ways. First, I interweave archaeological evidence of ordinary peoples’ cultural practices into the dominant political and social histories of the era. Second, I focus on the middle Han river area as a geographical crossroads that was as culturally complex as frontier regions, a perspective rarely taken in traditional studies of early China. 

Chapter 1 lays out the three-tiered theoretical and methodological framework of the dissertation. I first outline theories of culture change in ancient colonial encounters, derived from anthropological discourse, and that can be utilized to understand my novel data. I then describe how archaeologists utilize material evidence of past funerary rituals, which form the bulk of my data, to study culture change. Finally, I talk about the quantitative methods through which I render the archaeological data intelligible to interpretation. 

In Chapter 2, I engage with the third and narrowest tier of my methodology by using assemblage theory as the basis for archaeological periodization of funerary ceramics at Bianying 卞營 cemetery. This method takes as its premise the idea that the appearance of new ceramic types and the disappearance of others, signify moments of change due either to incoming practices or internal development, when the social and cultural affiliations of the community of mourners came under question, thus, allowing for the assertion and negotiation of emergent cultural identities. 

In Chapter 3, I use exploratory data analyses to identify meaningful patterns in the seven chronological periods identified in Chapter 2. In interpreting these patterns, I explain how, within the realm of funerary ritual, the introduction of new cultural practices into Xiangyang engendered the formation of hybrid culture at Bianying, and how the active agency of the local population was expressed through this process. 

In Chapter 4, I employ these previous analyses in returning to the level of culture change in order to build a more robust model of cultural hybridity in early imperial China. To do this, I analyze the more rural and idiosyncratic cemetery of Wangpo 王坡, located four kilometers north of Bianying. I use the evidence of hybridized burial practices at Wangpo to show how my model destabilizes accepted analytical categories and, thereby, allows new narratives of early imperial history in China to emerge, narratives that bring the discipline into dialogue with the study of other regions of the ancient world. 

In Chapter 5, I construct a new history of cultural formation in Xiangyang. I do this by interweaving the archaeological narrative outlined in chapters 2 through 4 with textual evidence drawn from bronze inscriptions, excavated texts, and transmitted historical records. I reconcile contradictions between the archaeological and textual records by tacking back and forth between these two categories of source materials, treating both as different facets of the same story. In doing so, I present a holistic narrative of elite political designs on Xiangyang and its effects on locals, arguing that both groups mutually constructed one another in forming what we now know to be early imperial China. This work has important implications for further research by demonstrating the value of making more nuanced use of newly excavated material to reinvigorate the genre of regional history in China.


** Thank Dr. Albert Galvany for sharing this information

魏晋南北朝史のいま

Editor:
窪添慶文 (KUBOZOE Yoshifumi)

Publication Date:
September, 2017

Publisher:
勉誠出版

Abstract:

魏晋南北朝時代は秦漢統一帝国と隋唐統一帝国の中間に位置する。
政治的に複数の政権が並立する分裂の時代ではあるが、そこには新しい動きが様々な点で生まれ、成長して行き、隋唐時代に繋がって行く。
それら新しい動きを「政治・人物」、「思想・文化」、「国都・都城」、「出土資料」の4つの側面から捉え、魏晋南北朝史研究の「いま」を分かりやすく解説し、非統一時代に生きた人々・物事の足跡を浮かび上がらせる。

Table of Contents:

総論―魏晋南北朝史のいま 窪添慶文

Ⅰ 政治・人物
曹丕―三分された日輪の時代 田中靖彦
晋恵帝賈皇后の実像 小池直子
赫連勃勃―「五胡十六国」史への省察を起点として 徐冲（板橋暁子・訳）
陳の武帝とその時代 岡部毅史
李沖 松下憲一
北周武帝の華北統一 会田大輔
それぞれの「正義」 堀内淳一

Ⅱ 思想・文化
魏晋期の儒教 古勝隆一
南北朝の雅楽整備における『周礼』の新解釈について 戸川貴行
南朝社会と仏教―王法と仏法の関係 倉本尚徳
北朝期における「邑義」の諸相―国境地域における仏教と人々 北村一仁
山中道館の興起 魏斌（田熊敬之・訳）
史部の成立 永田拓治
書法史における刻法・刻派という新たな視座―北魏墓誌を中心に 澤田雅弘

Ⅲ 国都・都城
鄴城に見る都城制の転換 佐川英治
建康とその都市空間 小尾孝夫
魏晋南北朝の長安 内田昌功
北魏人のみた平城 岡田和一郎
北魏洛陽城―住民はいかに統治され、居住したか 角山典幸
統万城 市来弘志
「蜀都」とその社会―成都 二二一―三四七年 新津健一郎
辺境都市から王都へ―後漢から五涼時代にかける姑臧城の変遷 陳力

Ⅳ 出土資料から見た新しい世界
竹簡の製作と使用―長沙走馬楼三国呉簡の整理作業で得た知見から 金平（石原遼平・訳）
走馬楼呉簡からみる三国呉の郷村把握システム 安部聡一郎
呉簡吏民簿と家族・女性 鷲尾祐子
魏晋時代の壁画 三崎良章
北朝の墓誌文化 梶山智史
北魏後期の門閥制 窪添慶文

Early China 40 (2017) 《古代中國》第40期

Table of Contents:

Letter from the Editor: Early China at 40
SARAH ALLAN

OBITUARY
David Noel Keightley (1932–2017)
SARAH ALLAN

Remembrances of David Keightley
MIRANDA BROWN, DAVID D. BUCK, RODERICK B. CAMPBELL, JONATHAN CHAVES, CONSTANCE A. COOK, LOTHAR VON FALKENHAUSEN, MARIÁN GÁLIK, ZEV HANDEL, KUAN-YUN HUANG, LIONEL M. JENSEN, STEVEN I. LEVINE, LI LING, LI XUEQIN, PAUL ROPP, EDWARD L. SHAUGHNESSY
FRANK JOSEPH SHULMAN 5

David Noel Keightley (1932–2017), Publications and Unpublished
Writings: A Comprehensive Bibliography and Research Guide
FRANK JOSEPH SHULMAN

ARTICLES
Early Chinese Manuscript Writings for the Name of the Sage Emperor Shun 舜, and the Legacy of Warring States Period Orthographic Variation in Early Chinese Received Texts
ADAM D. SMITH

Mozi and the Ghosts: The Concept of Ming 明 in Mozi’s “Ming gui” 明鬼
PIOTR GIBAS

Echoing Rulership: Understanding Musical References in the Huainanzi
AVITAL H. ROM

Introduction to the Peking University Han Bamboo Strips: On the Authentication and Study of Purchased Manuscripts
CHRISTOPHER J. FOSTER

EXCAVATED TEXT TRANSLATION
The Wuwei Medical Manuscripts: A Brief Introduction and Translation
YANG YONG and MIRANDA BROWN

RESEARCH NOTE
To Punish the Person: A Reading Note Regarding a Punctuation Mark in the Tsinghua Manuscript *Ming Xun
EDWARD L. SHAUGHNESSY

BOOK REVIEWS
Stephen Durrant, Wai-yee Li, Michael Nylan, and Hans van Ess. The Letter to Ren An and Sima Qian’s Legacy
LEI YANG

Barbieri-Low Anthony J., and Robin D. S. Yates. Law, State, and Society in Early Imperial China: A Study with Critical Edition and Translation of the Legal Texts from Zhangjiashan Tomb no. 247
CHARLES SANFT

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dissertation Abstracts
WEN-YI HUANG, comp.

Annual Bibliography
WEN-YI HUANG, comp

Yungang: Art, History, Archaeology, Liturgy

Author:
Lidu Yi

Publisher:
Routledge

Publication Date:
November, 2017

Abstract:

The first ever comprehensive analysis of its kind in any western language, this unique volume provides a social art history of Yungang: a fifth-century rock-cut court cave complex, UNESCO World Heritage site, and one of the greatest Buddhist monuments of all time. Yungang asks why, when, and under what circumstances this impressive cave sanctuary was made, and who played significant roles at various stages.

Recent economic changes in China including the expansion of roads have led to unprecedented numbers of objects being unearthed on site and near the cave chapels. Archaeological discoveries in 2010 have shed significant new light on the architectural configuration of monasteries in the capital and the functions of different sections of the cave complex, as well as monastic life within it. For the first time, it is possible to reconstruct where the monks lived and translated sacred literary texts, and to fully understand that freestanding monasteries are an important component of the rock-cut cave complex.

Illustrated throughout with remarkable full-colour photographs, this re-examination of the cave chapels, which brings together previous scholarship, primary documentation, and more than a decade of first hand field research, will not only fill in the gaps in our knowledge about Yungang, but also raise, and perhaps answer, new questions in art history.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgements

Chronology of Chinese Dynasties

Chapter One  Introduction

1. Chinese Antiquarian Documentation 2. Pioneering Japanese Expeditions 3. Chinese Scholarship 4. Western Research 5. Purpose and Organization of the Book

Chapter Two  The Sacred Site of Yungang

1. Making the Sacred Cave Temples of Yungang 2. Auspicious Geographical Environment of Yungang 3. Archaeological Excavations and Related Issues 4. Art and Architecture

Chapter Three  Phase One—Emperor As Tathāgata

1. The Imperial Five Tanyao Caves 2. Dates of Excavation of the Five Tanyao Caves 3. Emperor as the Living Tathāgata in the Cave temple 4. Tanyao and the Significance of the Translation of Sacred Books in Yungang 5. Concluding Remarks

Chapter Four  Phase Two: Political Struggles and Chronicles Reconsidered

1. Dates of Caves 11-13 Reconsidered 2. Reconstructing a Chronological Sequence of the Second-phase Cave temples 3. Summary of the Chronology of the Second-phase Cave temples

Chapter Five  Considering Karmic Narratives And Liturgical Functions

1. Reading the Iconography 2. Modes of Narratives and Viewers’ Response 3. Ritual and Function in a Rock-cut Cave Sanctuary 4. Folk Faith, Karmic Practice and the Tiwei Boli Jing 5. Concluding Remarks

Chapter Six  Phase Three—The Remaining Splendour

1. Architectural Structure 2. Iconographic Composition 3. Telling Tales: Narrative Stories and Visual Representations 4. Iconographic Style 5. Classification, Dating and Chronological Sequence 6. Concluding Remarks 7. One Final Remark: Buddhist Sinicization Re-considered

Chapter 7  Postscript

Classification of the Caves in the Third-phase
Groups and Periodization of the Third-phase Caves
Character Glossary

Eurasian Empires in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Contact and Exchange between the Graeco-Roman World, Inner Asia and China

Editors:
Hyun Jin Kim, Frederik Juliaan Vervaet, Selim Ferruh Adalı

Publisher:
Cambridge University Press

Publication date:
October 2017

Abstract:

The great empires of the vast Eurasian continent have captured the imagination of many. Awe-inspiring names such as ancient Rome, Han and Tang China, Persia, Assyria, the Huns, the Kushans and the Franks have been the subject of countless scholarly books and works of literature. However, very rarely, if at all, have these vast pre-industrial empires been studied holistically from a comparative, interdisciplinary and above all Eurasian perspective. This collection of studies examines the history, literature and archaeology of these empires and others thus far treated separately as a single inter-connected subject of inquiry. It highlights in particular the critical role of Inner Asian empires and peoples in facilitating contacts and exchange across the Eurasian continent in antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

Table of Contents:

Introduction Hyun Jin Kim and Frederik Vervaet

Part I. Political Organization and Interactions of Eurasian Empires:
1. The Political Organization of Steppe Empires and their Contribution to Eurasian Interconnectivity: the case of the Huns and their impact on the Frankish West     Hyun Jin Kim

2. Tang China's Horse Power: The Borderland Breeding Ranch System    Jonathan Skaff

3.Cimmerians and the Scythians: The Impact of Nomadic Powers on the Assyrian Empire and the Ancient Near East    Selim Ferruh Adalı

Part II. Socio-institutional Aspects of Eurasian Empires:
4. Honour and Shame in the Roman Republic Frederik   Juliaan Vervaet

5. Honor and Shame in Han China    Mark Lewis

6. Slavery and forced labor in early China and the Roman world    
Walter Scheidel

Part III. Cultural Legacies of Eurasian Empires:
7. Homer and the Shi Jing as Imperial Texts 
Alexander Beecroft

8. The Serpent from Persia – Manichaeism in Rome and China 
Samuel Lieu

Part IV. Archaeology of Eurasian Empires:
9. The Alans in the Southern Caucasus? 
Antonio Sagona, Claudia Sagona and Aleks Michalewicz

10. Greeks, Scythians, Parthians and Kushans in Central Asia and India 
Osmund Bopearachchi

11. Enclosure Sites, non-nucleated settlement strategies and political capitals in ancient Eurasia  Michelle Negus Cleary

Conclusion Hyun Jin Kim, Frederik Juliaan Vervaet and Selim Ferruh Adalı.

Ancestors, Kings, and the Dao

Author:
Constance A. Cook

Publication Date:
October, 2017

Publisher:
Harvard

Abstract:

Ancestors, Kings, and the Dao outlines the evolution of musical performance in early China, first within and then ultimately away from the socio-religious context of ancestor worship. Examining newly discovered bamboo texts from the Warring States period, Constance A. Cook compares the rhetoric of Western Zhou (1046–771 BCE) and Spring and Autumn (770–481 BCE) bronze inscriptions with later occurrences of similar terms in which ritual music began to be used as a form of self-cultivation and education. Cook’s analysis links the creation of such classics as the Book of Odes with the ascendance of the individual practitioner, further connecting the social actors in three types of ritual: boys coming of age, heirs promoted into ancestral government positions, and the philosophical stages of transcendence experienced in self-cultivation.

The focus of this study is on excavated texts; it is the first to use both bronze and bamboo narratives to show the evolution of a single ritual practice. By viewing the ancient inscribed materials and the transmitted classics from this new perspective, Cook uncovers new linkages in terms of how the materials were shaped and reshaped over time and illuminates the development of eulogy and song in changing ritual contexts.


Table of Contents:

Part I. 
1. Establishing the Zhou tradition: Memorial feasts and the rise of eulogy to Zhou kings

2. Kings, ancestors, and the transmission of De: Transitions and setting the pattern

3. Song of heirs: Royal inscriptions: the king as heir

4. Eulogy and the rise of the musical performance: Training the Xiaozi

Part II. The Zhou way after the Zhou: 

5. Transitions and bronze inscriptions: Archaic rings

6. The new old Zhou way: Notes on the transmission of odes and A song of King Wen

7. From ancestor worship to inner cultivation: Notes on the bamboo text the lute dance of Zhou Gong

8. Coming-of-age rituals: Performing the capping ritual

Tales from Tang Dynasty China: Selections from the Taiping Guangji

Editors: 
Alexei Ditter, Sarah M. Allen, and Jessey J. C. Choo. 

Publisher:
Hackett Publishing Co.

Publication Date:
September 2017

Abstract:

Compiled during the Song dynasty (960–1279) at the behest of Emperor Taizong, the Taiping Guangji anthologized thousands of pages of unofficial histories, accounts, and minor stories from the Tang dynasty (618–907).


The twenty-two tales translated in this volume, many appearing for the first time in English, reveal the dynamism and diversity of society in Tang China. A lengthy Introduction as well as introductions to each selection further illuminate the social and historical contexts within which these narratives unfold. This collection offers a wealth of information for anyone interested in medieval Chinese history, religion, or everyday life.

Table of Contents:

Timeline
Note on Translation Conventions
Introduction

THIS WORLD

"The Woman in the Carriage" 車中女子
introduced and translated by Linda Feng

"Xiao Yingshi" 蕭穎士
introduced and translated by Alexei Ditter

"Ming Siyuan" 明思遠
introduced and translated by Alexei Ditter

"The Record of Master Shenxiu’s Predictions" 秀師言記
introduced and translated by Jessey Choo

"Du Mu" 杜牧
introduced and translated by Manling Luo

"Di Weiqian" 狄惟謙
introduced and translated by Alexei Ditter

“General Pan” 潘將軍
introduced and translated by Linda Feng

"The Female Slave of Li Fu" 李福女奴
introduced and translated by Alexei Ditter

"Pengyan" 捧硯
introduced and translated by Alexei Ditter


BETWEEN WORLDS: OTHERWORLDY ENCOUNTERS IN THE HUMAN WORLD

"Yao Hong" 姚泓
introduced and translated by Sarah M. Allen

"Tang Xuan" 唐晅
introduced and translated by Jessey Choo

"Cao Weisi" 曹惟思
introduced and translated by Natasha Heller

"Dou Yu" 竇裕
introduced and translated by Jack W. Chen

"Scholar Wang" 王生
introduced and translated by Sarah M. Allen

"Shentu Cheng" 申屠澄
introduced and translated by Sarah M. Allen

"Scholar Hu" 胡生
introduced and translated by Manling Luo

"The Clan of Xingyang" 滎陽氏
introduced and translated by Natasha Heller


BETWEEN WORLDS: TRAVEL TO OTHER WORLDS

"Vice Magistrate of Liuhe District 六合縣丞"
introduced and translated by Jessey Choo

"Dong Guan" 董觀
introduced and translated by Jessey Choo

"Yang Jingzhen" 楊敬真
introduced and translated by Sarah M. Allen

"Lu Yong" 陸顒
introduced and translated by Linda Feng

"Master Yang" 楊大夫
introduced and translated by Timothy Davis

APPENDIX 1: TALES ORGANIZED BY CHRONOLOGY
APPENDIX 2: SOURCES FOR TALES WITHIN THE TAIPING GUANGJI
APPENDIX 3: TALES BY CATEGORIES WITHIN THE TAIPING GUANGJI
APPENDIX 4: TALES CATEGORIZED BY THEME OR TOPIC

Forgotten Disease: Illnesses Transformed in Chinese Medicine

Author:
Hilary A. Smith

Publisher:
Stanford University Press

Publication Date:
October, 2017

Abstract:

Around the turn of the twentieth century, disorders that Chinese physicians had been writing about for over a millennium acquired new identities in Western medicine—sudden turmoil became cholera; flowers of heaven became smallpox; and foot qi became beriberi. Historians have tended to present these new identities as revelations, overlooking evidence that challenges Western ideas about these conditions. In Forgotten Disease, Hilary A. Smith argues that, by privileging nineteenth century sources, we misrepresent what traditional Chinese doctors were seeing and doing, therefore unfairly viewing their medicine as inferior.

Drawing on a wide array of sources, ranging from early Chinese classics to modern scientific research, Smith traces the history of one representative case, foot qi, from the fourth century to the present day. She examines the shifting meanings of disease over time, showing that each transformation reflects the social, political, intellectual, and economic environment. The breathtaking scope of this story offers insights into the world of early Chinese doctors and how their ideas about health, illness, and the body were developing far before the advent of modern medicine. Smith highlights the fact that modern conceptions of these ancient diseases create the impression that the West saved the Chinese from age-old afflictions, when the reality is that many prominent diseases in China were actually brought over as a result of imperialism. She invites the reader to reimagine a history of Chinese medicine that celebrates its complexity and nuance, rather than uncritically disdaining this dynamic form of healing.


Table of Contents:

Foot qi in early Chinese medicine
Competing for medical authority
Simplifying and standardizing disease
The northerner's eating disorder
Getting rich and getting sick
Creating beriberi in Meiji Japan
Foot qi's multiple meanings in modern East Asia