[Dissertation] To Rule by Ritual: The Theorization of Ritual Psychology in the Bamboo Texts of Guodian

Author:
Clayton Howard Ashton

Defended:
2017

School:
University of British Columbia

Abstract:

This study examines the development of a theory of ritual psychology in Chinese political thought during the Warring States period (c. 450 - 221 BCE), as found in four Confucian bamboo manuscripts from the Guodian corpus which were discovered in 1993 in a tomb that had been sealed in c. 300 BCE. These four texts, called here the Ritual Authority manuscripts, provide new evidence of a political theory that applied ritual practices to the management of the state, with implications for our understanding of both the development of the Confucian tradition and of the formation of the early Chinese empire. The introduction surveys how the concept of ritual has been framed in studies of Chinese history, and argues that this new evidence of a conscious theorization about ritual psychology should compel us reexamine this topic. Chapter One makes use of the insights offered by the cross-disciplinary field of Ritual Studies to create a working definition of “ritual” as an academic term of analysis, and then examines a range of primary sources from the Warring States period in order to reconstruct the discursive field of meaning encompassed by the Chinese term li, or “ritual propriety,” which was the focus of this theorization. Chapter Two considers the implications of the previous chapter’s insights by examining how ritual practices rely on a sense of historical authority, which embroils these practices in a larger tension between tradition and innovation. Chapter Three examines the development of theories of political authority in the Warring States period, and shows how these presented a fundamental challenge to the Confucian emphasis on ritual practices. Chapter Four turns to the Ritual Authority manuscripts from Guodian and closely examines how they reveal an attempt to incorporate a theory of ritual psychology into a defence of traditional ritual practices. This study finally concludes by considering the larger implications of this intellectual innovation, and suggests several possible directions of future research based on this research.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Chapter 1: Theories of Ritual and Propriety
Chapter 2: Reforming the Rites and Changing Conventions
Chapter 3: Authority and the Law
Chapter 4: The Ritual Authority Manuscripts
Conclusion

The Art and Archaeology of Bodily Adornment: Studies from Central and East Asian Mortuary Contexts

Editor:
Sheri A. Lullo and Leslie V. Wallace

Publisher:
Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge

Publication date:
2019

Abstract:

This book examines the significance of adornment to the shaping of identity in mortuary contexts within Asia, and brings these perspectives into dialogue with current scholarship in other worldwide regions. The mortuary contexts of focus in this volume represent unique sites and events where identity was visualized, and often manipulated and negotiated, through material objects and their placement on and about the deceased body. In both breadth and depth, it will be of interest to students and scholars interested in the archaeology, art, and history of Central and East Asia, as well as anyone interested in the general study of dress and adornment.

Table of Contents:

Dimensions of personal adornment / Sheri A. Lullo and Leslie V. Wallace

Adornments at Odake Shell Midden Site: perceptions of early Jomon hunter-gatherer gender and identities / Ilona R. Bausch

Some features of "Xiongnu" composite belts / S.S. Miniaev

Adornments of golden Silla / Sarah Milledge Nelson

The Yayoi-Kofun transition as seen from the exchange network of beads in the Japanese archipelago / Ari Tanizawa

Why wear dolphins? Greek imagery among the pastoralists along the ancient Oxus / Karen S. Rubinson

The power and authority of exotic accessories: ornamentation of human and equine haniwa at Tsukamawari tomb 4, Gunma, Japan / Karen M. Gerhart and Katheryn M. Linduff

Jade age adornment of the Liangzhu elite / Elizabeth Childs-Johnson

Does a feather in your hat a barbarian make? Headgear and hairstyles in Han Dynasty tomb murals in the Ordos / Leslie V. Wallace

Dressing the dead in Jin China / Sarah Laursen

Dao Companion to the Excavated Guodian Bamboo Manuscripts

Editor:
Shirley Chan

Publisher:
Springer

Publication date:
May 2019

Abstract:
This volume covers the philosophical, historical, religious, and interpretative aspects of the ancient Guodian bamboo manuscripts (郭店楚簡) which were disentombed in the Guodian Village in Hubei Province, China, in 1993. Considered to be the Chinese equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls, these manuscripts are archaeological finds whose importance cannot be underestimated. Many of the texts are without counterparts in the transmitted tradition, and they provide unique insights into the developments of Chinese philosophy in the period between the death of Confucius (551-479 BCE) and the writings of Mencius (c.372-289 BCE), and beyond. 

Divided into two parts, the book first provides inter-textual contexts and backgrounds of the Guodian manuscripts. The second part covers the main concepts and arguments in the Guodian texts, including cosmology and metaphysics, political philosophy, moral psychology, and theory of human nature. The thematic essays serve as an introduction to the philosophical significance and the key philosophical concepts/thought of each text contained in the Guodian corpus. Each chapter has a section on the implications of the texts for the received tradition, or for the purpose of comparing some of the text(s) with the received tradition in terms of the key philosophical concepts as well as the reading and interpretation of the texts. The volume covers most of the texts inscribed on the 800-odd slips of the Guodian corpus dated to the fourth century BCE.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1. Introduction: The Excavated Guodian Bamboo Manuscripts (Shirley Chan)

Part 1. A Philological Reading of the Guodian Manuscripts: The Texts and Textual Formation

Chapter 2. The Guodian Laozi Materials (Franklin Perkins)

Chapter 3. On Citation Practices in the Guodian Manuscripts (HE Ruyue and Michael Nylan)

Chapter 4. Shu 書 (Documents) Repertoire in Argument-Based Texts from Guodian: The Case of Cheng zhi 成之 (Things Brought to Completion) (Dirk Meyer)

Chapter 5. How to Achieve Good Governance-Arguments in the Tang Yu zhi dao 唐虞之道 (The Ways of Yao and Shun) and the Zhong xin zhi dao 忠信之道 (The Ways of Uprightness and Reliability) (Michael Schimmelpfennig)

Chapter 6. Which Comes First? Dao or De: Evidence from Guodian Manuscripts (Constance A. Cook)

Chapter 7. Reading heng cheng 恆稱 in the Guodian Bamboo Text Lu Mu Gong wen Zisi 魯穆公問子思 (Duke Mu of Lu Asked Zisi) (LIAO Mingchun 廖名春)

Part 2. Philosophical Concepts and Arguments in the Guodian Manuscripts

Chapter 8. The Taiyi shengshui 太一生水 Cosmogony and Its Role in Early Chinese Thought (Erica Brindley)

Chapter 9. Daoist Philosophy as Viewed from the Guodian Manuscripts (Barbara Hendrischke)

Chapter 10. "Sagacity" and the Heaven-Human Relationship in the Wuxing 五行(Erica Brindley)

Chapter 11. The Qiong da yi shi 窮達以時 (Poverty or Success Is a Matter of Timing) and the Concept of Heaven and Humans in Early Confucianism (LIANG Tao) 

Chapter 12. Xing and Qing : Human Nature and Moral Cultivation in the Guodian Text Xing zi ming chu 性自命出 (Nature Derives from Endowment) (Shirley Chan) 

Chapter 13. Body and Mind in the Guodian Manuscripts (Lisa Raphals).- 

Chapter 14. Daoist Nature or Confucian Nurture: Moral Development in the Yucong 語叢 (Thicket of Sayings) (Shirley Chan) 

Chapter 15. The Debate over Coercive Rulership and the "Human Way" in Light of Recently Excavated Warring States Texts (Updated) (Scott Cook)

Chapter 16. The Guodian Confucian Texts and the Xunzi (TANG Siufu) 

Chapter 17. From the Liu wei (Six Positions) Discussed in the Liu de (Six Virtues) to the San gang (Three Principles of Social Order) (LI Rui) 

Chapter 18. Guodian: A New Window for Understanding the Introduction of Buddhism into China (Kenneth W. Holloway).

The Politics of the Past in Early China

Author:
Vincent S. Leung

Publication date:
August 2019

Publisher: 
Cambridge University Press

Abstract:
Why did the past matter so greatly in ancient China? How did it matter and to whom? This is an innovative study of how the past was implicated in the long transition of power in early China, as embodied by the decline of the late Bronze Age aristocracy and the rise of empires over the first millenium BCE. Engaging with a wide array of historical materials, including inscriptional records, excavated manuscripts, and transmitted texts, Vincent S. Leung moves beyond the historiographical canon and explores how the past was mobilized as powerful ideological capital in diverse political debate and ethical dialogue. Appeals to the past in early China were more than a matter of cultural attitude, Leung argues, but were rather deliberate ways of articulating political thought and challenging ethical debates during periods of crisis. Significant power lies in the retelling of the past.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. Time out of joint: uses of the past from the Western Zhou to the early warring states

2. A parenthetical past: deep history and anti-history in the late warring states

3. Specter of the past: bureaucratic amnesia under the Rise of the Qin Empire

4. The rehabilitation of antiquity in the early Han Empire

5. Sima Qian's critical past

Epilogue

A Zooarchaeological Study of the Haimenkou Site, Yunnan Province, China

Author:
Juan Wang

Publication Year:
2018

Publisher:
British Archaeological Reports Oxford Ltd

Abstract:

Haimenkou was an important location, with trade and cultural links connecting parts of modern Southeast Asia and northwestern China in ancient times. This book is based on an analysis of the faunal assemblage recovered from the Haimenkou site during the 2008 field season in Yunnan Province, China. It investigates the human-animal relationships at Haimenkou through a time span running from the late Neolithic Period to the middle Bronze Age (ca. 5000-2400 BP). The animal exploitation patterns, local animal domestication processes, human subsistence strategies and communication networks linking Haimenkou and other regions in prehistoric China are studied. Domesticated pig, dog and sheep bones were identified. Over sixteen wild mammal species as well as bird and fish bones and mollusc shells were also recovered. The results suggest that the Haimenkou people developed a mixed subsistence economy, consisting of crop farming, plant food gathering, animal husbandry, hunting and fishing.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Environmental setting and archaeological background of the Haimenkou Site
3. Procedure of faunal analysis
4. Range and relative importance of identified taxa
5. Skeletal part representation and bone modification
6. Kill-off patterns for domestic animals
7. Discussion and conclusion

[Dissertation] Crafting Community: Exploring Identity and Interaction through Ceramics in Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Northwestern China

Author:
Andrew Womack

Publication Year:
2017

School:
Yale

Abstract:

This dissertation addresses questions related to craft production, social identity, and interaction through a multifaceted analysis of ceramic production and use during the Majiayao (3200-2000BC) and Qijia (2300-1500BC) periods in the Tao River Valley of northwestern China’s Gansu Province. Situated between the Gobi Desert to the north and the foothills of the Tibetan Plateau to the south, for millennia this area acted as a key conduit for interaction between groups in central China and the Eurasian steppe. Majiayao and Qijia communities played a vital role in adopting, adapting, and retransmitting new domesticates, technologies, and ideas in both directions, helping shape the course of both Chinese and steppe civilization.

Despite these contributions to the development and spread of Chinese civilization, however, this region of northwest China is often pigeonholed into the trope of cultural devolution, with climatic shifts forcing a change from sophisticated Majiayao farmers to the small-scale, possibly pastoral societies of the Qijia.  This conclusion is based almost entirely on shifts in pottery form and decoration, with the large, elaborately painted urns of the Majiayao period being replaced by the smaller, mostly undecorated pottery that defines the Qijia period. This dissertation challenges these conclusions by investigating the relationship between craft production, consumer and producer identity, and social interaction in order to provide a more nuanced understanding of the continuities and changes occurring between the two periods.

Taking a communities of practice based approach to ceramic production, this research focuses first on identifying potential groups of producers through assessment of paste recipes and forming techniques. In order to identify these groups, sherds from four Majiayao and Qijia habitation and mortuary contexts were sampled and analyzed using petrographic analysis. This technique provides information not only on the mineralogical makeup of a vessel, but also can provide insight into specific paste recipes and production techniques. This study revealed striking differences between vessels from mortuary and habitation contexts during the Majiayao period, pointing to the potential use of mortuary rituals for the negotiation and construction of relationships with other communities. It also demonstrated surprising continuity in production knowledge and techniques between the two periods, showing that changes in pottery form and decoration are not necessarily accurate reflections of underlying shifts in social identity.

In addition to petrographic analysis, whole vessels from mortuary contexts were also examined in order to assess how they were produced and used. Use-wear analysis was employed in order to understand the use histories of individual vessels, revealing that the majority of pots placed in graves during both periods were well used before interment. Standardization analysis was also carried out in order to explore potential production differences between various vessel types. It was demonstrated that while production does appear to vary between vessel types, there is impressive continuity in degree of vessel uniformity between the Majiayao and Qijia periods.

Combining the results of these three techniques, this research is able to address not only the communities of practice who were making these vessels, but also the potential roles they played in building and mediating relationships between groups. Specifically, for the northern Tao River Valley, it appears that despite significant shifts in pottery form, mortuary rituals, and the relationships that were mediated by these items and events, underlying communities of practice persisted over the course of more than 600 years.

[Dissertation] Biological Classification in Early Chinese Dictionaries and Glossaries: from Fish to Invertebrates and Vice Versa

Author:
Federico Valenti

School:
Università degli Studi di Sassari

Defended:
2018

Abstract:
This dissertation problematises the classification of chong 蟲 (invertebrates) and yu 魚 (fish) in Early Chinese texts. The loci classici analysed will range from the Warring States (ca. 453 – 221 BCE) to the Eastern Han period (dong Han 東漢, 25 – 220 CE). The focus is on the lexical ambiguity between these two zoological categories: despite being perceived as different, they include a more or less loose set of “dynamic” words that shift from one category to the other.

The project concentrates on two early Chinese texts: the Erya 爾雅 (III century BCE) and the Shuowen jiezi 説文解字 (100 CE). These works had a pivotal role during the development of Chinese lexicography and gave the lexical basis of later texts. They are also the first texts that deal with the problem of taxonomical classification in Early China.

By systematically applying a philological approach (Coblin 1972, Carr 1979) to a selection of zoological glosses preserved in these sources, this study aims at reformulating the way in which early Chinese “proto-zoological categories” are organised (Needham 1986, Sterckx 2002). Through the analysis of selected case studies, it aims at showing that even if there are fairly well attested categories that constitute a dichotomous system (such as “quadrupeds” versus “winged creatures” or “wild beasts” versus “domestic animals”), Early Chinese taxonomies represent a dynamic and unstable attempt at zoological classification for what we call today “fish” and “invertebrates”.

The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Early Chinese Ethics and Political Philosophy

Editor: 
Alexus McLeod

Publication date:
21-02-2019

Publisher:
Bloomsbury Academic

Abstract:

Focusing on early Chinese ethical and political thought across multiple schools and thinkers, this book presents a comprehensive overview of the research being done in Chinese comparative ethics and political philosophy. 

In addition to chapters on Chinese comparative and interpretative thought, The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Early Chinese Ethics and Political Philosophy brings early Chinese ethics and political philosophy into conversation with Western and Indian Philosophy, as well as Western Theology. Contributors discuss numerous texts and schools in Pre-Qin and Han Philosophy, including Confucianism, Daoism, Mohism, the Xunzi, the Liyun, and the Zhuangzi. The volume also shows how early Chinese ethical and political theories can be used to contextualise contemporary philosophical issues, such as metaethics, human rights, emotions, and the connection between ethics and metaphysics.

Table of Contents:

Introduction (Alexus McLeod, University of Connecticut, USA)

Part I: Historical Approaches

1. Confucian Role Ethics: Issues of Naming, Translation, and Interpretation, Sarah Mattice, University of North Florida, USA

2. From Patterning to Governing: A Constructivist Interpretation of the Xunzi, Kurtis Hagen, SUNY Plattsburgh, USA

3. Some Considerations in Defense of a Radical Reading of the Mohist Jian Ai, Alexus McLeod (University of Connecticut, USA

4. Ritual and Vulnerability of a Prosperous World: A Reading of the Liyun, Michael D. K. Ing, Indiana University, USA

5. Morality Without Moral Reasoning: The Case of Heshanggong, 
Misha Tadd, Peking University, Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies, China

6. Nothingness and Selfhood in the Zhuangzi, 
David Chai, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

7. Han Fei's Rule of Law and Its Limits, 
Alejandro Barcenas, Texas State University, USA

Part Two: Comparative Approaches

8. Non-Impositional Rule in Confucius and Aristotle, Matthew D. Walker, Yale-NUS College, Singapore

9. Other People Die and That is the Problem, Amy Olberding, University of Oklahoma, USA

10. The Problem of Anxiety in the Zhuangzi, Indian, and Hellenistic Philosophy, Alexus McLeod, University of Connecticut, USA

11. Son of Heaven: Developing the Theological Aspects of Mengzi's Philosophy of the Ruler, Joshua Brown, University of Dayton, USA

12. Justifying Human Rights in Confucianism, May Sim, College of the Holy Cross, USA

Annotated Bibliography in Early Chinese Ethics and Political Philosophy, Alexus McLeod, University of Connecticut, USA

Chinese Thought: From Confucius to Cook Ding

Author:
Roel Sterckx

Publisher:
London: Penguin Books Ltd

Publication date:
2019

Abstract:

We are often told that the twenty-first century is bound to become China's century. Never before has Chinese culture been so physically, digitally, economically or aesthetically present in everyday life in the Western world. But how much do we really know about its origins and key beliefs, especially compared to the many histories of Western philosophy? How did the ancient Chinese think about the world?In this enlightening book, Roel Sterckx, one of the foremost experts in Chinese thought, takes us through centuries of Chinese history, from Confucius to Daoism to the Legalists. With evocative examples from philosophy, literature and everyday life, he shows us how the ancient Chinese have shaped the thinking of a civilization that is now influencing our own.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 China in Time and Space
Chapter 2 The Way (Dao) and Its Ways
Chapter 3 The Art of Government
Chapter 4 The Individual and the Collective
Chapter 5 Behaving Ritually
Chapter 6 Spirits and Ancesters
Chapter 7 The World of Nature
Chapter 8 Work and Wealth
Chapter 9 Food for Thought

Cultural interactions during the Zhou Period (c. 1000-350 BC): A Study of Networks from the Suizao Corridor

Author:
Beichen Chen

Publisher: 
Archaeopress Archaeology

Publication date:
February 28, 2019

Abstract:

‘Cultural Interactions during the Zhou Period (c. 1000-350 BC): A study of networks from the Suizao corridor’ examines cultural interactions during the Zhou period of China (c. 1000- 350 BCE) between the Suizao corridor (near the present-day Yangtze River region) and its contemporaries within or outside the Zhou realm. It concentrates mainly, but not exclusively, on bronze ritual vessels from the Suizao corridor, and discusses the underlying social and political relations between the dominant cultures and the regional ones in this particular area (the Zeng state for example), which are central to understanding the ways in which the dominant cultures joined their disparate territories into a whole. Newly excavated archaeological evidence show that there were at least three periods when people in the corridor learned about the current traditions employed elsewhere, which are: 1) Yejiashan period (from the 11th to the 10th century BCE); 2) post-Ritual Reform period (from the mid-9th to the mid-7th century BCE); and 3) Marquis Yi’s period (from the mid- 6th to the mid-4th century BCE). In these periods, local people were involved in networks of enormous and constantly changing complexity, in which people, objects, practices, and ideas were mixed together through inter-regional contacts. The choices of local people in adopting foreign materials and ideas from either the dominant cultures or other places depended heavily on the subjective view of their social identity, which can be constructed, maintained, or transited to adapt to different social and political environments.

Table of Contents:

Chapter One: Introduction

Chapter Two: Yejiashan Period

Chapter Three: Post-Ritual Reform Period

Chapter Four: Marquis Yi’s Period

Chapter Five: Conclusion

Cultivating a Good Life in Early Chinese and Ancient Greek Philosophy: Perspectives and Reverberations

Editors: 
Karyn Lai, Rick Benitez, Hyun Jin Kim

Publication date:
December 2018

Publisher:
Bloomsbury

Abstract:
This book engages in cross-tradition scholarship, investigating the processes associated with cultivating or nurturing the self in order to live good lives. Both Ancient Chinese and Greek philosophers provide accounts of the life lived well: a Confucian junzi, a Daoist sage and a Greek phronimos.

By focusing on the processes rather than the aims of cultivating a good life, an international team of scholars investigate how a person develops and practices a way of life especially in these two traditions. They look at what is involved in developing practical wisdom, exercising reason, cultivating equanimity and fostering reliability. Drawing on the insights of thinkers including Plato, Confucius, Han Fei and Marcus Aurelius, they examine themes of harmony, balance and beauty, highlight the different concerns of scepticism across both traditions, and discuss action as an indispensable method of learning and, indeed, as constitutive of self. The result is a valuable collection opening up new lines of inquiry in ethics, demonstrating the importance of philosophical ideas from across cultural traditions.

Table of Contents:

Introduction (Karyn Lai, Rick Benitez, Hyun Jin Kim)

Part I: Harmony, Balance, Beauty: Understanding Conceptions of Cultivation

1. Cultivation and Harmony: Plato and Confucius (Rick Benitez, University of Sydney, Australia)

2. Cultivating Noble Simplicity: Plato (L.M.J. Coulson, University of Sydney, Australia)

3. The Beauty Ladder and the Mind-heart Excursion: Plato and Zhuangzi (Wang Keping, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing)

4. Awareness and Spontaneity: Three Perspectives in the Zhuangzi (Lisa Raphals, University of California, Riverside, USA)

5. Understanding “Dao's Patterns”: Han Fei (Barbara Hendrischke, Sydney University, Australia)

Part II: Doubt, Predicament, Conflict: Cognitive, Affective and Epistemic Difficulties

6. Skepsis and Doubt: Ancient Greece and the East (Yasuhira Yahei Kanayama, Nagoya University, Japan)

7. Wisdowm and Cognitive Conflict: Outlines for Scepticism (Per Lind, Lund University, Sweden)

8. Understanding Fortune and Misfortune in a Good Life: 'Solon' and 'Confucius' (Hyun Jin Kim, University of Melbourne, Australia and Karen Hsu, University of Melbourne, Australia)

9. Emotion and Self-Cultivation: Marcus Aurelius and Mengzi (Jesse Ciccotti, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong)

10. Dislodging Mundane Wisdom: the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi and the New Testament Gospels (Lauren Pfister, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong)

Part III. Here, Now, Ever-after: How to Achieve and Practice a Good Life

11. Knowing How to Act: Aristotle (Sophie Grace Chappell, Open University, UK)

12. Learning to be Reliable: Confucius' Analects (Karyn Lai, University of New South Wales, Australia)

13. Auditory Perception and Cultivation: the Wenzi (Andrej Fech, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong)

14. Cultivation and the Arts of Writing: Liu Xie (Will Buckingham, Open University, UK)

15. Death and Happiness: Han China (Mu-chou Poo, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)

Guicheng: An Archaeological Study of the Formation of States on the Jiaodong Peninsula in Late Bronze-Age China, 1000-500 BCE

Chief Editors: 
Li Feng, Liang Zhonghe

Editors: 
Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University
The Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Shandong Provincial Academy of Cultural Relics and Archaeology

Publisher:
Beijing: Science Press

Publication date:
2018.10

Abstract:

Guicheng is an important Bronze-Age city-site of 8 km2 located in Longkou in eastern Shandong. Guicheng enjoyed a high degree of political dominance and cultural diversity until its conquest by the state of Qi in 567 BCE. This Chinese-English full-text bilingual monograph presents the results of the international collaborative archaeological survey and test excavations conducted by Columbia University, the Institute of Archaeology (CASS), and the Shandong Provincial Academy of Cultural Relics and Archaeology in 2007-2011. The book has two volumes: Volumes I includes ten chapters that describe the fieldwork and its results, and related analyses. Volume 2 includes five chapters that review the archaeological discoveries made at the city-site and the surrounding region in 1896-2006, mainly of bronzes, ceramics, and jade objects. 

The book also has three appendices: I. “C14 Dating of the Guicheng City-Site”; II. “Results of Flotation at the Guicheng City-Site”; III. “Animal Remains Discovered during the 2009 Test Excavations”.

Table of Contents:

绪论 李峰 梁中合 (1)

上编

第一章 自然地理环境和地域文化背景 梁中合 (29)

第二章 内城城墙的钻探 唐锦琼 韩辉 李峰 (62)

第三章 内城及城外建筑基址的钻探 韩辉 (102)

第四章 外城城墙的勘察 唐锦琼 (196)

第五章 内城的试掘 徐明江 (321)

第六章 归城全覆盖地面采样调查 李峰 贝丽姿 (478)

第七章 黄水河流域的区域考古调查 梁中合 (565)

第八章 归城考古中的地理配准及钻探数据管理 Jeremiah Trinidad-Christensen 侯昱文(Paul Nicholas Vogt) (641)

第九章 归城陶器的岩相学分析 James B.Stoltman (665)

第十章 构建边缘文化：归城陶器分析 李峰 (689)

下编

第一章 2002年归城内城北部和平村遗址的发掘 赵娟 孙兆锋 (749)

第二章 归城及周边区域青铜器的考古发现与研究综述 王富强 闫旭东 刁鹏 (789)

第三章 归城城址历年出土青铜器调查综述(1980—2010) 刘玉涛 马志敏 (823)

第四章 归城遗址历年发现青铜器出土经过的调查综述 蒋惠民 唐锦琼 (882)

第五章 归城考古的收获和胶东半岛青铜器时代的社会变迁 李峰 (920)

附录

附录一 山东龙口归城城址的碳十四测定 张雪莲 (987)

附录二 山东烟台龙口归城城址浮选结果 赵志军 (988)

附录三 山东龙口市归城城址2009年试掘出土动物遗存研究 李志鹏 任乐乐 TomA Stidham (1001)

Early China 41 (2018) 《古代中國》第41期

Table of Contents:

Letter from the Editor
SARAH ALLAN

OBITUARIES

Jao Tsung-I (Rao Zongyi) 饒宗頤 (1917–2018)
CHEN ZHI and ADAM SCHWARTZ

Gerhard Schmitt (1933–2017)
WOLFGANG BEHR

Zhang Zhongpei 張忠培 (1934–2017)
KATHERYN LINDUFF

ARTICLES

History as Future—Time, Prediction, and Historical Narrative
in the Zuo zhuan
PIOTR GIBAS

Poetry, “The Metal-bound Coffer,” and the Duke of Zhou
KUAN-YUN HUANG

The Zhou xun 周訓 and “Elevating the Worthy” (shang xian 尚賢)
ANDREJ FECH

Sacrifice vs. Sustenance: Food as a Burial Good in Late
Pre-Imperial and Early Imperial Chinese Tombs
and Its Relation to Funerary Rites
ARMIN SELBITSCHKA

Single- and Multi-Piece Manuscripts in Early Imperial China:
On the Background and Significance of a
Terminological Distinction
THIES STAACK

Overgrown Courtyards and Tilled Fields: Image-Based Debates on Governance and Body Politics in the Mengzi, Zhuangzi, and Huainanzi
TOBIAS BENEDIKT ZÜRN

Wanton Goddesses to Unspoken Worthies: Gendered Hermeneutics in the Chu ci zhangju
MONICA E. M. ZIKPI

Identifying the Textual Sources of Shi ji: Reviewing Past
Research for a More Encompassing Methodology
TREVER MCKAY

[Dissertation] Mining, Trade and State Formation in Early China

Author:
SHI, Tao 石濤

Defended:
2018

School:
University of California, Los Angeles

Abstract:

This dissertation aims at exploring the trade strategy and center-periphery relations in the process of state formation in early China. The focus is the Longshan and Erlitou periods (ca. 2300–1520 BCE). Instead of a center-based perspective, this research focuses on peripheries and discusses the impact of peripheral societies on the formation of the political-economic landscape of early states. By taking resource extraction and distribution as a departure point, I discuss the production modes, economic forms and social contexts in three resource-rich regions, which were significant sources of key resources in early China. Based on my estimation on scales of mining and mining landscapes, I argue that turquoise and copper mining and mining-related productions were all local, small-scale and village-based activities during the two periods. The current evidence shows that early states did not place direct control over resource extraction and distribution in these peripheral regions. Moreover, based on the arguments and comparative cases in other regions of the world, I further argue that the strategy of resource procurement of early states was never monopolistic. Rather, the Longshan and Erlitou-period states adopted a decentralized strategy to procure key resources. By considering Erlitou as a phenomenon of regeneration after Longshan collapses, I argue that the center-periphery relations maintained a strong continuity in this transitional period.

Table of Contents:

1 Introduction
2 Geographical background
3 Setting the stage: the transition to Chinese Bronze Age
4 Towards a comparative perspective
5 Mining and archaeology in the western Shangluo Corridor
6 Mining and archaeology in the eastern Shangluo Corridor
7 Metallurgical industries in the Jinnan and Middle Yangzi regions: a comparison
8 Discussion

The Emergence of Civilizational Consciousness in Early China: History Word by Word

Author:
Uffe Bergeton

Publisher:
Routledge

Publication date:
October 2018

Abstract:

This book provides a conceptual history of the emergence of civilizational consciousness in early China. Focusing on how words are used in pre-Qín (before 221 BCE) texts to construct identities and negotiate relationships between a 'civilised self' and 'uncivilised others', it provides a re-examination of the origins and development of these ideas.

By adopting a novel approach to determining when civilizational consciousness emerged in pre-Qín China, this book analyzes this question in ways that establish a fresh hermeneutical dialogue between Chinese and modern European understandings of 'civilization.' Whereas previous studies have used archaeological data to place its origin somewhere between 3000 BCE and 1000 BCE, this book explores changes in word meanings in texts from the pre-Qín period to reject this view. Instead, this book dates the emergence of civilizational consciousness in China to around 2,500 years ago. In the process, new chronologies of the coining of Old Chinese terms such as ‘customs,’ ‘barbarians,’ and ‘the Great ones,’ are proposed, which challenge anachronistic assumptions about these terms in earlier studies.

Examining important Chinese classics, such as the Analects, the Mencius and the Mozi, as well as key historical periods and figures in the context of the concept of ‘civilization,’ this book will useful to students and scholars of Chinese and Asian history.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. The Coining of Civilizational Consciousness in Modern Western Europe

2. From ‘Awe-Inspiringly Beautiful’ to ‘Morally Refined’— The Coining of ‘Civility’ in Pre-Qín China

3. Coiners and Critics of ‘Civility/Civilization’ (Wén)

4. Inventing the ‘Barbarian’: From ‘Belligerent Others’ to ‘Civilizationally Inferior Others’

5. Ethnographic Vocabulary of Civilizational Otherness: The ‘Elegant’ ‘Rites’ of the ‘Great Ones’ Versus the ‘Vulgar’ ‘Customs’ of the ‘Barbarians’

Conclusion

The Grand Scribe's Records, Volume I： The Basic Annals of Pre-Han China

Editor:
William H. Nienhauser, Jr.

Translators:
Weiguo Cao, Zhi Chen, Scott Cook, Hongyu Huang, Bruce Knickerbocker, Wang Jing, Zhang Zhenjun and Zhao Hua

Publisher: 
Indiana University Press

Publication date: 
October 2018

Table of Contents:

Introduction
On Using This Book
A Note on Chronology
Weights and Measures
List of Abbreviations

The Five Emperors, Basic Annals One
The Hsia, Basic Annals Two
The Yin, Basic Annals Three
The Chou, Basic Annals Four
The Ch’in, Basic Annals Five
The First Emperor of Ch’in, Basic Annals Six
Hsiang Yu, Basic Annals Seven

Social Memory and State Formation in Early China

Author:
Min Li 李旻

Publisher:
Cambridge University Press

Publication Date:
May 2018

Abstract:

In this book, Li Min proposes a new paradigm for the foundation and emergence of the classical tradition in early China, from the late Neolithic through the Zhou period. Using a wide range of historical and archaeological data, he explains the development of ritual authority and particular concepts of kingship over time in relation to social memory. His volume weaves together the major benchmarks in the emergence of the classical tradition, particularly how legacies of prehistoric interregional interactions, state formation, urban florescence and collapse during the late third and the second millenniums BCE laid the critical foundation for the Sandai 三代 notion of history among Zhou elite. Moreover, the literary-historical accounts of the legendary Xia Dynasty in early China reveal a cultural construction involving social memories of the past and subsequent political elaborations in various phases of history. This volume enables a new understanding on the long-term processes that enabled a classical civilization in China to take shape.

Table of Contents:

Foreword
1. Wen Ding 問鼎: gaging the weight of political power
2. Frames of reference: multiple classifications of space
3. Before the Central Plains: the pinnacle of Neolithic development
4. The Longshan 龍山 transition: political experimentation and expanding horizons
5. The rise of the Luoyang Basin and the production of the first bronze Ding vessels
6. The rise of the Henei Basin and the limit of Shang hegemony
7. The rise of the Guanzhong Basin and the birth of history
8. The world of Yu's tracks: a blueprint for political experimentation
9. Conclusion: the emergence of the classical tradition

The Nivison Annals: Selected Works of David S. Nivison on Early Chinese Chronology, Astronomy, and Historiography

Editor:
Adam C. Schwartz

Publisher:
De Gruyter

Publication date:
July 2018

Abstract:

In his last essay just weeks before his death at the age of 91, David S. Nivison says, "Breaking into a formal system - such as a chronology - must be like breaking into a code. If you are successful, success will show right off." Since the late 1970's Nivison has focused his scholarship on breaking the code of Three Dynasties (Xia, Shang, Zhou) chronology by establishing an innovative methodology based on mourning periods, astronomical phenomenon, and numerical manipulations derived from them. Nivison is most readily known in the field for revising (and then revising again) the date of the Zhou conquest of Shang, and for his theory that Western Zhou kings employed two calendars (His so-called "Two yuan" theory), the second being set in effect upon the death of the new king's predecessor and counted from the completion of post-mourning rites for him (i.e., a "second 'first' year").

Nivison's enabling discovery that the Bamboo Annals (BA) had a historical basis was initially designed to make Wang Guowei's analysis of lunar phase terms (the so-called "Four quarter" theory that separated each month into four quarters) work for Western Zhou bronze inscriptions. In order to do so he had to assume that some inscriptions used a second yuan counted from completion of mourning. The king's death was the most important event late in a reign, so this implied that a king's reign-of-record was normally counted from the second yuan, omitting initial mourning years. It follows that when the unexpressed mourning years are forgotten (or edited out) but the dates of the beginning and end of the dynasty are still known, the remaining reigns-of-record cluster toward the beginning and end, and a reign in the middle is enlarged.

Problems, ideas, and solutions like the one described above are found throughout this new collection of important works on chronology, astronomy, and historiography.

Table of Contents:

Preface

1.The He zun Inscription and the Beginning of Zhou
Pages 1-16

2.Supplement to the “The ‘Question’ Question”— British Museum Scapula and British Museum Library Deer Horn
Pages 17-21

3. The King and the Bird: a Possible Genuine Shang Literary Text and Its Echoes in Later Philosophy and Religion
Pages 22-28

4. The Hampers of Zeng: Some Problems in Archaeoastronomy
Pages 29-41

5.New Study of Xiaotun Yinxu Wenzi Jiabian (小屯殷墟文字簡編) 2416
Pages 42-54

6. Research Notes On Yin Li Chronology per Zheng Xuan
Pages 55-61

7. A Tell-tale Mistake in the Lü shi Chunqiu 呂氏春秋: The Earthquake Supposedly in the Eighth Year of Wen Wang of Zhou
Pages 62-68

8. The Origin of the Chaochen Rule
Pages 69-83

9. A New Analysis of the Guoyu 國語 Astrological Text
Pages 84-101

10. Qingming Day, 1040 BC
Pages 102-115

11. Kong Jia of Xia, 1577–1569 BC
Pages 116-127

12. Shaughnessy’s Slip
Pages 128-134

13. Review of Sun, Xiaochun, and Jacob Kistemaker, The Chinese Sky during the Han: Constellating Stars and Society
Pages 135-141

14. Zhang Peiyu on the Dayuan Li yi and the “Jinben” Zhushu jinian 竹書紀年
Pages 142-162

15. The 1046 Hypothesis
Pages 163-194

16. Huang Di 黃帝 to Zhi Bo 岐伯: A Problem in Historical Epistemology
Pages 195-201

17. Was Warring States China Ahead of Greece in Science?
Pages 202-207

18. Notes on Royal Ontario Museum, White Collection, #1908
Pages 208-210

19. 90th Birthday Address
Pages 211-219

20.Two yuan and Four quarters
Pages 220-238

21. The “31 Years” Problem
Pages 239-255

22. The Nivison-Shaughnessy Debate on the Bamboo Annals (Zhushu jinian)
Pages 256-285

23.Important Discoveries and Bad Mistakes
Pages 286-297

Reading the Signs: Philology, History, Prognostication: Festschrift for Michael Lackner

Editors:
Amelung, Iwo / Kurtz, Joachim

Publication Date:
2018

Publisher:
München Iudicium 

Abtract:

Over more than 40 years, the sinologist Michael Lackner has studied a broad range of issues in China’s past and present. On the occasion of his 65th birthday, this volume brings together essays from friends, collaborators, colleagues, and students dedicated to the three fields of research in which he has made his most lasting contributions: philology, the histories of science and thought, and the study of prognostication. Michael Lackner’s work in all these areas is connected by an intense engagement with “signs”—texts and images but also objects, dreams, portents and omens—and the semiotic, epistemic and political contexts in which they become meaningful. The 25 contributions presented here highlight the fertility of such a transdisciplinary approach. Reading signs in material, textual, and visual sources dating from 2000 BCE to the present, scholars from four continents address themes as diverse as early Chinese ritual and cosmology; imperial and modern Chinese poetry, prose and drama; Chinese alchemy, astronomy and mathematics; the theory and practice of divination and prognosis; as well as exegetical traditions, political rhetoric, and problems of translation. Many articles examine entanglements between China and the West and offer comparative perspectives on developments in Europe and the Islamicate world.

Table of Contents:

List of Publications by Michael Lackner 朗宓榭

To a Reader of Signs: A Dedication
Iwo Amelung and Joachim Kurtz

I. Philology

The Earliest Chinese Bells in Light of New Archaeological Discoveries
Lothar von Falkenhausen

Reading Newly Discovered Texts: Approaches to the Guodian Text “Zhongxin zhi dao” 忠信之道
Michael Schimmelpfennig

The Language of Heaven
Rudolf G. Wagner

Sage: An Unreadable Sign
Chu Pingyi

Du Fu’s Long Gaze Back: Fate, History, Heroism, Authorship
Martin Kern

Sources for his Chinese Book
Christoph Harbsmeier

The Chinese Traditional Method of “Full or Vacant Characters” and the Grammar of Port-Royal
Uchida Keiichi

The Formation of Modern Written Chinese: Writing Categories and Polysyllabic Words
Shen Guowei

How to Modernize Hermeneutics: Readings of Rilke’s Late Poems
Christoph König

II. History

Laozi and Internal Alchemy
Fabrizio Pregadio

Drunken Talk: Political Discourse and Alcohol Consumption during the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127 CE)
Dagmar Schäfer

Nara Singde, Assimilation, Acculturation, and Identity in the Early Qing
Erling von Mende

The Delayed “Triumph” of Yan Ruoqu’s Evidential Studies during the Qianlong Era
Benjamin A. Elman

Scientific News or Prognostic Interpretation: Chinese Records of the 1874 Transit of Venus
Lü Lingfeng

Local Refractions of a Global Concept
Joachim Kurtz

The Role of Alchemy in Constructing the Chinese Scientific Tradition
Iwo Amelung

Being Modern without the West? On the Futility of Self-Assertion in Chinese Thought
Marc A. Matten

Numbers as Signs: Conceptual Entanglements between Mathematics, Divination, and Language in the Modern Era
Andrea Bréard

III. Prognostication

Mis-reading the Signs, or: Theorizing Divination— Chinese and Greek
Lisa A. Raphals

Prognostication and Christianity in the Early Middle Ages
Klaus Herbers

Anxiety and Fear: Hexagrams “Ge” (49) and “Ding” (50) in the Zhouyi daquan
Tze-ki Hon

„An jenem Tag“. Über Prognose im Koran
Georges Tamer

Divination and Globalization: Some Comparative Perspectives on Geomancy in Premodern East Asia
Richard J. Smith

A Future Written in the Past: Prognostication in Diary Novels of Republican China
Carsten Storm

Fate, Freedom, and Will in European and Chinese Discourses on Chinese Tragedies
Natascha Gentz