[Dissertation] Effects of Food Preparation and Labor Organizations on Domesticated Millet in Ancient China (8000-1000 BP)

Author: Yufeng Sun

School: Washington University in St. Louis

Year: 2023

Abstract:

One of the most remarkable developments in Eurasian archaeology in the last 15 years has been the evidence of movements of domesticated crops and livestock across continents thousands of years before the historical "silk road." Considerable intellectual energy has been devoted to understanding the chronology and routes of a process considered as "food globalization in prehistory," which has generated much recent discussions. However, less is known about the context in which farming dispersals arose and the role of human agency in both the globalization and domestication process. Human engagement in food production and consumption is both biological and social, with moral implications. 

The expressive and communicative aspect of food is often used to signify social boundaries, including hierarchy, exclusion, and performance. Such dynamics are more commonly explored in cultural anthropology with regard to more recent times. They have been less investigated in projected archaeology, despite great potential when inquiry is directed by productive questions. 

This dissertation focuses on domestication and the underlying social process of early cultivation of foxtail (Setaria italica) and broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum). Both species were first cultivated in northern China and expanded across Asia by the second millennium BC. 

I investigated the everyday practices related to the cultivation, production, and consumption of millets, with a focus on morphological variations and isotopic properties shaped by culinary traditions and labor organizations in ancient northern China. To explore the underlying cultural and culinary conditions of millet domestication and early dispersals, I compiled over 3000 millet measurements from 145 archaeological sites across China and neighboring regions dating from 5000-2000 BCE. 

The findings suggest that millet grains increased in size as they dispersed from their North China origin to Inner Asian Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau. This suggests that there was a geographic separation between the grains and the cooking techniques that were associated with them. As millet moved towards the west, larger grains became more common in the grinding-and-baking system of Inner Asia, whereas smaller grains were preferred in the East Asian tripod steaming-and-boiling cooking systems. 

This division is consistent with the modern genetic variations of millet taxa based on their stickiness. This investigation revealed the tension between the fluidity of food materials and the rigidity of culinary traditions as food habits, the latter of which were inculcated and perpetuated through every practice and insusceptible to cultural change. 

To investigate millet cultivation strategies corresponding to labor organizations in changing historical conditions, I engaged with recent archaeological discoveries in the Chifeng region to explore how millet cultivation strategies were shaped by social conditions. I conducted plant isotope analysis on archaeological millet samples from over 20 sites dating to a broad span of time periods from the Neolithic to the historic Liao Dynasty (around 8000 BP to 1000 BP). 

The results indicate that during the Lower Xiajiadian Culture in the second millennium BCE, an intensive agricultural system with high labor input per unit of area was employed, possibly due to the growth of the population during that time. In contrast, during the Upper Xiajiadian and Warring State periods in the first millennium BCE, an extensive system is observed with relatively less labor input per area unit, as documented by depleted soil conditions. The observed pattern corresponded to a period of settlement disaggregation, likely indicating growing pastoral activities in subsistence strategies, as suggested by the material connection with the nomadic groups in the eastern Eurasian Steppe. 

To further articulate the crop management strategies with finer details, I chose to focus my archaeological investigation at Erdaojingzi (ca. 3500 BP), a well-preserved Lower Xiajiadian cultural site. Combined crop processing analysis and stable isotopic analysis demonstrated a household-based economy concerning restricted sharing among family members, resonating with traditional smallholders in ethnographic records. In addition, isotopic and morphological evidence conjointly revealed multi-seasonal harvesting strategy as household-based land tenure ship in the Bronze Age. It is the first time these processes were documented in archaeology with convincing measurables.

[Dissertation] Taming Metals : the Use of Leaded Bronze in Early China, 2000-1250 Bc

Author:
Huan, Limin

School:
University of Oxford (United Kingdom) 

Year:
2021
30216883

Abstract:
It has long been known that leaded bronze, an alloy consisting primarily of copper with the addition of tin and lead, was widely used in early China, starting from around the second millennium BC. The additional lead distinguishes this metal from common bronze, the copper-tin binary alloy, used by most other Early Metal Age civilisations in Eurasia. The reasons behind the use of leaded bronze have not been fully examined in previous literature. In this thesis, the discussion of metallurgical technologies and the studies on material properties are combined with four case studies of early metal-using communities to reinvestigate the use of leaded bronze in early China. With this approach, the thesis challenges the wide held notion that lead was consciously added by the craftspeople, mainly to facilitate the casting. Instead, I argue that the widespread of leaded bronze objects was mainly due to both the socio-economic concerns in making bronze ritual vessels in Central China and the recycling and reuse of the metals by other communities around Central China. Moreover, the seemingly common use of leaded bronze does not reflect a uniform acceptance of a single set of knowledge and know-how. Rather, people in different communities responded differently to this new material and chose to engage it in different ways. This study on leaded bronze provides us with a new perspective to recognise the complexity and diversity of technology and material culture in early Chinese communities. Meanwhile, through the active discussion on the theoretical frameworks and research methods for archaeometallurgy and material culture studies, I also suggest approaches which may be useful in future studies of early metallurgy and other craft production.

[Dissertation] Philological Botany: The Poetics of Plant Classification in Early China and Japan

Author:

Loren Waller

School:

Yale University

Year:

2023

30312999

Abstract: 

Flowering plants are a primary topic in Chinese and Japanese poetry, often used figuratively to express human emotions. Over time, as poets alluded to earlier works, these plants developed conventional metaphorical meanings. It is natural that such meanings would shift over time, but what is also striking is that historical understandings of the plants themselves, as well as the names used for the plants, also changed over time. An examination of three case studies will show how the identities of these plants changed over time as they were collected within literary texts and commentaries.
Chapter 1 on the hibiscus (Ch. mujin; J. asagaho, kikkyō, kenikoshi, mukuge) demonstrates the broad diversity of different flowers that share the same name, as well as the references to this ambiguity within some poetic works themselves. This chapter also introduces the complexity of the textual commentary tradition and considers how texts may be interpreted through reading between the lines of commentaries on literary works.

Chapter 2 on the orange tree (Ch. ju; J. tachibana) shows how the trope of regional loyalty to southern China changed as it was adopted in Japan. More than other plants with a shared cultural heritage between China and Japan, the Japanese tachibana developed dominant allusive connotations based on a well-known poem in the Kokinwakashū (905). Still, Chinese examples were not unknown in Japan, and it is productive to consider how Japanese texts might be reinterpreted considering alternative pretexts.

Chapter 3 on the plum looks at how a plant marked as representative of China became domesticated in Japan over time. While there are no plum poems in the Kojiki (712), Nihonshoki (720), or the early period of the Man’yōshū, plum poems and banquets suddenly became popular around the time of a well-known plum banquet at the residence of Ōtomo no Tabito in 730, making plums the second most popular plant in the Man’yōshū poetic anthology. The proliferation was so thorough that plum poems were anachronistically attributed to earlier times. The most extreme case was one commentary’s claim that the plum was the subject of the famous Naniwazu poem, which was also associated with an encounter with a Wani, a scribe from Paekche who was said to have brought writing in Japan in the early fifth century. Another wonderous tale of the plum is the famous flying plum of the apotheosized statesman-poet Sugawara no Michizane (845-903), whose plum tree from Kyoto uprooted and flew to be with him when he was exiled to Dazaifu. Such narratives show how the plum could be seen as a representative Japanese plant.

In addition to tracing the literary history of these important plant tropes, this study also offers cases studies of how plant metaphors are used in cases when the identities of the plants themselves change over time, between languages, or between genres.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Chapter 1. Of the Hibiscus and Fleeting Faces
Chapter 2. Of Orange Trees and Transplantation
Chapter 3. Of Plums and Origins

[Dissertation] Art of Changes: Material Imagination in Early China, c. Third to First Century BCE

Author:

Liu, Ziliang

Year: 

2022

School: 

Harvard University

Abstract:
This dissertation examines the efficacy of material and its impact on early imperial Chinese art. Focusing on a selection of important artworks in jade, bronze, glass, and mercury, I explore how the re-conceptualization of the materials in the Qin (221–206 BCE) and the Western Han (202 BCE–9 CE) profoundly shaped the design and the production of the innovative artworks in the period, while setting new expectations for the relationship between the object and the body. In particular, I highlight the great convergence of artisanal practices and the fangshu 方術 “technical arts” or “occult methods” in the context of court art production. I argue that this body of specialized knowledge played a vital role in the artisanal effort to evoke and harness the power of materials, either through a theoretical re-interpretation of the material’s physical qualities or through symbolic encryptions of the craft process. In doing so, I scrutinize art in early imperial China as a fundamentally intellectualized effort that at once discovered, imitated, and challenged the workings of nature, the process of the zaohua 造化 “Great Transformation.”
The first chapter examines the jade burial suit of Liu Sheng 劉勝, the King Jing of Zhongshan 中山靖王 (d. 113 BCE), which paradoxically mimics his naked body. In the context of the re-imagination of the hardstone as a fluid, ethereal matter capable of corporeal morphing, I uncover the deep ties between the suit’s peculiar design and important ideals in period medical theory, particularly the concept of the “jade body.” Focusing on an oversized bronze dressing mirror excavated in the tomb of Liu He 劉賀 (d. 59 BCE), the Marquis of Haihun 海昏侯, the second chapter demonstrates how methodological encryption of bronze metallurgy, from the selection of raw metals to the process of casting, transformed the alloy into a cosmic matter capable of summoning spirits and healing the body, while also developing a “human dimension” of the material. In light of new findings in conservation science and technical studies, the third chapter scrutinizes a group of translucent glass artifacts from the second century BCE to explore the connection between lead-barium glassmaking and early Chinese alchemy and pharmacology, which imbued glass with cosmic and macrobiotic potencies that in turn inspired the rise of glass vessels and a unique ancient color technology. Following the lead on alchemy, the fourth chapter reveals how a set of fire-gilt metalwork, in evoking the touch of mercury, visually enacted the evolution of the liquid metal toward solid, incorruptible gold in early Chinese imagination, a powerful allegory for corporeal immortalization that enchanted their royal patrons.

The four case studies offer insights into aspects of ancient Chinese culture unavailable through the study of texts alone, while sensitizing us to the materially-based, fangshu-driven artisanal practices and the body-centric modes of perception. In this way, this study aims to contribute to the broader discourses on the efficacy of material in the art of the ancient world, especially how materials mediated ideas — philosophical, religious, political — and in the case of early China presented in this study, the formless cosmic change itself.

[Dissertation] Gifts from afar : the creation of an imperial lapdog in Tang-Song China

Author:
Granger, Kelsey

Year: 
2022

School:
University of Cambridge

Abstract:
This thesis directly addresses a significant gap in the fields of sinology and pet studies by exploring pre-modern Chinese pet-keeping practices in detail for the first time in either discipline. More specifically, this thesis centres on the social and economic practice of lapdog-keeping across the seventh to twelfth centuries, i.e. the Tang and Northern Song dynasties. Not only does this study provide an adapted framework for identifying pets in medieval China, but the formation of a definitive corpus of lapdog references from this timeframe closely defines what a lapdog was and what it did, moving beyond prior cursory research into these diminutive trick-dogs. Analysis of how humans talked about, with, and through the lapdog further asserts the relevance of pets in the study of human history - revealing the lapdog to be a potent metonym for women and a medium for articulating male sexual desire. In sharing intimate human spaces and emotions as a living treasure, childhood playmate, and female companion, the lapdog thus uncovers nuanced insight into medieval elite culture. When considering the later trajectory of the lapdog in the Song period, we see an entire industry dedicated to producing and selling ornamental animals and animal accessories. Pets were not just emotional beings but economic products, shaped by the shifting socioeconomic dynamics of commercialisation and commodification. The lapdog, China's first systematic pet, was both a physical creature and an abstract site of complementary, contradicting, and competing meanings. With relevance to the study of medieval Chinese animal studies; early childhood; the male gaze; female isolation; animal commodification; aesthetic connoisseurship; and the writing of official historiography, this thesis reaffirms that the history of humanity cannot truly be written without including the animals which shared their most intimate lives.

[Dissertation] Les registres divinatoires et sacrificiels du royaume de Chu au IV e siècle avant notre ère (The divinatory and sacrificial registers of the kingdom of Chu in the fourth century B.C.)

Author:
Liang Zhong

School:
École Pratique des Hautes Études

Year:

2022

Abstract:
This dissertation focuses on Chu divinatory and sacrificial records, and more precisely on one category of practical documents from the 4th century BC’s Chu Kingdom. This unique collection of written records was found in tombs. Since 1965, 12 tombs occupied by individuals from different social origins have brought light to these documents. These mantic and sacrificial activities were conducted to ensure the improvement of the client’s career or health. Firstly, after examining the archaeological context, we analyze the composition of the divinatory and sacrificial records. Then we focused on historical actors such as diviners, persons in charge of sacrifices, scribes and clients, after which we examine divinatory and iatromantic knowledge and skills, as well as ancestors and divinities. Finally, we trace the production procedure of some divinatory registers coming from the best preserved corpus. This study intends to contribute to a better understanding of divinatory practices without direct link with the Yijing (Book of mutations). To a lesser extent, our research is a systematic review of the evolution of one type of practical document produced by a community of diviners without official organization before the unification of China in 221 BC.

You can download his dissertation here:

https://college-de-france.hal.science/tel-04085570/

[Dissertation] The Politics of Ecological Memory: Changes in Human-Animal Relationships from the Neolithic to Early Bronze Age in the Middle Huai River Valley, Anhui Province, China

Author: 

Ko, Wing Tung Jada

School: 

Harvard University

Year: 

2022

Abstract:

In the world we currently live in, we hear about the loss of a slice of biodiversity almost every day. Meanwhile, stories about the repopulation and even overpopulation of some species make us question why certain living organisms are more susceptible to extinction than the others. While not a single explanation or narrative characterizes the disappearance of an infinite array of life forms, as a zooarchaeologist whose work involves bringing back to our living memories animals that no longer exist or no longer exist in their archaic forms, I cannot help but wonder if the survival of a species has anything to do with how it is conceptualized and remembered by human societies. 

My dissertation dissects the meanings, implications, and workings of what I have coined the Politics of Ecological Memory to address this concern. The term deals with the intersections between power dynamics, social memory, and human-animal relationships. It highlights the correlations between the political means by which certain animals are (to be) remembered, the survival of these animals, and the socio-cultural developments and survival of human societies. I argue that the Politics of Ecological Memory is a ubiquitous process in societies at different socio-political scales in both the present and the past, and bring together zooarchaeological analyses with historical and ethnographic research to reconstruct the longue durée of human interactions with animals and the environments within which they live, with a focus in the geo-political boundaries defining China today. 

The central focus of empirical discussions concerns archaeofaunal datasets from three archaeological sites namely Xiaosungang (5200-4800 B.C.), Nanchengzi (3100-1450 B.C.), and Taijiasi (1400-1250 B.C.) located in the middle reaches of the Huai River in Anhui Province. Using these data, I reconstruct the processes by which animals were transformed from inherent members of the biosphere to mnemonic devices that served the needs to construct and sustain different forms of power relations among and between societies. Through these processes, many animals were extracted and anthropogenically reproduced to maintain stable sources of social power. Rather than a linear narrative about how animals are remembered and serve similar political functions, I demonstrate through zooachaeological and historical evidence that the political significance of animals is constantly invented and re-invented, and can even be completely forgotten as human and animal niches overlap. I conclude the dissertation by providing the example of the changing roles various species of freshwater turtles played in China through time to point out how, despite changes in political agendas since prehistory in relation to which these animals were attributed with changing social values, these changes can have lingering effects on the survival of the animals in the long-run. 

This dissertation is an attempt to not only begin a conversation questioning how social memory and politics affect the integrity of the biosphere from the perspective of zooarchaeology, but also provide answers to the question “what it means to lose a species?” particularly in the world we live in today.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 Introduction: Embracing my Inner Biophilia

Chapter 2 The Becoming of a Political Animal

Chapter 3 Visualizing the Anhui Middle Huai River Valley (AMHRV)

Chapter 4 The Beginning of a Political Relationship with the Biosphere in the AMHRV:

Zooarchaeological Analysis of Xiaosungang (5200-4600 B.C.)

Chapter 5 Growing Interactions Beyond the AMHRV: Zooarchaeological Analysis of

Nanchengzi (3100-1450 B.C.)

Chapter 6 Animals as Local Sources of State Power: Zooarchaeological Analysis of Taijiasi

(1400-1250 B.C.)

Chapter 7 Pathways to the Politics of Ecological Memory in the AMHRV

Chapter 8 Turtles and their Changing Roles in the AMHRV and Beyond

Chapter 10 Conclusions: Stepping Back into Nature

Preparing one’s act: performance supports and the question of human nature in early China

Author:

Maddalena Poli

School:

University of Pennsylvania

Year:

2022

Abstract:

Since the 20th century, Chinese institutions have been recovering a growing number of ancient objects, among which figure manuscripts produced during the Warring States (453–221 BCE) era. These are the protagonists of this dissertation. Chapter one articulates the overarching goal of my study: the importance of rigorous philological and intellectual engagement to promote the significance of these manuscripts in and beyond the study of early Chinese history. In Chapter two, I analyze manuscripts produced around 300 BCE as what I call “performance supports,” rather than self-contained philosophical and historical essays. My notion of “performance supports” incorporates observations about the composite nature of early Chinese manuscripts, but better accounts for other textual features, such as errors, abrupt endings, list-like passages, etc. Chapter three discusses the implications of my argument. I show how performance supports were used in practices of knowledge management that relied on, but went beyond, the written medium. I explore oratory, recitation, literary compositions, and writings used to organize and retrieve knowledge. I then compare performance supports to other Warring States texts, so as to highlight the peculiarities of both groups and confirm that the concept of performance support is not an ad-hoc solution. Chapter four focuses on the performance support *Natural Dispositions Come from Endowment 性自命出, and reconstructs ways in which this manuscript functioned as the basis for central philosophical debates on “human nature” (xing 性) during the Warring States period. The dissertation is completed by a new philological study of *Natural Dispositions.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

CHAPTER ONE. Setting The Stage

CHAPTER TWO. Ancient Chinese Manuscripts As Performance Supports

CHAPTER THREE. The Performance. How performance supports were used, and by whom

CHAPTER FOUR. The Warring States debate on human nature

Concluding remarks

[Dissertation] Cosmology, Fashion, and Good Fortune: Chinese Auspicious Ornament in the Han Dynasty (206 BC–AD 220)

Author:
Wang, Shengyu

School:
University of Oxford

Year: 

2020

Abstract: 
This thesis studies 'auspicious ornament' in the tombs of Han dynasty China. It offers a new reading of highly decorated tombs found near the two imperial capital cities, Chang'an (Western Han) and Luoyang (Eastern Han), and the elite tombs in central and eastern China. The thesis argues that a system of varied decorations, motifs, and materials developed in the Han dynasty as a means to convey good wishes and engender favourable outcomes, such as protection and well-being in the afterlife, immortality, and blessings for offspring. It interprets the significance, functions, relevant historical perspectives, and symbolic associations of ornament in China through an account of ornamentation on murals, carvings, jade, and gold objects in tombs, which are contextualised within the cosmological and philosophical background of the Han period. The transition to using more auspicious ornament in the Han period was related to the formation of correlative cosmology around the third century BC and Confucian rationalisation in the Western Han court, as well as other factors, including increasing concerns about an ideal afterlife. This is demonstrated through a critical analysis of pre-Han and Han dynasty historical sources to highlight the ideological development, and a contextual archaeological approach to the development of burial forms, materials and structures. On this basis, the three main analytical chapters discuss ornament on murals, carvings, jade, and gold objects in Han tombs, all of which exhibit changes in their motifs and uses. The discussion compares relevant pre-Han discoveries to establish these changes and to reveal the potential origins of the auspicious ornament. The analysis also incorporates local and foreign traits in the material assemblage suggested to have been adapted by Han dynasty people as popular practices through communications both within the Empire and its border regions populated by outsiders. In addition, this thesis presents a theoretical interpretation of the material agency of objects to understand how ornament acted upon people, i.e. bringing auspiciousness. Overall, the thesis explores the Han repertoire of ornamental motifs which may have provided the basis for the development of the prominent concept of auspiciousness throughout Chinese art and culture.

[Dissertation] When the South Matters: Imagination of Chu and Canonization of Chuci (Verses of Chu)

Author:
Fu, Su 付蘇

Issue Date:
2019

School:
Princeton University

Abstract:

This dissertation investigates the construction of Chuci (a collection of poems purportedly written by the legendary figure Qu Yuan and his followers) as a southern anthology and literary tradition from Han (202 BCE- 220 CE) to Song (960-1279). It demonstrates that, rather than inherent in the text per se, the traits conventionally recognized as marks of the anthology’s southernness were cultural and political constructs with an agenda to articulate a southern identity for both state and literati. To that end, the dissertations examines the anthologizing practices, together with a close reading of commentaries, prefaces, letters, and imitations. The dissertation is divided into five chapters. Chapter One examines the Han compilation and valorization of Chuci in relation with Qu Yuan’s Chu identity. The trajectory of conception of Chuci through Six Dynasties (222-589) and Tang (618-907) are arranged thematically in three chapters. Each chapter probes one of the literary images of Chu—a symbol for displacement, a culture of lewd rites, and a fallen state—and its impact on the Chuci exegesis and assessment. The entire narrative ends in Chapter Five at the Song when previous proliferation of meaning and debates on the anthology’s value were transformed into a new country-wide recognition of its canonical status, with Southern Song literati identification of Chu as a tragic predecessor. In particular, by defining Chuci as a style exclusively bound to the southland, Southern Song literati claimed their exclusive ownership of the cultural heritage of the anthology and further implicitly claimed for the Song court’s cultural authority in the face of military threat from the northern nomads.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter One. Rise of Chu Anthology and Paragon in the Han Empire
Chapter Two. The Chu Sojourner and Chuci as a Voice of Plaint
Chapter Three. Elixir and Lust: Chuci as A Language of Desire
Chapter Four. A Perished State and A “Southern” Literary Style
Chapter Five. The Song Reappraisal and Regionalization: Chuci as a Heritage of the South

[Dissertation] The First Imperial Transition in China: A Microhistory of Jiangling (369 – 119 BCE)

Author:
Shen, Dewei

School:
Yale University 

Year:
2021. 

Abstract:

This dissertation challenges the dominant historical narrative about the rise of early Chinese empires, the Qin (221 – 206 BCE) and the Han (202 – 220 BCE), which tends to fixate on the grand strategy and military power of the conquerors while neglecting the agency of the conquered populations. To counteract this one-sided narrative, I investigate the area of Jiangling 江陵 in the middle Yangzi River region, where the capital of Chu 楚—then the most powerful state in South China—was located. Qin’s invasion of the Chu capital area in 278 BCE and Han’s takeover of it in 202 BCE make Jiangling an ideal case study for tracing how a former regional center responded to the rising imperial order from the mid-fourth through the second century BCE. Drawing on a wealth of new archaeological and manuscript evidence, this dissertation is among the first within early China studies to offer a locality-centered microhistory.

Chapter 1 analyzes the anatomy of this narrative, which I call the Great Unification—or dayitong 大一統—narrative. Chapter 2 examines settlement and architectural remains from Jinancheng 紀南城 and Yingcheng 郢城 to expose the reality of the Qin conquest. The available evidence suggests that the Qin invaders did not destroy indiscriminately but exercised violence strategically and relied on local know-how to fortify their colonial headquarters. Chapter 3 explores the changing mortuary landscape in Jiangling and the funeral workmen communities in particular. It argues that social change in postconquest Jiangling was the result of a series of negotiations between the native communities and the colonial governments, negotiations that were as constrained by local conditions as they were by imperial directives. Chapter 4 devises a funeral organizers-centered perspective to trace cultural shifts in Jiangling. Through a statistical analysis of the burial objects arranged by funeral organizers and their changing mortuary representations in tombs, the chapter reveals that cultural perceptions related to food and drink, personal property, and government service were deeply affected by the intrusion of Qin and Han modes of social organization. Chapter 5 scales up to a more macro level to analyze the institutional development of three rank systems, i.e., Qin, Neo-Chu, and Han. It discovers an important phenomenon called “rank inflation” and argues that the different ways of controlling rank inflation had a profound effect on Jiangling denizens. Chapter 6 utilizes a group of mortuary documents called gaodice 告地策 (“notifications to underworld authorities”) to focus on the lived experience of three widows of top rank-holders in Jianging, whose tombs were interred with such documents. The chapter reveals the tensions within newly emergent and liminal rank-related identities in the wake of the Han imperial incursion in Jiangling. In a brief conclusion, the dissertation offers some reflections on how to write the first imperial transition free from the Great Unification mantra.

[Dissertation] Tang Taizong's Playbook: Jin Shu and How to Use Standard Histories

Author:
Kobzeva, Maria. 

School:
The University of Wisconsin - Madison 

Year:

2019

Abstract:

The dissertation explores what the content and structure of the Jin shu 晉書 (History of Western and Eastern Jin Dynasties, 265–420) compilation revealed about political choices and self-representation of Tang Taizong (r. 626–649), the second emperor of the Tang dynasty (618–907). Emperor Taizong, himself of non-Chinese origins, was concerned with the question of legitimacy and future of his rule. By scrutinizing and closely interacting with the textual tradition, Taizong had sought to justify his right to rule and project an idealized image of himself as a righteous ruler. He standardized the methodical history writing and initiated a massive compilation project of the earlier dynastic histories. For one of them, the Jin shu, he personally wrote critical evaluations in the end of several chapters. Imperial participation in a scholarly compilation implied the importance and specific purpose attached to the work and the role of historiography in the political establishment.

The newly-established regimes, Jin and Tang, shared a number of similarities: a violent power takeover, unification of the empire, difficulties with the neighboring non-Han population, and problematic choice of an heir. The Jin shu provided the emperor with an advantageous, comparative framework between the two regimes in dealing with identical sensitive issues; where the mistakes of the Jin government led to its fall, Taizong’s decisions, albeit problematic, resulted in a peaceful reign. The Jin shu narrative of imperial failure corroborated the Tang emperor’s self-attribution as a perfect ruler who chose the right course of action for the sake of the country’s stability. The dissertation discusses how the similarities reflected main issues of concern of a newly founded Tang dynasty and revealed inconsistencies in Tang’s rhetoric of rationalization that challenged the uniformity of a purported portrait of Taizong and his reign. I argue that Tang Taizong’s continuous efforts to represent the idealized picture of his own rule and defend his choices essentially reflected his insecurities about his political legitimacy and self-identity.

[Dissertation] Writing History Through the Biographical Genre in the Han Dynasty (202 BCE – 220 CE).

Author:
Yuanxin CHEN

School:
Princeton University

Year:
2020

Abstract:

My dissertation focuses on one of the most prominent genres of historical writing in imperial China (221 BCE -1912 CE): biography. The life stories of figures from different social strata were compiled into the largest section of many Chinese dynastic histories: the “Arrayed Traditions” (liezhuan) or the “Traditions” (zhuan). As self-contained accounts devoted to individual lives, these biographies played a significant role in constructing Chinese imperial ideologies. My study traces back to the beginning of this biographical tradition. By focusing on the most important works of early imperial Chinese historiography, the Records of the Historian (Shiji) and the Documents of the Han Dynasty (Hanshu), I address how and why the biographical genre emerged as a prevalent form of narrative history over the course of the Han dynasty. 

My research shows that Han historiographers adopted the biographical genre to transform the ways in which historical knowledge was used in philosophical and sociopolitical debates; to provide balanced evaluations of people based on their qualities and deeds; and to develop diverse causes to explain the successes and failures in individual lives. Moreover, these purposes overlapped with the historiographers’ ambition to construct ideological “landscapes” for the Han dynasty. In particular, by compiling biographies of hundreds of individuals from different walks of life, the historiographers covered an unprecedentedly broad scope of sociopolitical issues. To address these issues, the historiographers evaluated individuals, who were often categorized into archetypes, to establish models of different social roles. They also provided moral justifications for individual successes and failures, which were intertwined with the rise and fall of clans and states, to prescribe ethical principles.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1: Transforming the Discourse of the Past
Chapter 2: Mastering the Art of “Knowing People”
Chapter 3: Prescribing Sociopolitical Norms through Character Evaluation
Chapter 4: Explaining the Ups and Downs in Individual Lives
Chapter 5: Promoting Sociopolitical Principles through the Rhetoric of Moral Causality
Chapter 6: Individuals in the Rise and Fall of Clans and States: Interactions between Biography, Annals, and Genealogy
Conclusion

[Dissertation] Funerary Lists from Early Chinese Shaft Tombs

Author:
Hui, SUN

School:
Heidelberg University

Submitted:
2019

Abstract:
This dissertation presents a new approach to the whole corpus of funerary lists from early Chinese shaft tombs (dating from the late 5th century BCE to the 1st century CE). While existing research almost exclusively interprets them as “tomb inventory lists”, I provide an alternative interpretation. Combining codicological, philological and archaeological data with archaeological and ethno-sociological theories, I argue that the lists were created as tools for short-term administration of material components (sometimes also animals and personal resources) in certain actions before the entombment.

Chapter 1 introduces the Chinese funerary lists discovered to date and offers an overview of the scholarship on the creation and usage of the lists from the early shaft tombs. Chapter 2 guides the reader through the archaeological theory of “field of action”, which I adapt slightly for my analysis of the creation and usage of the early lists. The introduction of this theory is followed by the establishment of a hypothetical model of the early Chinese funerary cycle based on transmitted texts. Furthermore, a combination of this theory with the classic ethnological concept of rites de passage will clarify the motivation of the creation of those lists. Chapter 3 presents a detailed case study of the lists from tomb no. 1 at Leigudun 擂鼓墩, the tomb of the renowned Marquis Yi of Zeng (died ca. 433 BCE) 曾侯乙. Chapter 4 introduces the perspectives of the analytical device “field of action” for approaching the remaining lists. In addition, the two latter chapters indicate that the lists considerably complement the hypothetical model of the funerary cycle. Finally, as a conclusion, the lists were no “tomb inventory lists”. Instead, they were created and used in short-term administration of certain fields of action. None of them describes the final organisational pattern of the tomb goods and most of them do not even describe the final organisational pattern of the resources in the individual pre-entombment actions. Their creation and usage were motivated by the wishes to smoothly transform the status of the deceased and the bereaved through various rites de passage. 

Therefore, my discoveries do not only contribute to the rational understanding of the funerary practices involving those lists, but also provide the basis for a fundamental and necessary reorientation in the philological and archaeological research of those lists.

[Dissertation] The Fallible Body in Early Medieval China

Author: 
Li, Xiaoxuan

Degree date: 
2020

School:
Harvard University

Abstract:
This dissertation examines one of the most important assumptions inherited by early medieval China: that the physical body functions as a valid and readable source of knowledge about individuals and the world they inhabit. It considers the continuity and evolution of this assumption during the period of the Six Dynasties (3rd - 6th centuries CE), and argues that it is contested across various genres of textual representation. I identify the emergence of a “fallible” body in three clusters of texts. First, I discuss how the late third century idea of “knowing others” (zhiren 知人) diverges from an earlier physiognomic tradition, and I interpret several rhapsodies (fu 賦) in the context of this zhiren paradigm. I explain their choice of rhetorical strategies, most centrally the conceit of a ventriloquized body part, as rooted in a challenge against the regime of interpreting one’s physical appearance for ability and status. Second, I examine the relationship between representations of the female body and knowledge of interior subjectivity in the rhapsody tradition from the Han (206 BCE-220 CE) through the Liang (502-557 CE), and locate in the shi (詩) poetry of the fifth and sixth centuries a new interest in the disjunction between the inherited literary discourse of this relationship and its basis in economic and social realities. Lastly, I discuss the motif of the anomalous body in zhiguai (志怪) collections, and through a comparison between Buddhist apologetic sources with more heterogenous compilations, show how certain tales question the status of bodily markings as evidence for both narrative and moral resolution.

[Dissertation] Empire-Building and Market-Making at the Qin Frontier: Imperial Expansion and Economic Change, 221–207 BCE

Author:
Korolkov, Maxim

Submitted:
2020

School:
Columbia University

Abstract:
This dissertation explores the relationship between empire-building and economic change during the formative process of the Qin Empire. It employs transmitted and excavated textual materials as well as archaeological evidence to reconstruct institutions and practices of surplus extraction and economic management and their evolution during the period of Qin’s expansion culminating in the emergence of the first centralized bureaucratic empire in continental East Asia. I argue that the commercial expansion and the formation of markets for land, labor, and commodities during China’s early imperial period (221 BCE – 220 CE) can only be understood by considering their origins in the distributive command economy of the late Warring States and imperial Qin. The study focuses on the southern frontier zone of the empire, which is exceptionally well documented in the official and private documents excavated from the Qin and Han sites along the Middle Yangzi and its tributaries.

Chapter One “Introduction” outlines historiographical approaches to the study of the relationship between empire-building and economic change, particularly the impact of imperial conquest and extraction on commercial growth. It addresses the importance of frontiers as the sites of economic innovation and change in the ancient empires. I discuss the importance of the recent archaeological discovery of legal and administrative manuscripts from the Warring States (453–221 BCE), Qin (221–206 BCE), and Han (202 BCE – 220 CE) eras for the study of the administrative and economic organization in the early empires. The introduction also outlines the new perspectives on Qin empire-building and economic change made possible by the excavated documentary evidence.

Chapter Two “Strategies of conquest and resource extraction in the state and empire of Qin, mid-fourth to late third century BCE” explores the geographical and logistical rationales for the campaigns that brought the Qin armies to the Middle Yangzi and paved the way for further advance to the south of the river. I argue that the Qin developed its fiscal institutions as solutions to the problems of military supply and control over the conquered territories. This system of surplus extraction proved efficient in financing warfare and ensuring the central government’s control over its local agents. However, it faced severe challenges as its operational costs soared in the process of territorial expansion, while the redistributive effects of the fiscal system pitted the principal against the agents. The successes and failings of the Qin model of surplus extraction, and its revision during the subsequent Western Han period profoundly influenced the approaches to economic and territorial management throughout China’s imperial history.

Chapter Three “Formation of the imperial frontier: from interaction zone to centralized administration” focuses on the background and the immediate aftermath of the Qin conquest of lands to the south of Middle Yangzi, roughly coinciding with the modern province of Hunan and the southern part of Hubei Province. The chapter examines the longue durée of economic and political integration along the Middle Yangzi from the Late Neolithic period (third millennium BCE) to the dawn of the imperial era. This analysis sheds new light on the background of Qin imperial expansion in this region and the strategies of the “reconstruction of the South” adopted by the Qin emperors and the succeeding Han Empire. I conclude the chapter with detailed analysis of administrative organization and economic management in the Qin county of Qianling in present-day Western Hunan, whose archive was partly recovered during the archaeological excavation of the remains of the Qin town at Liye.

Chapter Four “Between command and market: the economy of convict labor” studies the enormous system of unfree labor that incorporated a considerable portion of the Qin Empire’s population and was the key instrument of the Qin command economy. The chapter offers a comparative perspective on the historical regimes of forced labor, which allows identification of economic rationales for such systems and the organizational challenges they faced. It proceeds with an analysis of the legal foundations of penal labor in Qin and the characteristics of the main groups of forced laborers before exploring the organization of the unfree labor economy in Qianling County where detailed data is available concerning the size of the convict population, their economic roles, and the management of their labor. The chapter then discusses changes in the Qin system of unfree labor, its decline after the fall of the Qin Empire, and its impact on the formation of markets for labor in early imperial China.

Chapter Five “Conquering distance: transferring goods and people in the Qin Empire” discusses the long-distance transfers of resources, goods, and people. As many other imperial states, the Qin sought to control the physical mobility of its subjects and resources by directing them into desirable channels and restricting unwanted moves. Excavated texts shed light on the previously unknown aspects of the integration of economic and humanitarian space within the empire. Although the imperial connectivity remained fragile and suffered setbacks when the physical and intellectual infrastructures of communication shrank or collapsed with the decline and fall of centralized power, the shared sphere of geographic mobility was essential for the formation of the imperial economy, society, and culture. It tended to regenerate itself after the periods of contraction or disruption and should therefore be considered an important factor in the resilience of centripetal trends in China’s political history.

Chapter Six “The state and the private economy” utilizes the materials from Qianling archive to study the relationship between the state and private economies. Although the ideologists of state-strengthening reforms in mid-fourth century BCE Qin cherished the idea that the latter should be completely subsumed under governmental dirigisme, by the times of the Qin Empire, officials recognized the autonomy of private markets and their own inability to substitute for the latter with distributive schemes. In its engagement with private economic actors, the government was guided by considerations of taxation and resource procurement; cost-reduction in the state economy; and maintenance of public order through the delineation of rights and obligations. Transformation of the state economy, its increasing exposure to private markets, and the expansion of the latter, often caused by the state demand for materials and manpower, were powerfully facilitated by the monetization of the frontier region attested in the textual and archaeological evidence.

Chapter Seven “Conclusion” summarizes the mutually constitutive relationships between empire-building and economic change in the Qin Empire; traces the development of economic and institutional changes, which become observable during the Qin imperial period, in the subsequent Han era; and formulates some general patterns of the state-economy relationship that may be of use in the comparative study of imperial economic systems.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 : Introduction
Chapter 2 : Strategies of conquest and resource extraction in the state and empire of Qin, mid-fourth to late third century BCE
Chapter 3 : Formation of the imperial frontier: from interaction zone to centralized
   administration
Chapter 4 : Between command and market: the economy of convict labor
Chapter 5 : Conquering distance: transferring goods and people in the Qin Empire
Chapter 6 : The state and the private economy
Chapter 7 : Conclusion

[Dissertation] Everyday Stress, Exceptional Suffering: Bioarchaeology of Violence and Personhood in Late Shang, China

Author:
Daniela Wolin

School:
Yale University

Submitted:
2018

Abstract:
The Late Shang period (ca. 1250-1050 BCE) of China is a unique context where archaeological features and artifacts, human skeletal remains, and a coeval writing system (inscribed oracle bones) document the practice of ritual sacrifice, which claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people. Although thousands of human skeletons from sacrificial and non-sacrificial contexts have been systematically excavated over the past 90 years at the urban settlement of Yinxu 殷墟 in Anyang city, Henan province, osteological analyses of direct and indirect violence have only been published for a small fraction of these remains.

My dissertation uses a bioarchaeological framework to study the intersection of violence, gender, and ritual practices during the Late Shang period of northern China. Through the study of human osteology, contextualized with mortuary analysis and oracle bone inscriptions (OBI), I explore how violence in Late Shang society was a culturally constructed and ritually meaningful practice, that was mediated through social identity. To explore how violence influenced the lived experiences of people during this time, I collected osteological data from various locales at Yinxu, including both royal and neighborhood areas.

A spectrum of different types of violence were occurring simultaneously, ranging from exceptional performances of violence – warfare, captivity, and human sacrifice – to small-scale "everyday" and structural violence among the general population. For the residential neighborhood of Yinxu Liujiazhuang 殷墟劉家莊, an overall low prevalence of trauma indicative of interpersonal violence was identified at this site, suggesting that integrative mechanisms, such as religion, feasting, communal ritual activities, and sacrifice, may have promoted social cohesion among the general population. A slightly higher percentage of healed trauma on the skulls of females, however, is suggestive of gender-based violence. Oral pathologies and osteological indicators of health and nutritional stress, while limited, also point toward differences in diet and susceptibility to disease. These results were compared to two regional settlements in Shangdong province: Jinan Liujiazhuang 濟南劉家莊 and Tengzhou Qianzhangda 滕州前掌大. Low levels of trauma were also observed in these collections, however, variation in the prevalence of oral pathologies between Yinxu and Jinan Liujiazhuang indicate differences in diet between these regions.

My analysis of sacrificial victims from royal and residential areas at Yinxu demonstrated that many of the skulls of decapitated victims displayed healed trauma in addition to direct evidence of perimortem beheading. These lesions document a process of physical abuse that likely began at the time of initial confrontation and continued throughout captivity until the individuals were chosen to be ritually decapitated. Through these interactions, personhood was (re)constituted as the Shang captors imposed new social identities on them both in life and in death. Osteological evidence of nutritional deficiencies and mechanical stress suggest that captives may have been forced to carry out taxing labor until the time they were selected for ritual sacrifice.

By focusing on trauma and paleopathology, my research highlights the range of lived experiences among the men and women of Yinxu. This study challenges past reconstructions that see males as the sole perpetrators and recipients of violence and encourages scholars to integrate gender theory into future research. Finally, as one of few anthropologically-oriented studies on violence in the Late Shang that utilizes bioarchaeological methods and theory, this dissertation demonstrates the importance of incorporating all lines of evidence – including human skeletal remains – into reconstructions of ancient societies in order to construct a rich and diverse narrative.

[Dissertation] A Biographical Study on Bukong 不空 (aka. Amoghavajra, 705-774) : Networks, Institutions, and Identities

Author:
Yang, Zeng

Submitted:
2018

School:
The University of British Columbia

Abstract:
This dissertation addresses the historical practices of the Buddhist monk Bukong, who is well known by his Sanskrit name Amoghavajra and recognized as the most important promoter of the Esoteric tradition of Vajroṣṇīṣa Yoga in medieval China. Bukong was of mixed descent, half Indian and half Sogdian, and he traveled widely throughout Asia. Spending most of his lifetime in Tang China, as a Buddhist missionary and court official, he devoted his life to combining a soteriological agenda with monastic service to the state. In this regard, his commitment was so pivotal to the Esoteric school that it gave the latter an institutional expression that distinguished it from other Buddhist traditions in China. The school thrived as vital part of the official institutions of the state and thus constituted a new mode of imperial Buddhism. Bukong’s biographical accounts became the primary context for the historical narratives and documentation of almost all events and issues related to Esoteric Buddhism at the time. Employing a wide variety of historical materials, this study presents a comprehensive biography of Bukong that has been long overdue in academia. The exploration that follows focuses on his political rise and the institutionalization of his Esoteric School in its heyday, revealing the posts held by monks as the religious functionary and official institutes provided for his yogin disciples. The success of Bukong and his school owed significantly to the political and military turbulence caused by the An Lushan rebellion. He contributed to the usurpation of Emperor Suzong and was rewarded with the imperial authorization of his Esoteric tradition and the initial institutionalization of the Esoteric practices. During the next reign, a victory over a foreign invasion widely convinced his contemporaries of the “miraculous” might of the Vajroṣṇīṣa Yoga and facilitated Emperor Daizong’s conversion into a royal yogin. The emperor’s devotion and secret association with Bukong became a powerful factor for the latter to weave an eclectic network that assembled various resources to support Buddhist institutions and projects. Bukong’s diverse achievements and social associations, however, led to the diversified perception of him in historical writings.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: A Comprehensive Biography of Bukong
Chapter 3: Mutual Consecration: New Ruler and New Role
Chapter 4: The Mobilizer of Monks and Money: Integrating and Institutionalizing Buddhist Missions
Chapter 5: The Various Accounts of Bukong’s Background Places and His Ethnicity and Identity
Chapter 6: Conclusion: Backgrounds, Networks, Institutions, and Identities

[Dissertation] The Ceramic Technology of Bronze-Casting Molds in Ancient China: Production Practices at Three Western Zhou Foundry Sites in the Zhouyuan Area

Author:
Matthew Lincoln Chastain

School:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Submitted:
2019

Abstract:
During the second and first millennia BCE, peoples living near China's Yellow and Yangzi Rivers produced bronze ritual and military paraphernalia that represent arguably the most sophisticated use of metal casting by any ancient society. These objects were cast by pouring bronze into mold assemblies composed of interlocking sections. To survive the mechanical and thermal rigors of this casting process, the mold sections were constructed from highly specialized ceramic materials. This study investigates these ceramic materials. The primary focus is three foundry sites (Zhougongmiao, Kongtougou, Lijia) in the Zhouyuan area, Shaanxi province, a major bronze production center during the Western Zhou period (1045-771 BCE). Casting molds (72 total), other ceramic artifacts, and soils, all from the Zhouyuan area, were analyzed using electron microscopy, optical microscopy, and infrared spectroscopy.

Results were compared to similar analyses of molds from other sites in China (Houma, Xinzheng, Tangjiadun, Shigudun). Replication experiments were undertaken to reconstruct the production process of casting molds and to identify the performance advantages of ancient casting-mold material. Casting molds were made from a material unlike the clay-rich pastes used for pottery. This material, here called "silt paste", consists of a porous network of silt-sized (3.9-62.5[mu]m) quartz particles held together by a small proportion of clay. Across north-central China, similar material was used to make molds for all types of bronze objects. Silt paste was produced from commonplace loessic soils. Its composition and properties were manipulated by processing the soil to remove much of its clay. The resulting low-clay paste offers little workability, requiring specialized forming techniques. "Piping" was used to decorate some molds. Molds were fired at 400-700°C.

The low clay content and low firing temperature of casting-mold material ensured minimal drying shrinkage and high thermal shock resistance, minimizing the risk of failure during the casting process. Producers at the three Zhouyuan-area sites practiced different engineering strategies, apparently because casting technology descended from the earlier Shang tradition was introduced into the area midway through the Western Zhou period. Differences in soil resources between northern and southern China may have influenced how bronze casting developed in each region.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction and background
2. Previous research on casting-mold materials from ancient China
3. Sites, artifacts, and samples
4. Analyses and experiments
5. Casting-mold material: Composition and characteristics
6. Casting-mold material: Production sequence
7. Casting-mold material: Engineering performance and engineering choices
8. Transmission of casting-mold technologies
9. Conclusions

[Dissertation] Kingly Exchange: The Silk Road and the East Eurasian World in the Age of Fragmentation (850-1000)

Author:
WEN, Xin

School:
Harvard University

Date Submitted:
2017

Abstract:
This dissertation is a cultural history of travel on the Silk Road in East Eurasia in the ninth and tenth centuries from the vantage point of Dunhuang, an oasis town situated between China proper and Central Asia. Following the near-simultaneous fall of the Tibetan empire, the Uyghur empire, and the Tang empire in the mid-ninth century, the East Eurasian world experienced a long period of political fragmentation. Such political fragmentation, together with the collapse of the extensive Sogdian diasporic network around the same time, is generally considered to have resulted in a relatively inactive period of travels on the Silk Road. In this dissertation, by examining medieval manuscripts in Chinese, Tibetan, Uyghur, Khotanese, and Sogdian discovered in the sealed library-cave in Dunhuang and reading them in the contexts of transmitted Chinese texts produced in China proper, I argue that activities on the East Eurasian Silk Road during this period of political fragmentation not only persisted, but also took on a distinct and non-commercial form.

Informed by anthropological theories on gift exchange and hospitality, I argue that trans-regional travels in my sources were primarily the results of state endeavor: travelers were predominantly described as state envoys rather than private merchants, and that these envoys participated not in economic networks of commodified exchange, but in diplomatic networks of competitive gifting. That is to say, contrary to widespread assumptions about the Silk Road as a busy trading highway, the movements of people and goods in the area under my investigation were motivated primarily by the royal pursuit of glory rather than interest in profit. Political fragmentation and the presence of a much greater number of state entities in East Eurasia in the ninth and tenth centuries only enhanced such pursuit. Through investigating the non-commercial aspect of travel and the mechanism of negotiating social life on the road, I argue that the networks of competitive diplomacy through long-distance personnel and material exchange were as effective as commercial networks in facilitating trans-regional connections on the Silk Road.

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Part one – Geography and Diplomacy: Opening the Road

CHAPTER 1: THROUGH BROKEN GEOGRAPHIES: THE RE-CREATION OF
GEOGRAPHICAL INTELLIGIBILITY BETWEEN CHINA AND CENTRAL ASIA

CHAPTER 2: “BY THE ROAD WE BECOME ONE FAMILY”: DIPLOMACY ON THE
SILK ROAD

Part two: Gifts and Guest: Practices of Travel

CHAPTER 3: MOVING GIFTS

CHAPTER 4: WELCOME THE GUEST, PRAISE THE HOST

Part three: Economy and ideology: Results of Travel

CHAPTER 5: RECONSIDERING THE SILK ROAD ECONOMY

CHAPTER 6: KING OF KINGS OF CHINA: HYBRID STATE IDEOLOGY

Conclusion