Explores how the tremendous wealth of newly unearthed artifacts and manuscripts have changed our understanding of China's past.
Bone, Bronze, and Bamboo explores the tremendous wealth of newly unearthed artifacts and manuscripts that have been revolutionizing the study of early China. Leading scholars from China and abroad lend their expertise in archaeology, art history, paleography, intellectual history, and many other disciplines to show how these fascinating finds change our understanding of China's past. Organized in a chronological progression from the Shang to Han periods, and treating bone, bronze, and bamboo-strip artifacts in turn, the book treats a wide breadth of topics, from the status of owls in Shang religion to the Zhou court's economic interest in managing salt resources, and from the conceptual evolution of de德in Spring and Autumn covenants to the interplay between materiality and text in Han scribal primers. Bone, Bronze, and Bamboo exemplifies the exciting energy and sense of discovery inspired by these sources in recent years, while surveying the latest debates and developments shaping early China as a field.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Acknowledgments
1. The Owl in Oracle-Bone Inscriptions and on Early Ritual Bronzes
Wang Tao
2. A Study of the Décor on a Shang Dynasty Architectural Object from the Site of Xiaoshuangqiao in Zhengzhou
Han Ding
3. Respecting Heaven and Sacrificing to the Ancestors: Social Order and Ritual Reflected in Early Western Zhou Bronze Drinking Vessel Sets
Lu Liancheng
4. The Cheng Wang Fangding
Colin Mackenzie
5. The Western Zhou Court and Hedong Salt Lake: Revelations from the Newly Excavated Ba Bo (Elder Ba) Bronze Vessels
Han Wei
6. Changing Ideas about De, the Lineage, and the Individual in Fifth- and Fourth-Century BCE China as Reflected in the Wenxian Covenant Texts
Crispin Williams
7. The Editing and Publication of Ancient Books Written on Bamboo and Silk
Li Ling
8. The Philological Value of the Tsinghua Bamboo-Slip Manuscripts
Zhao Pingan and Wang Tingbin
9. A Brief Look at the Shanghai Museum Manuscript "The State of Lu Suffered a Great Drought"
Scott Cool
10. An Introduction and Preliminary Translation of the Jiaonü (Instructions for Daughters), a Qin Bamboo Text
Anne Behnke Kinney
11. The Shape of the Text: Gu Prisms and Han Primers
Christopher J. Foster
12. Sanjiaowei M1: Hand Tools from the Grave of a Hobbyist Woodworker?
Charles Sanft
Afterword. Wandering Mt. Song, Chatting in Friendship: Exploring Mt. Song in Oracle-Bone Inscriptions
Qi Wenxin
List of Contributors
Index
About the Author :
Constance A. Cook is Professor of Chinese at Lehigh University, Christopher J. Foster is an independent scholar, and Susan Blader is Associate Professor Emerita of Asian and Middle Eastern Languages and Literatures at Dartmouth College. Together they are also the coeditors of Myth and the Making of History: Narrating Early China with Sarah Allan and Metaphor and Meaning: Thinking through Early China with Sarah Allan, both published by SUNY Press.
Review :
"Throughout the book, the reader is exposed to the richness of early Chinese artifacts, in a digestible and clear format … Besides writings on bones, bronzes, and bamboo strips, it discusses covenants and silk manuscripts, as well as artifacts that bear no writing but are equally informative of the people and environments in which they were produced." — H-Net Reviews (H-Asia)
"This volume is a tribute to Sarah Allan's enduring influence and a substantive contribution to early China studies. Grounded in newly excavated materials and diverse disciplinary approaches, its essays illuminate key developments in ancient Chinese religion, ritual, textuality, and intellectual history." — Religious Studies Review
"…offer[s] much valuable information and may be warmly recommended to readers with a serious interest in Early China." — Journal of Chinese History
"For someone with an appetite for information about early China, this volume is a delectable repast. True to its title, it offers an immense number of insights into Chinese written materials found on oracle bones, bronze inscriptions, and books composed of wooden and bamboo slats. There is no work I know of that is its equivalent." —Keith Knapp, The Citadel
