| Author | : Li Feng |
| Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
| Total Pages | : 369 |
| Release | : 2013-12-30 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 0521895529 |
A critical new interpretation of the early history of Chinese civilization based on the most recent scholarship and archaeological discoveries.
| Author | : Feng Li |
| Publisher | : University of Washington Press |
| Total Pages | : 480 |
| Release | : 2012-05-01 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 0295804505 |
The emergence and spread of literacy in ancient human society an important topic for all who study the ancient world, and the development of written Chinese is of particular interest, as modern Chinese orthography preserves logographic principles shared by its most ancient forms, making it unique among all present-day writing systems. In the past three decades, the discovery of previously unknown texts dating to the third century BCE and earlier, as well as older versions of known texts, has revolutionized the study of early Chinese writing. The long-term continuity and stability of the Chinese written language allow for this detailed study of the role literacy played in early civilization. The contributors to Writing and Literacy in Early China inquire into modes of manuscript production, the purposes for which texts were produced, and the ways in which they were actually used. By carefully evaluating current evidence and offering groundbreaking new interpretations, the book illuminates the nature of literacy for scribes and readers.
| Author | : Donald John Harper |
| Publisher | : Handbook of Oriental Studies. |
| Total Pages | : 517 |
| Release | : 2017 |
| Genre | : Literary Criticism |
| ISBN | : 9789004310193 |
Books of Fate and Popular Culture in Early China is a comprehensive introduction to the daybook manuscripts found in Warring States, Qin, and Han tombs (453 BCE-220 CE) and intended for use in daily life.
| Author | : Anthony J Barbieri-Low |
| Publisher | : |
| Total Pages | : 352 |
| Release | : 2021-06-17 |
| Genre | : |
| ISBN | : 9780295748894 |
Although they existed more than a millennium apart, the great civilizations of New Kingdom Egypt (ca. 1548-1086 BCE) and Han dynasty China (206 BCE-220 CE) shared intriguing similarities. Both were centered around major, flood-prone rivers--the Nile and the Yellow River--and established complex hydraulic systems to manage their power. Both spread their territories across vast empires that were controlled through warfare and diplomacy and underwent periods of radical reform led by charismatic rulers--the "heretic king" Akhenaten and the vilified reformer Wang Mang. Universal justice was dispensed through courts, and each empire was administered by bureaucracies staffed by highly trained scribes who held special status. Egypt and China each developed elaborate conceptions of an afterlife world and created games of fate that facilitated access to these realms. This groundbreaking volume offers an innovative comparison of these two civilizations. Through a combination of textual, art historical, and archaeological analyses, Ancient Egypt and Early China reveals shared structural traits of each civilization as well as distinctive features.
| Author | : Steven Shankman |
| Publisher | : State University of New York Press |
| Total Pages | : 316 |
| Release | : 2012-02-01 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 0791488942 |
This pioneering book compares Chinese and Western thought to offer a bracing and unpredictable cross-cultural conversation. The work contributes to the emerging field of Sino-Hellenic studies, which links two great and influential cultures that, in fact, had virtually no contact during the ancient period. The patterns of thought and the cultural productions of early China and ancient Greece represent two significantly different responses to the myriad problems that human beings confront. Throughout this volume the comparisons between these cultures evince two critical ideas. First, that thinking is itself an inherently comparative activity. Through making comparisons, the familiar becomes strange, and the strange somewhat more familiar. Second, since we think through comparisons, we should think them all the way through. How valid and productive are the comparisons and contrasts made between particular works and different styles of thought that emerged from two different, although contemporaneous, cultural contexts?
| Author | : Constance Cook |
| Publisher | : BRILL |
| Total Pages | : 300 |
| Release | : 2017-06-20 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 9047410637 |
This richly illustrated book provides a glimpse into the belief system and the material wealth of the social elite in pre-Imperial China through a close analysis of tomb contents and excavated bamboo texts. The point of departure is the textual and material evidence found in one tomb of an elite man buried in 316 BCE near a once wealthy middle Yangzi River valley metropolis. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of cosmological symbolism and the nature of the spirit world. The author shows how illness and death were perceived as steps in a spiritual journey from one realm into another. Transmitted textual records are compared with excavated texts. The layout and contents of this multi-chambered tomb are analyzed as are the contents of two texts, a record of divination and sacrifices performed during the last three years of the occupant’s life and a tomb inventory record of mortuary gifts. The texts are fully translated and annotated in the appendices. A first-time close-up view of a set of local beliefs which not only reflect the larger ancient Chinese religious system but also underlay the rich intellectual and artistic life of pre-Imperial China. With first full translations of texts previously unknown to all except a small handful of sinologists.
| Author | : Paul van Els |
| Publisher | : BRILL |
| Total Pages | : 247 |
| Release | : 2018-03-06 |
| Genre | : Philosophy |
| ISBN | : 9004365435 |
The Wenzi is a Chinese philosophical text that enjoyed considerable prestige in the centuries following its creation, over two-thousand years ago. When questions regarding its authenticity arose, the text was branded a forgery and consigned to near oblivion. The discovery of an age-old Wenzi manuscript, inked on strips of bamboo, refueled interest in the text. In this combined study of the bamboo manuscript and the received text, Van Els argues that they belong to two distinct text traditions as he studies the date, authorship, and philosophy of each tradition, as well as the reception history of the received text. This study sheds light on text production and reception in Chinese history, with its changing views on authorship, originality, authenticity, and forgery, both past and present.
| Author | : Zongli Lu |
| Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
| Total Pages | : 389 |
| Release | : 2021-03-11 |
| Genre | : History |
| ISBN | : 110847926X |
A major historical study of the formation, spread and impact of rumor in the early Chinese empires.
