THE PRECEDENT OF BAOXUN AND THE CHANGES OF THE CENTER OF THE REALM

by

Feng Shi

 

The Baoxun保训 (Instructions for Preservation) text in the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips is a Confucian work which has been lost for many centuries. Because the story told by King Wen of the Zhou Dynasty recorded in this text was related to the valuable historic materials about the changes of the dizhong (the center of the land under the heaven -- the realm), it has special values. Through the interpretation that the key term shi埶 in the text should be glossed as nie槷 (gnomon) and the meaning of “ce yin yang (measuring the yin and yang)” is the astronomical tradition to erect the gnomon and measure its shadow, this paper revealed the history of the changes of the center of the realm from the early to the late Three-Dynasties Period; with the references of the textural data in the historic literature and the physical materials fetched from the archaeological fieldwork, this paper confirmed this historic fact which has been forgotten for thousands of years. The early dizhong defined by Yu the Great, the legendary sovereign, was at Mount Li, the location of which was at the present-day Puyang, Henan. At that time, limited by the political pattern of the Yi in the east and the Xia in the west, the attention to the dizhong was more paid on the middle between the north border and the south border of the realm. The early gnomons before the Xia Dynasty archaeologically found to date are concentrated along the latitude from Puyang, Henan to Xiangfen (Taosi), Shanxi, which provided extremely important archaeological evidences for the records of Baoxun. The later dizhong defined by Shang Jia Wei, the ancestor of the Shang Dynasty, was at the territory of the You Yi Clan, the location of which was nearby the Mount Song and the Yellow River. At that time, within the framework of the new political geography established by the Xia Dynasty, the concept of the dizhong was not limited to the middle between the north and south borders of the realm but that between the east and west borders should also be considered, by which the view of the center of the four directions was formed based on the concept of the “Jiu Zhou (Nine Regions)”. The literatures of ancient China clearly recorded the formation and even the measurement of this new geographic feature, and the belief that the Mount Song is the center of the land under the heaven became the firm idea handed down generation by generation of the ancient Chinese people. The solstice-surveying tradition of the ancient China, which was measuring the length of the shadow of an 8-chi high gnomon under the sun at high noon of the day of summer solstice, established the rule of measuring the distance that “the decrease or increase of the base is one cun for a thousand li”: if the lengths of the shadows of two gnomons at two locations one of which was to the due north of the other were different by one cun (one tenth of one chi) at high noon of the day of summer solstice, then the gnomon throwing longer shadow was one thousand li to the north of the one throwing shorter shadow, and vice versa. This rule had severe error, but it was the objective reflection of the knowledge of the ancient Chinese people. Meanwhile, in the historic literatures of different times, the shadow-measuring records did preserve two sets of different data: the earlier one seen in Zhoubi Suanjing (the Arithmetical Classic of the Gnomon and the Circular Paths of Heaven) was 1.6 chi and the later one seen in Zhouli (the Rites of Zhou) was 1.5 chi. Referring to the results of the measuring of the gnomon shadow at high noon of the day of summer solstice in the Han Dynasty with the same length unit at Mount Song and the zone to its north, which was 1.48 and 1.58 chi, respectively, the record of “the decrease or increase of the base is one cun for a thousand li” in the early historic literature actually reflected the different dizhong in the early and later periods and the work of measuring gnomon shadows in different locations in the north and south done by the people of the Han Dynasty would have reflected the memories of the people at that time about the changes of the dizhong from the early to the later times. This story about the changes of dizhong from the early to the later period not only matched the locations of the archaeological discoveries of the early gnomons and the geographical transfers of the dizhong in the later period, but also can be proven by the historic data and astronomical tradition. Therefore, Baoxun is significantly meaningful for the researches on the astronomy and humanity of ancient China and the explorations on the cultures of the Three-Dynasties Period and the capitals of the Xia and Shang Dynasties. 

 

THE STUDY ON THE BURIALS OF THE HAN DYNASTY IN NANYANG AREA -- ALSO ON THE FORMATION OF THE HAN CULTURE IN NANYANG AREA

by

Song Rong

 

In the Han Dynasty, the Nanyang Commandery included the area of present-day Nanyang, Henan and the north part of Xiangyang, Hubei. Since the 1930s, the Han Dynasty's stone reliefs in Nanyang have taken attention in academia; thousands of burials of the Han Dynasty have been excavated here, the occupants of which were nobles as well as the common people and the dates were from the beginning of the Western Han to the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. The rich archaeological resources provide very important materials for the study on the archaeological culture of the Han Dynasty in Nanyang. Referring to the previous research results, this paper explores the characteristics, developing process and formation modes of the archaeological culture of the Han Dynasty in Nanyang through the comprehensive observation to the Han burials in this area and with the references of the historic literatures. This paper consists of six parts: in part one, the types of Han burials in Nanyang were classified into two types by the structure, which were vertical earthen shaft pit and stone or brick chamber tombs; in part two, grave goods of the Han burials in Nanyang were analyzed, and the pottery ritual vessels, model funeral objects and household potteries were chosen as typical artifacts, the types, evolution processes and coexistence relationships of which were analyzed; in part three, the periodization of Han burials in Nanyang was established according to the typological sequence of typical artifacts, and the absolute dates of the phases were inferred; in part four, the culture elements of the burials were analyzed with culture analytical method, and they could be classified into three groups: Group A was related to the Han culture with complex contents, Group B was the local traditional culture which was comparatively pure, and Group C was the external culture which came from other regions such as the present-day northern Henan, central Shaanxi and the lower reach of the Yangtze River; in part five, the interaction and convergence of the three groups in different historical periods of the Han Dynasty are discussed, and then the formation and development of archaeological culture of the Han Dynasty in Nanyang was divided into three phases: the pregnancy phase in the early and middle of the Western Han Dynasty, the growth phase from the end of the Western Han to the beginning of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the maturing and declining phase in the Eastern Han Dynasty; in the ideological field, the local culture of Nanyang integrated into the Han culture in the first phase, while the complete integration at the level of appearances was finished until the last phase; in part six, the historic background of the formation and development of the Han culture in Nanyang was explored, and this paper points out that the mode of the development of the Han culture in Nanyang was gradual, and the process of this development coincided with the “Great Unity” in the field of idea and politics, which could represent the culture formation mode of the political center of the Han Dynasty. 

 

THE RESTORATION AND STUDIES ON THE SYSTEM OF TREASURY ACCOUNTING RECORDS IN THE BAMBOO SLIPS OF THE WU KINGDOM UNEARTHED AT ZOUMALOU

by

Ling Wenchao

 

Mainly based on the excavating sketch maps, original recovering basin numbers, trimming numbers and other archaeological trimming data, with the references of the types of the bamboo slips and wooden tablets, the handwritings of the texts, the formats and contents of the documents and other information bore by the artifacts themselves, the bamboo slips of the “kuqian (treasury cash)” accounting records in the bamboo slips and wooden tablets of the Wu Kingdom in the Three-Kingdoms Period unearthed at Zoumalou were restored with paleographic methods. The bamboo slips and wooden tablets belonging to the given record books were isolated and the original statuses and internal relationships of the record books were noticed. Through the paleographic researches, not only the original statuses of the bamboo slips and wooden tablets before excavation could be reflected, which provided objective and reliable archaeological evidence for the restoration of the original sequence of the disturbed slips and tablets, but the accounting record system of the “kuqian”, which consisted of the “zaqian rushou bu (account book for the receipts)”, “zaqian cheng yu xin ru bu (account book for the old remainders and new receipts)” and “zaqian ling chu yong yu xian bu (account book for the requested expenses and the present remainders)”, was also made clear. Because of that, the discussion on the management of the financial system of the local government of the Wu Kingdom could be developed based on the comprehensive understanding to the accounting system provided by the restored accounting records rather than on the separated words and sentences scattered in the single bamboo slips and wooden tablets as in the past. The “zaqian rushou bu” and “zaqian cheng yu xin ru bu” in the Zoumalou Wu bamboo slips and wooden tablets were the records of the “income” of the treasury cash while the “zaqian ling chu yong yu xian bu” was that of the “expenditure” of the treasury cash of the local government. Generally, the financial system of the local government of the Wu Kingdom was managed in the two channels of “receipts” and “expenses”, and the concrete responsibilities occurred between these two channels were defined by the action of “ling (request and draw)” and fulfilled through conversion during the receiving and paying process. The flow of the treasury cash composed by the “rushou (receipts)”--“xin ru (new receipts)” as income process and “cheng yu (old remainders)”--“lingshou (requesting to draw)”--“chuyong (appropriating and paying)”--“yu xian (present remainder cash)” as expenditure process showed that in the financial system of the local government of the Wu Kingdom in the Three-Kingdoms Period, a rather mature “four-column method” has been applied for accounting. 

 

THE EXCAVATION OF THE JIRZANKAL CEMETERY IN TAXKORGAN COUNTY, XINJIANG

by

Xinjiang Archaeological Team, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences

 

Located on the Jirzankal terrace on the west bank of Taxkorgan River to the northeast of Qushman Village in Tiznap Township, Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County, the Jirzankal Cemetery (aka. Qushman Cemetery) is facing the river and surrounded by the mountains. On the ground of the cemetery, the artificial lines resembling the “bright and dark rays” are laid with black and white stone blocks. The entire cemetery consists of four zones, which are numbered as Zones A, B, C and D. In the year 2013, three burials in Zone A (M1, M2 and M4) and six burials in Zone B (M10-M14 and M24) were excavated. The burial structures, unearthed artifacts and funeral customs revealed by the excavation all showed that the cultural connotation of this cemetery had strong and diversified characteristics of light (fire) worship. The unearthed potteries and 14C data all showed that the date of the burials was around 2500 BP. The following archaeological discoveries and the trimming of the relevant historic literatures intuitively showed that the cultural connotation of the Jirzankal Cemetery has direct relationship with the early Zoroastrian Culture in the Central Asia. The significances of this archaeological discovery are: the first, this is the first discovery of the Zoroastrian remains as early as 2500 BP ever made in the Eurasian Continent; the second, there have been two hypotheses on the origin of the Zoroastrianism, the Persian origin and the Central Asian origin; this discovery supported the latter and may define the originating place of Zoroastrianism to the margin of Tarim Basin, or directly to the Pamir Heights; the third, the diversified artifacts unearthed in the excavation indicated that around 2500 BP, the role of the Pamir Heights as the hub of the world civilizations was irreplaceable in the active communications among the civilizations on the Eurasian Continent. 

 

ON THE FIVE OLD RUBBINGS OF THE YU DING-TRIPOD COLLECTED IN SHANGHAI MUSEUM

by

Tang Youbo

 

This paper clearly introduced and analyzed five old rubbings of the Yu Ding-tripod collected in Shanghai Museum and not published in the past, including the dates of the making of these rubbings, the examinations and interpretations on their introductions and postscripts and the authors of them, and the interrelationships of these authors, and the changes of the provenances of these rubbings. Referring to large amounts of historic literatures, private letters and other personal works, this paper makes in-depth discussions on the making and transferring of the early rubbings of the Yu Ding-tripod, the collecting and transferring of the bronze Yu Ding-tripod itself after the unearthing, and its relationship with the other Yu Ding-tripod (the small Yu Ding-tripod) unearthed together with it, and so on. In addition, this paper makes analysis and discussion on the full-shape rubbing technique of the bronze vessels in the light of two full-shape rubbings of the Yu Ding-tripod among the five rubbings. The historic literatures cited by this paper proved that during the Daoguang Era (1821-1850) of the Qing Dynasty, there have been rubbings of the Yu Ding-tripod circulating in the society. Referring to the differences between the rubbings nos. 8595 and 9716 of the Yu Ding-tripod collected in Shanghai Museum, this paper analyzed the so-called “Er Bai二白 version (the text of the rubbing showing “twelve lords”)” rubbed in the early period and the “San Bai三白 version (the text of the rubbing showing “thirteen lords”)” rubbed in the later period and draws the conclusion that this change might have been made between the ninth month of the fourth year of Guangxu Era (1878) and the first month of the next year, during which Wu Dacheng was living in Beijing. Pan Zuyin obtained the Yu Ding-tripod in the eleventh month of the thirteenth year of Tongzhi Era (1874), for which he composed The Ode for the Yu Ding-tripod and called up an appreciation party. Actually, there were two Yu Ding-tripods unearthed together at the same time and place, and the other one was named as the “small Yu Ding-tripod”, but their exact sizes have not been confirmed. At first, this ding-tripod was obtained by Li Wenhan, who was an official between 1843 and 1848 in Qishan County, Shaanxi, where this ding was unearthed; in memory of this event, Li Wenhan named his son as Boyu. It is said that this ding was destroyed in the warfare. There have been very few rubbings of the other Yu Ding-tripod (the small Yu Ding-tripod) known to be preserved; to date, only one of them can be confirmed. The rubbings of the Yu Ding-tripod collected in Shanghai Museum, the nos. 8595 and 9716, and the full-shaped rubbing made as the original size, shape and patterns, are magnificent and graceful, and they are all made on single sheets of paper. The latter is the most elaborate and accurately shaped full-shape rubbing of bronze vessel made in early times, which has the meaning of milestone for understanding the history and technique of full-shape rubbings of bronze vessels.