Han Dynasty China Research Articles

Exploring circulation dynamics in Han Dynasty China: insights from isotopic analysis of lead glazed pottery

This study investigates lead provenance and circulation patterns in Han Dynasty (202BC-220AD) China through the analysis of lead glazed pottery. Four objects were studied using a combination of typological study, elemental chemistry and lead isotope ratio analysis. The results for each object were compared with databases of ‘lead mining districts’ (lead deposits) and ‘lead usage districts’ (lead-containing artifacts unearthed in different spatial and temporal ranges) to assess the lead sources used for each sample and offers a spatial-temporal range of the use of these lead resources. Three distinct groups of lead and their possible circulating spatial-temporal scales are identified across six samples in this study. A possible change in lead supply networks between the Western Han Dynasty (202BC-9AD) and the Eastern Han Dynasty (25AD-220AD) is proposed. This study also highlights the probable changes in the movement of lead resources from the Western Han Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty (618AD-690AD), suggesting improvements in long-distance transport capabilities, and the development of economic divisions and exchange connections in ancient Chinese society. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the economic and political dynamics during the Han Dynasty and emphasize the significance of lead isotope analysis of glazed pottery in exploring resource movement.

A study of the shape and application of the straight shaft plough in han dynasty China

The straight shaft plough is the main agricultural tool used to till land for farming purposes during the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) in China. The wooden frame of the plough easily rots, and as a result, few complete artefacts have been excavated in archaeological sites. As such, the appearance of straight shaft ploughs as an agricultural tool has been mainly imagined by archaeologists. In the absence of a complete and undamaged straight shaft plough specimen, this study combines design research methods with information from a close cousin of the straight shaft plough, that is, the iron plough, which has been excavated in its entirety, to examine a range of unexplored questions about the straight shaft plough that was used during the Han dynasty in China. The shape, structure and use of the straight shaft plough are examined, so that two-dimensional petroglyphs of this piece of equipment are translated into a three-dimensional artefact. In doing so, important information can be obtained on this important agricultural technology which has been vital in the preparation of soil for planting or sowing seeds for which no complete physical artefact has been excavated.

The hybrid origin of the dragon-wrapped column in Han dynasty China

ABSTRACT This article is the first thorough account of the dragon-wrapped column in a Western language. In contrast to previous scholarship, this study finds that the initial prototype of the dragon-wrapped column dates to the Han dynasty rather than the Song dynasty. This study delves into the imagery of dragon-wrapped columns and other dragon-related serpentine columns in Han literature and in artifacts discovered in Han tombs. It also addresses the thinking process of “wrapping the column,” referencing earlier instances of wrapped columns that served as the technological and conceptual ground for creating the dragon-wrapped column at the time. Furthermore, this article demonstrates that the use of a helical design on the bodies of columns is not exclusive to ancient Chinese art but is also present in ancient Greco-Roman art of the eastern Mediterranean region, where it may have originated from the Mesopotamian serpent-wrapped column. Meanwhile, the numerous foreign images and Western Asian–style objects uncovered in Han tomb excavations in southern Shandong and northern Jiangsu provinces and all along the coast indicate that these regions had close maritime trade and cultural exchange channels with the West.

Exotica, Fashion and Immortality: The New Use of Gold in Han Dynasty China (206bce–ce220)

This article explores the use of gold in the elite tombs of Han dynasty China, the popular use of which originated outside the Chinese cultural milieu, and its integration into the Han portfolio of materials representing people's expectations for the afterlife, such as immortality and well-being. In contrast to jade, which had a long history of use in China, gold was in itself a ‘new’ element of Chinese culture. This article outlines the introduction of gold objects from Europe and Central Asia via the Eurasian Steppe and borderland of China from around the eighth centurybce. The unprecedented use of gold in the Han-specific jade suits, and the process by which foreign types of zoomorphic motifs were adopted and connected with local motifs, are explored. In light of the political change from multiple competing states before the first unification in Chinese history in the third centurybce, and the development in ideology and concept of an ideal and eternal afterlife, this article explains the reasons and meanings of the new use of gold in Han dynasty China and the composite system of motifs, materials and objects.

Saint Confucius, the Chinese Adam, and a Broken Mirror: Writing World History in the Seventeenth-Century Netherlands

Early European attempts at writing a comprehensive history of the world struggled in particular with China, whose greater antiquity was difficult to accommodate with the biblical chronology of Creation and the Flood; the Chinese might also have traveled to the Americas before the Europeans. The fulcrum of this debate was the Dutch Republic, where innovative schools of historiography and biblical criticism went hand in hand with interest in East Asian material culture, antiquities, and books. Around 1650, Jacob Golius, Georg Hornius, and Isaac Vossius quarreled about China in relation to Egypt, Israel, and the Americas. The debate flared up again fifty years later when Nicolaes Witsen and Gijsbert Cuper confronted the Republic of Letters with a rare bronze mirror from Han Dynasty China. Dutch attempts to engage with Chinese written and material sources, and even with a handful of early Chinese visitors to Europe, arguably made this exchange an early example of global history.

Rethinking foreign influences on stone-carved tombs in early China

ABSTRACT A number of publications, including a recent paper in World Archaeology, have developed theories on why stone suddenly became a popular material for tomb construction in Han Dynasty China and how foreign masonry techniques were brought to China from across Eurasia. The object of this paper is to examine further the reception of foreign masonry architectural techniques through an analysis of stone-carved tombs from early China. It argues that the reception of foreign masonry techniques was based on the demands generated by using stone as the primary tomb building material during the Han Dynasty. Through the introduction of advanced masonry techniques, new understandings of the material world were incorporated into masonry architecture in a Chinese cultural context.

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century

Chasing the Halcyon Light – Human-Kingfisher Relations in Eastern Han-Dynasty China (CE 25–220) and Their Material, Sociocultural and Ecological Articulations

ABSTRACTThis article takes a fresh look at human-kingfisher relations in Eastern Han-dynasty China (CE 25–220). It argues that the confined appearance of kingfisher figurines in graves excavated in the southwest of the modern-day People’s Republic of China reflects the structural differences in human-kingfisher interactions between the centre(s) of the Han empire and its peripheries. By re-visiting the archaeology of the figurines and placing them into the wider cultural and ecological context, it is shown that distinct sociocultural transformations such as urbanisation processes and infrastructural projects profoundly changed the exposure and interactional dynamics between humans and kingfishers in the northern parts of the realm. This situation contrasted sharply with human-kingfisher interfaces in the southwest, where relatively ‘untamed’ environments harbouring a great number and diversity of kingfishers provided more favourable conditions for encountering them. I propose that this framework, in turn, fostered conceptualizations of kingfishers in which the birds came to encapsulate an experience fundamentally opposed to the type of human preponderance showcased in the core areas. By discussing a set of local practices and beliefs that might have further promoted this view, I suggest that they served as catalysts for the emergence of the kingfisher figurines at a particular time in a specific place. In this wider context, the article finally considers whether the southward expansion of the Eastern Han, with which the appearance of the figurines coincides, contributed to a re-configuration of north–south dynamics, shaping the general logic of human-kingfisher relations at the time.

Making up Status and Authority: Practices of Beautification in Warring States through Han Dynasty China (Fourth Century BCE–Third Century CE)

This article focuses on toilet sets from burials of the late Warring States period through the Han dynasty (ca. fourth century BCE–third century CE) in China. With support from contemporaneous material, pictorial and documentary records, the author argues that these items were used to cultivate appearance and, in turn, advanced social and political position.

Anomalous Architecture and Final Statement

Anomalous Architecture and Final Statement Mardith K. Schuetz-Miller (bio) Through many diverse births I have passedSeeking in vain the builder of the house.Ah, house framer, now I have seen thee!Never again shalt thou build me a house.I have broken thy raftersI have destroyed the king-post.My mind is detached;Desire is extinguished. —Coomaraswamy and Nivedita, Myths of the Hindus and Buddhists, 271 Japanese Influence? Previous chapters touched upon buildings atypical relative to their surrounding cityscapes: snail-shaped oracular temples in Peru; and in Colombia circular terraces, rock-cut shaft tombs with burial chambers carved in imitation of houses, and wood structures built with unusual carpentry techniques. This chapter examines other anomalous styles. A Spanish chronicler's observation of the Taironas' use of "curious carpentry" in the construction of the king's dwelling and "three great log cabins" invites the question whether there might be a connection to clay house models from the Bahía culture of the Manabí and Esmeraldas provinces of coastal Ecuador. Through articles published in 1961 and 1962, Emilio Estrada, Betty Meggers, and Clifford Evans brought to the attention of archaeologists their case for contact between the Jomon culture of Japan and the Americas. The earliest proposed contact was the Valdivia culture, which overlapped the Peruvian Formative. The type site, and related ones in Panama and Peru, dates the Valdivia to approximately 2500-1800 BCE. From about 1800 to 500 [End Page 399] BCE, the following Chorrera culture expanded from the coast to the interior following river valleys. Pottery produced during this time is said to be similar to wares from both the Chavín culture of Peru and the Ocós culture of coastal Guatemala and adjacent Mexico. The third chronological period, which is dated from about 200 BCE to 500-700 CE, is called the Regional Developmental. It is characterized by dissimilar cultures, but large populations and advanced sociopolitical integration. The Bahía culture was one of these regional polities.210 Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 36. Left: Haniwa of Yayoi house. (Drawn from a photograph in Haniwa). Right: Clay model of house of the Bahía culture, Ecuador. (Drawn from a photograph in Alfred Kidder II, "Rediscovering America") The Manabí house model is one of several found in Ecuador pertaining to the Bahía culture, The house type with its distinctive roof structure also appears on tomb models produced by the Tumaco culture of Colombia.211 Estrada and Meggers compared the Bahía examples to Han Chinese and Yayoi Japanese tomb models exhibiting unusual roof forms, as well as to actual buildings with "saddle-shaped" roofs from Sumatra, New Guinea, and the Carolines of Micronesia, including the same two I illustrate here as figure 36. "Saddle-shaped" roofs, as they are generally called, should be termed "boat-shaped." They were once prominent as dwellings for the elite throughout Micronesia (including in Yap, Kosrae, the Gilberts, as well as Palau) at the time of initial European contact. They are still constructed as men's houses in Melanesia. They appear to have their origin in a Southeast Asian Dong Son prototype. I am sure all are tied to the [End Page 400] belief that ancestors arrived in boats from the heavenly realm. They serve as the great clan houses on Sumatra and Sulawesi, and in Sumatra and Southeast Asia the elite were sent to the afterworld in boats or boat-shaped coffins. Given the Valdivia-Jomon link of early contact between Japan and northern South America, looking toward a later contact between Yayoi and Tomb period Japan and Bahía is logical. Great advances were made in house construction in Japan's Late Yayoi (ca. 500 BCE-300 CE) and Tomb (ca. 250-552 CE) periods, when Japan came under heavy influence from Han dynasty China. To effect the change, Chinese-trained Korean artisans were recruited, particularly from Paekche, until the kingdom was defeated by the Silla in 663 CE.212 These artisans likely introduced plank, board, and lath construction, regular plans, and use of mats as wall coverings. Two-storied dwellings were erected, and entrances were located not only on the south gable end (note...

Review: The Mingqi Pottery Buildings of Han Dynasty China by Qinghua Guo

Qinghua Guo . The Mingqi Pottery Buildings of Han Dynasty China . Brighton, Portland, Toronto: Sussex Academic Press: 2010, 206 pp., 8 color and 330 b/w illus. $99.95, ISBN 9781845193218 Qinghua Guo's The Mingqi Pottery Buildings of Han Dynasty China is a study of an intriguing and important aspect of Chinese architecture and burial practice that has never been fully understood. Mingqi is a complex term referring to objects of almost any variety placed in Chinese tombs. The subset of Han grave goods discussed in this book are pottery works shaped like buildings. More architectural mingqi are found in Han (206 BCE–220 CE) tombs than in earlier or later periods; thousands survive and hundreds are illustrated in the book. Guo tells the reader at the outset that she will not attempt to discuss the origins or evolution of mingqi . Rather, her purpose is to present salient points of an architectonic nature . . . from the standpoint of architectural representation (1). Still, Guo must begin with a definition of this Chinese term, which comprises two characters, ming and qi . Turning to the primary definitions of the characters in modern Mandarin, Guo chooses spirit as the English translation, which was earlier proposed by Wu Hung for mingqi of the Warring States period (ca. 475–221 BCE).1 Guo also writes that mingqi can be defined as specially manufactured articles moulded on objects of daily life for the dead to use in the afterlife (1). She tells us thus that she will argue that these burial goods, made in the shape of buildings, are based on actual structures. Guo also lays out her other beliefs about mingqi in the introduction. She postulates that they were symbolic rather than ritual objects; that those of the second century BCE …

The story of libraries: from the invention of writing to the computer age

This work describes the crucial role libraries played in ancient Egypt, Han-dynasty China, the ancient Western Classical world (the great library of Alexandria, which was lost to us in stages over many years), the Baghdad of Harun-al-Rashid, and medieval and Renaissance Europe. It continues with the libraries of colonial America, the Library of Congress, university libraries, and today's large public library system.

The Forgotten Fear of Excrement

Many patients in Europe and America today think it perfectly plausible that a cure for their insomnia or headaches, say, might be found in the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Medicine of Han dynasty China, that approaches to the body conceived in a distant culture, more than two thousand years ago, might solve their suffering here and now. Yet they wouldn't dream of seeking succor in the works of Galen. Why? How have the beliefs and practices that guided Western medicine up through the eighteenth century come to seem, paradoxically, more alien and distant than ancient Chinese notions of qi? To understand this strange forgetfulness about the Western past, we must linger on a defining feature of traditional humoralism, often slighted in modern synopses: the haunting fear of excrement.

Engendering mediumship: When youths performed the rain dances in Han dynasty China

Sumary: Historically, mediumship has provided significant social and religious opportunities for women in China, allowing them to have roles beyond those traditional ones at court and in the inner chambers as daughters, mothers, wives, concubines, servants and singing girls. Women performed as rain dancers in the great rituals to summon or to end the rain and also acted as healers, exorcists, diviners and counselors, among other things. However, religious ideas that developed and became popular during the Han dynasty (206-220 C.E.) placed restrictions on gender roles, introducing hierarchies of importance and power in which women as yin were often perceived to be inferior to men who were yang. As this paper explains, the engendering of mediumship enabled youths gradually to replace women in the rain dances and at court.

AMALGAM TINNING OF CHINESE BRONZE ANTIQUITIES*

This paper investigates the question whether or not amalgam tinning was used for the plating of bronze objects in pre‐Han and Han dynasty China. The relevant literary sources are reviewed and amalgam tinning is characterized experimentally with regard to its micro‐structure and residual mercury content using metallography and electron microprobe analysis. Examination of a tinning sample from a Warring States dagger previously assumed to be amalgam tinned demonstrates that this was probably not the case, but that a trace of mercury found in the plating is likely to be the result of contamination.

Fivefold Virtue: Reformulating Mencian Moral Psychology in Han Dynasty China

This article examines Confucian ethics in Han Dynasty China in light of the newly discovered silk manuscript known as the ‘Essay on the Five Phases’ (wuxingpian). This manuscript demonstrates the growing importance of the relationship between ethics and natural philosophy in early imperial China. Consistent with other Han attempts to reconcile conflicting Confucian models of self‐cultivation, the silk manuscript represents an adaptation of the theory of human nature developed by the followers of Mencius (Mengzi , c. 371‐c. 289 B.C.E.) to the understanding of the relationship between the body and the cosmos developed in HuangLao technical literature. The appeal of the ‘Essay on the Five Phases’ to this discourse not only provides insight into development of Confucianism in the Han, but also provides early evidence of the attempt to synthesize models for governing the human world according to the same correlative schemata believed to govern the natural world.1

Cho-Yun Hsu. <italic>Han Agriculture: The Formation of Early Chinese Agrarian Economy (206 B.C.–A.D. 220)</italic>. Edited by Jack L. Dull. (Han Dynasty China, number 2.) Seattle: University of Washington Press. 1980. Pp. xxv, 377. $20.00

Cho-Yun Hsu. <italic>Han Agriculture: The Formation of Early Chinese Agrarian Economy (206 B.C.–A.D. 220)</italic>. Edited by Jack L. Dull. (Han Dynasty China, number 2.) Seattle: University of Washington Press. 1980. Pp. xxv, 377. $20.00

T'ung-Tsu Ch'ü. <italic>Han Social Structure</italic>. Edited by Jack L. Dull. (Institute for Comparative and Foreign Area Studies, University of Washington. Han Dynasty China, volume 1.) Seattle: University of Washington Press. 1972. Pp. xix, 550. $17.50

Journal Article T'ung-Tsu Ch'ü. Han Social Structure. Edited by Jack L. Dull. (Institute for Comparative and Foreign Area Studies, University of Washington. Han Dynasty China, volume 1.) Seattle: University of Washington Press. 1972. Pp. xix, 550. $17.50 Get access Ch'ü T'ung-Tsu. Han Social Structure. Edited by Dull Jack L.. (Institute for Comparative and Foreign Area Studies, University of Washington. Han Dynasty China, volume 1.) Seattle: University of Washington Press. 1972. Pp. xix, 550. $17.50. Yu-Shan Han Yu-Shan Han University of California, Los Angeles Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 80, Issue 4, October 1975, Pages 1023–1024, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/80.4.1023-a Published: 01 October 1975

T‘ung-tsu Ch‘ü: Han social structure. Edited by Jack L. Dull. (Han DynastyChina, Vol. i.) xix, 550 pp. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, [1972]. $17.50, £8.25.

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