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Preliminary Notes on Sung Archaeology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

R. C. Rudolph
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Extract

We have heard much about the Sung archaeologists' mistakes but little about their important work, upon which much of our work in some fields is based today. They did not make spectacular discoveries of buried cities through the use of classical sources as did Heinrich Schliemann less than one hundred years ago. But they did use the early literature, together with a critical sense of judgment, some eight or nine centuries ago to discover much truth about the remote past and to dispel misinformation which had accumulated in the ensuing centuries. Many of the Sung scholars had a most enlightened and what might even be called a modern approach in their attitude towards this work. They had progressed far beyond the “cabinet of curiosities” stage, still current in Europe at a much later date, and were engaged in intelligent research concerned with identification, etymology, dating, and interpretation. Moreover, they practiced, within the limitations imposed upon them by the advancement of science at that time, most of the critical methods and devices used in modern archaeological work.

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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , February 1963, pp. 169 - 177
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Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1963

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References

1 Chao Ming-ch'eng,aChin shih lu b (San ch'ang wu chai ts'ung shu ed.), preface.

2 von Ranke, Leopold, Geschichten der romanischen und germanischen Völker von 1494 bis 1514, 3rd. ed. (Leipzig, 1885)Google Scholar, XXXIII/XXXIV, p. vii. The Sung scholars did indeed correct many errors in transmitted texts by the use of archaeological evidence. They were not, however, either the first or last to use this method. One early and very dear example occurs in the sixth-century work Ven shih chia hsün in which the author makes use of an inscription on a bronze scale from the Ch'in dynasty found in 582 to correct a mistake in the name of an official which occurs in the section on Ch'in Shih Huang Ti in the Shih chi. Later editions of the Shih chi adopted this correction. Yen shift chia hsün hui chu, Academia Sinica, Institute of History and Philology, Special Publication no. 1 (1960), 102b–103a. I am grateful to the late Dr. Hu Shih for drawing my attention to this event while I was at Academia Sinica in 1960. A recent large-scale compilation of errors in histories and other works by the use of archaeological materials has been made by Ch'en Chung-mien. See Chung-mien, Ch'en, “Chen shih cheng shih,” Academia Sinica, Bulletin of the institute of History and Philology, VIII (1939), 495–596 and XV (1948), 225–280Google Scholar. An earlier article of this nature, “Chin shih cheng shih,” appeared in Chung shan ta hsüch shih hsüch chitan k'an, Vol. 1, pt. 4 (1936).Google Scholar

3 Jung chai sut pi c (Ssu pu ts'ung k'an ed.), Ch. 14, p. 4bs.Google Scholar

4 Jung chai san pi (Ssu pu ts'ung k'an ed.), Ch. 13, p. 2as–b.Google Scholar

5 Chin shih lu, Ch. 12, p. 3b.Google Scholar

6 Huang Po-ssu f, Tung kuan yü lun g (Chin tai pi shu ed.), Ch. I, pp. 453–473.Google Scholar

7 Waley, Arthur, Ballads and Stories from Tun Huang (New York, 1960), p. 238Google Scholar. For an analysis of an early travel-diary and its material on archaeology and art, see Rudolph, R. C., “Kuo Pi, A Yüan Artist and his Diary,” Ars Orientalis, III (1959), 175–188.Google Scholar

8 This is the Ho shuo fang ku chi j written by Na Hsin, k a Mongol educated in China. He made a trip from Chekiang to Mongolia in 1345 with the express purpose of visiting all important monuments and sites north of the Yellow River on this route and making a complete record of these things. This work, in sixteen sections, must have originally contained much interesting and important information, but only two sections now remain.

9 See, for example, Chōan shiseki no kenkyū (Investigations of the Remains of Ch'ang-an), Tōyō bunko ronsō, No. 21, 1933, facing p. 254.Google Scholar

10 The K'ao ku fu, l author's preface dated 1092.

11 T'ieh wei shan ts'ung fan m (Chih pu tsu chai ed.), Ch. 4, pp. 230–25b.Google Scholar

12 Lu Wen-ch'ao, nPao ching t'ang wen chi, o Ch. 12 (TSCC ed., Vol. 2501, p. 174).Google Scholar

13 Sec the biography of Chu Mien p in Sung shih, Ch. 470. Another account of this operation is given in the less reliable Hsüan ho i shih, q pt. 1 (TSCC ed.), Vol. 3889, p. 13Google Scholar, and further information may be found in Hsü tzu chih t'ung chien, r Ch. 87 and 89, passim.

14 Chung ting k'uan shih, s 1848 ed., p. 37b.Google Scholar

15 Su Shih, tCh'iti ch'ih pi chi u (TSCC ed.), Vol. 2851, p. 2.Google Scholar

16 Collected works, SPPY ed., Vol. 1378, Ch. 75, p. 2a–b.

17 Shih lin pi shu lu hua v (Sung yüan jen shuo pu ed.), Ch. 3, p. 10a–b.Google Scholar

18 Ch'ing po tsa chih, w (Shuo fu ed.), Vol. 22, p. 4a–b.Google Scholar

19 Ch'üan Han-sheng, “Pei sung pien liang ti shu ch'u ju mao i” [“Export-import Trade of Kaifeng in Northern Sung Times], Academia Sinica, Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology, VIII (1939), 189–301.Google Scholar

20 Kuo-wei, Wang, “Sung tai chih chin shih hsüch,” Kuo hsüeh lun ts'ung. Vol. 1, pt. 3, p. 47Google Scholar. An English translation appears in China Journal of Arts and Sciences, 6 (1927), 222s–231.Google Scholar

21 Tung Yu, xKuang ch'uan shu pa y (Chin tai pi shu ed.), Ch. 6, p. 17bs.Google Scholar

22 Tung kuan yü lun, Ch. 1, p. 470.Google Scholar

23 Tung t'ien ch'ing lu chi, z (TSCC ed.), Vol. 1552, pp. 10–14Google Scholar. Strangely enough, John Ferguson took this plagiarized text to be an original “authoritative statement” by Liang and translated it under the title of “An Examination of Chinese Bronzes,” Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1926, pp. 587–592.Google Scholar

24 Meng ch'i pi t'an. aa One should consult the excellent annotated edition in two volumes published by the Chunghwa Bookstore, Shanghai, 1960. See also the excellent discussion of the work and its author by Holzman, Donald, “Shen Kua and his Meng-ch'i pi-t'an,” Toung Pao, XLVI (1959), 260–292Google Scholar, and a tabular analysis of the contents in Needham, Joseph, Science and Civilisation in China, I (Cambridge, 1954), 136.Google Scholar

25 On the accuracy of these woodcuts, see Yetts, W. Perceval, An-Yang: A Retrospect (China Society Occasional Papers, new series, no. 2, 1942), pp. 15–20.Google Scholar