This volume is a sequel to the monumental exhibition catalog edited by Cary Liu, Michael Nylan, and Anthony Barbieri-Low, entitled Recarving China's Past: Art, Archeology, and Architecture of the “Wu Family Shrines” (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Art Museum; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005), which cast doubt on the authenticity of what are probably the most famous shrines known from ancient China. The theory that at least some of the slabs may not have been carved in Eastern Han times or may have been recarved to a degree that turned them into documents pertaining to much later epochs has provoked several strong reactions. As Liu remarks in his preface to Rethinking Recarving, the assemblage of essays “responds to, criticizes, and defends assertions or suppositions relating to ideals and practices apparently reflected by the Wu shrines and concerning Han-dynasty China” (p. 6).

The papers were prepared for an international symposium organized by the Princeton Art Museum in 2005. Many of them do not deal directly with the question of recarving, but address broader subjects such as Han funerary art or the architectural functions and meanings of carving in a more general sense. Michael Loewe's essay, “Ideals, Practices, and Problems of Han China,” for example, clearly is designed more to give valuable information for the viewer of a public exhibition than for the sinological reader of this book. One section devoted to Han funerary art and architecture in Shandong and other regions contains highly interesting articles by Lydia Thompson, Zheng Yan, Susan Erickson, and Klaas Ruitenbeek. I would like to highlight especially Zheng Yan's piece, “Viewers of Han Mortuary Art,” which introduces the reader to recently excavated stone inscriptions addressing the visitors of funerary sites.

Part III takes up architectural functions and carved meanings. Jiang Yingju discusses the homage scenes in Han pictorial carving, and Miranda Brown gives excellent reasons why tomb inscriptions from the late Eastern Han period, despite their problems, can provide valuable access to the Han past. Michael Nylan, in “Constructing Citang in Han,” notes the surprising ambiguity of literary and archeological evidence for the erection of aboveground worship halls by the non-noble wealthy and thus implicitly questions the plausibility of citang in the Eastern Han.

A fourth section discusses the Qing background of the Wuliang shrines. Both Eileen Hsiang-ling Hsu and Lilian Lan-ying Tseng address how Huang Yi, the discoverer of the Wuliang stele and reliefs, was connected to his scholarly environment and how he made his discoveries available by seals and albums. Finally, most remarkably, a fifth section in this book criticizes the recarving theory. Qianshen Bai strongly takes issue with the recarving project and highlights the mistakes of its proponents. Many of Bai's arguments are extremely important. His corrections of translations in the first Recarving volume are all well taken, and they strengthen the belief in the traditional way of viewing the Wu family shrines. In addition, Bai shows the pitfalls of using the Siku quanshu editions. This article is a model of sound criticism, and the editors deserve praise for including it in the book.

However, one should note that for anyone who is familiar with archaeology, it is more than strange that apparently no serious testing of the stele has been attempted, as Liu rightly calls for in his contribution to this volume. Philological arguments are important in this debate, and the editors of the first Recarving volume themselves relied heavily on philology. Yet it is appalling to see how methods developed in the field of natural sciences are neglected in the field of dating Chinese archeological findings. One of the merits of this book is to draw attention to this problem. Also, we should be extremely cautious in assessing the validity of evidential research scholarship of the eighteenth century. Despite their welcome skepticism, Qing scholars, and their arguments, require careful consideration. The question of whether evidential research was “proto-scientific,” as many assume, or, as others think, whether it had its own agenda, and therefore should be taken less seriously, needs further discussion.

Rethinking Recarving is a stimulating book, and it is recommended not only to readers who are interested in Chinese art history but to all those who want to learn more about matters of forgeries and authenticity in Chinese history in general. The problems that have been raised by the two Recarving volumes are far from being solved.