More terracotta army secrets to be revealed

Work in the sites around the tomb of Qin Shihuangdi has proceeded in fits and starts since the terracotta soldiers were first discovered in 1974.  In recent years, Chinese archaeologists have held at bay local officials eager to develop tourism at all costs, and instead approached further excavation cautiously, seeking to avoid damaging priceless antiquities yet to be uncovered.

Work on the Number One Pit at the excavation site has been halted for over twenty years…until this weekend when a further 200 meters will be uncovered with a CCTV film crew in tow to capture the proceedings.

The initial diggings uncovered over 1,000 terracotta figures, it is hoped by the team that further work might uncover not only soldiers, but also possibly teracotta officers or officials as well.

June 9th, 2009

Asian history online: CHANT (Chinese Ancient Texts Online)

Via Asian Studies WWW Monitor:

Chinese Ancient Texts (CHANT) Database

Research Centre for Chinese Ancient Texts, Institute of Chinese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, HK, China.

A description of, a guided tour, and online contents of: * Jiaguwen – A Database of Oracular Inscriptions on Tortoise Shells and Bones [Database Contents: inscriptions found on 53,834 fragments of shells and bones - ed.]] * Jianbao – A Database of the Excavated Wood/Bamboo and Silk Scripts [Database Contents: Approximately 1.4 million characters from the entire corpus of all published Jianbo texts - ed.] * Jinwen – A Database of Bronze Inscriptions – [Database Contents: Over 140,000 words from 12,021 bronze vessels - ed.] * Pre-Han & Han – A Database of The Entire Body of Extant Han and Pre-Han (i.e. pre-220AD) Traditional Chinese Texts. * Six Dynasties – A Database of Traditional Chinese Texts of Weijin and the Northern and Southern Dynasties (220-589AD) [Database Contents: Over 25 millions words from over 1,000 titles - ed.] * Leishu – A Computerized Database of the Entire Body of Extant Chinese Encyclopedias (Leishu) [Database Contents: Over 60 million words from all major Leishu texts from the Weijin period until to the Qing Dynasty,

June 9th, 2009

Morning Tea: Five books on the US internment of Japanese-Americans…Pomfret on post-Tiananmen China…The Pampered Test-taker

History may or may not repeat itself, (The Propellerheads suggest it does, I disagree but I think it comes close enough every once in awhile to scare the bejeezus out of the human race.)  But like flu epidemics and movies starring Colin Farrell, certain rhetoric has a nasty habit of reappearing every so often with the same putridity but a new mutation (or marketing campaign) which has fooled us into thinking it’s something new and different.

Sixty years before Guantanamo and arguments over military tribunals and “enemies among us,” the US government imprisoned 120,00 people for the crime of having Japanese ancestry.  While the historical situation was different, the rhetoric used to justify the internment in the “War aganst Fascism” is eerily reminiscent of the current debate in the face of a “War on Terror.” For those interested in reading more on this dark period in US history, the WaPo Short Stacks blog lists five books on the stories of Japanese-Americans in the internment camps.  (h/t Angry Asian Man)

Speaking of closely examining past government misdeeds from a historical perspective, back in 1989…oh wait, sorry this is China, never mind.

Nevertheless, Quixotic crusading jouro that he is, John Pomfret offers

June 9th, 2009

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