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Map of Zheng He's voyages Perhaps no Chinese historical figure causes more eye-rolling among historians than the super-naval-bad-ass-7-foot-tall-could-have-discovered-America-but-didn’t-even-if-I’m-a-eunuch-Columbus-still-couldn’t-carry-my-jock admiral Zheng He.* He’s someone that students often ask about, and I’ve written a few posts over the years on the different Zheng He controversies which bubble to the surface of the popular press from time to time. Like [...] Today’s People’s Daily reports that archaeologist working in Sichuan province have uncovered a 4200-year old grave at the Sanxingdui site in which the remains appear to be a man and a woman embracing each other. It might be in keeping with my habits to wax poetic on the permanence of love (or the horrors of live [...] Even centuries later, Cao Cao sure knows how to start a turf war. This week the Henan Cultural Preservation Office issued a statement saying that there were no plans to commercialize the recently discovered tomb of Three Kingdoms era general Cao Cao. Spokesperson Sun Yingmin said that great care was needed to preserve and study “one [...] A joint project between the Harvard-Yenching Library and the National Library of China plans to digitize nearly 51,000 rare books and manuscripts, some dating back to the Song Dynasty, from the Harvard collection. Once completed, the texts will be publicly available for free on the Web. Given the division of labor involved here, I think it [...] 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 [...] Jim “Beijing” Boyce called my attention to this piece in National Geographic : A Delaware brewer with a penchant for exotic drinks recently concocted a beer similar to one brewed in China some 9,000 years ago. Sam Calagione of the Dogfish Head brewery in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, used a recipe that included rice, honey, and grape and hawthorn [...] From Xinhua: A Chinese history academic is refuting the modern interpretation of the First Emperor’s terracotta army, saying the figures are servants and bodyguards, instead of warriors as many people believe. “The clay figures should be taken as copies of the emperor’s guards and servants,” said Liu Jiusheng, associate professor of history at Shaanxi Normal University. [...] A few quick and final hits on a week of Tibetan nonsense…Michael Albada has a nice piece in the Stanford Progressive that reminds us cutting through the rhetoric from both sides of the Tibet debate is essential to reconciling the situation there: Tibet has gained a highly romanticized, idealistic image that does not stand up to the [...] In archaeology news: A group in Kure, Japan is planning to salvage artifacts from the sunken Battleship Yamato. The ship, at 65,000 tons one of the largest of its class, sank in 1945. Via Asahi.com: Kazushige Todaka, chief of the Kure Maritime Museum, more commonly known as the Yamato Museum because it has a replica of the battleship [...] Grisly discovery from Xinjiang: Six more or less preserved corpses from the days of the Qing Empire. The bodies were dated based on their clothing and long (over four feet) queues which were still intact and visible. The article identifies the corpses as officials, but it’s a little hard to tell from the accompanying (rather grisly) photograph. There [...] A link from reader Scott Loar relating to a previous post on paleoanthropology, race, and Chinese nationalism: This month’s issue of Scientific American contains an article by Gary Stix on DNA research which bolsters the ‘out of Africa’ theory of human evolution. Where’s the China connection? Well, as I have blogged about before, the idea that the Chinese [...] A 2,500-year old Shang era tomb discovered last January in eastern Jiangxi province has once again provided reseachers with some fascinating discoveries including the grisly unearthing of a burial chamber containing 47 bodies, victims of human sacrifice. Human sacrifice was a key part of Shang political and religious culture, with Shang kings acting in a role [...] I wrote about this last week, but the People’s Daily today weighs in on the significance of the discovery at Xuchang. Researchers at the site located in Henan province uncovered a nearly-complete 100,000 skull that has caused great excitement in the Chinese scientific community. The discovery at Xuchang supports the theory that modern Chinese man originated [...] Today’s People’s Daily reports Chinese paleoanthropologists have discovered a nearly complete 100,000-year old skull (albeit in 16 pieces) at an excavation site in Henan province: “It is the greatest discovery in China after the Peking Man and Upper Cave Man skull fossils were found in Beijing early last century, and will shed light on a critical period [...] From the Shanghai Daily: CHINESE archaeologists have discovered an elaborately decorated sword, believed to be 2,500 to 2,600 years old, in an ancient tomb in the eastern province of Jiangxi. “It is reckoned the oldest ever excavated in the country,” said Xu Changqing, chief of the excavation team. A dragon pattern was carved on both ends of [...] |
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