Qingtong qi yu Songdai wenhua shi 青銅器與宋代文化史 [Bronze Vessels and Song Dynasty Cultural History], written by Chen Fangmei 陳芳妹

陳芳妹 over the past fifteen years.The volume represents the results of Chen's studies on Song dynasty research into ancient bronze vessels.Chen is a leading scholar in Taiwan in the field of bronze vessels, with a background in early Chinese archaeology.The five lengthy papers in this volume were originally published between 2001 and 2015.Although the topical focus and publication dates of the five papers vary, they revolve around common themes and concerns, which Chen characterizes in her introduction with the question: "Why is it that such material objects already extant at the time of Confucius, such as the jue 爵, ding 鼎, and fu 簠, with their characteristic shape and ornamentation, enjoyed a longevity of two thousand years after the end of the Bronze Age, during which millennia they widely circulated?" (p.iii).The five papers all have their starting point in this question, implicitly or explicitly.Each paper explains why these vessels from the three ancient dynasties had a new life in the Song and what meaning their rebirth had in Song cultural history.Interest in bronze vessels during the Song dynasty had a very complicated sociological background.Consequently, in addition to examining archaeological materials and Song writings concerning them, Chen reconstructs the historical setting of bronze vessel revivalism during the Song, as it existed in different social classes, and how it changed over time.In chapter 1, the author argues that Diagrams of the Three Rites Classics [Sanli tu 三禮圖], by Nie Chongyi 聶崇義 [fl.962], was the beginning of the Song period investigations into these ancient vessels.This work relied completely on earlier classical commentaries for its understanding of the vessels, adhering to the doctrine of "explicating the vessel according to textual accounts of it" [尊文譯器,依經繪圖].But, starting with the middle period of the Northern Song , scholars such as Liu Chang 劉敞 and Ouyang Xiu 歐陽修 represented a new breed of researchers who broke free of the shackles of through Tang [618-907] classical commentaries.By examining pre-Qin vessels, these scholars founded their own understanding of ritual vessels, thus opening a new path in this field of inquiry.Kaogu tu 考古圖, by Lü Dalin 呂大臨 , advanced this approach, making it more academic and systematic.Then, in the reign of emperor Huizong 宋徽宗 [r.1101-1125], at the end of the Northern Song, with

Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Bronze · Bronze Age · China · Extant taxon · Literature · Shang dynasty · Chinese history and philosophy · Classics · History · Philosophy