EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

Art, Archeology & Material Culture 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 82 Current paper focuses on the series of Xu’s works produced since 1999 based on traditional Song-Ming dynasties landscape paintings repainted using Chinese characters and titled collectively landscripts shan- shui shihua 山水詩畫 . I intend to trace the origins of this concept and try to demonstrate that Xu Bing’s landscripts can be linked on the one hand to traditional Chinese landscape theories which in turn are closely connected with the cosmological speculations derived from and influenced by the Book of Changes and on the other with the theories prevalent in contemporary Western cultural geography which emphasize the textual nature of landscape as cultural image. Kovalev Alexey (Institute of Archaeology, RAS) Evidence of Chinese Narrative Sources about Xiongnu Before the Creation of their Empire Key words: Xiongnu, Zhanguo, Qin, Han, Zhanguo ce, Shi ji, Han shu The author makes an attempt to re-analyze the Chinese written sources containing information about the Xiongnu during the pre-Han period. The author argues in favour of the reliability of the majority of such state- ments. However, reading theses texts requires taking into account the ideological framework of the Han period. For the interpretation of the text it is necessary to involve a similar construction in similar contexts too. In particular, the author will demonstrate that the phrase “ 十余年而 ” (“more than ten years elapsed”) should not be read literally. In fact, it carries the meaning of “ended the reign of the Qin Dynasty”. Thus, on the basis of this sentence, it is not possible to identify precisely the beginning of Xiongnu’s expansion. The author concludes that during the late 4th and early 3rd centuries BCE, the Xiongnu resided to the north of the states of Zhao and Yan. In the times of the Qin dynasty, the administrative center of the Xiongnu was located in the territory of modern Ningxia (conquered by the armies of the Qin Empire as Xinqinzhong 新秦中 ). From this region, the shanyu Touman moved to the Yinshan Mountains after the defeat by Qin Shihuang’s armies in 214 BC. Kuznetsova-Fetisova Marina (Institute of Oriental Studies, RAS) Eating Habits of the Population in the Great Settlement Shang (XIV–XI BC) Key words: Shang dynasty, Yinxu, Anyang, eating habits Eating habits and diet of the late Shang capital's inhabitants has been under discussion since its discov- ery in the late 1920s. Not many food items were discovered during archaeological excavations there; thus, bones of domesticated and wild animals from settlement areas and tombs served as an important source. Many scholars searched for information about food and eating habits in inscriptions on oracle bones ( 甲骨文 ). Recently, a number of new methods are being applied in order to obtain reliable information about food consumption inAncient China. Human bones from Shang capital near Anyang were also tested a number of times; for example, isotope analysis was performed on 35 samples ( 张雪莲,王金霞,冼自强等. 古人类食 物结构研究. 考古, 2003, #2, p. 62–75). Results were not unexpected: reconstructed diet of those humans consisted mainly of C4 plants. As this group includes millet, it can be easily linked with information from the oracle bone inscriptions, where different kinds of millet were mentioned as main crops. When it comes to food preparation processes, form of the most common cooking vessel at the late Shang capital — a ceramic tripod with hollow legs ( 鬲 ) — suggests what grains could be consumed in a liquid or semi-liquid form, like soup or congee. Also, its not rare to find vessels, which could be used as steamers on top of tripods, and it suggests, that steamed food was also quite common at the second half of II mill. BC in this area. Linduff Katheryn M. (University of Pittsburgh), Rubinson Karen S. (ISAW, New York University) On the Edge: The Politics of Death at the Ends of the Silk Road, c. 100 CE Key words: Silk Road, Afghanistan, Xinjiang, borderlands, politics of frontiers