Using Early Chinese Manuscripts as Historical Source Materials

This paper tries to identify some important aspects for the historian's use of manuscripts written on wood, bamboo, and silk from the Warring States, Qin, Han, and Xin periods. Their relationship to received source materials in general is explored in" Origins," which also argues for a heightened awareness of the archaeological origin of manuscript sources. Three aspects of this archaeological origin are then discussed in more detail in the remainder of the paper:" Physical Preservation' deals with the natural and man-made forces that led (and lead) to destruction of manuscripts and a means to possibly recover some lost data. Special attention is given to the effects of grave robbing and to lists of funerary items." Presentation' critically reviews the characteristics of Chinese archaeological reports and of manuscript publications. Several formal elements of manuscripts and of their production process are listed which may be useful to analyze manuscript texts as well as to make aware of certain features that their transcription may conceal." Selection' tries to find possible reasons why the ancients have put texts into tombs at all and why they might have done so only after intentionally shortening or damaging these texts or withholding others that could have been entombed, too. In this connection, the concepts of mingqi 明器 and yong 俑 (two types of funerary artifacts) are discussed. Throughout the paper, numerous examples of archaeological as well as traditional provenance are given and keyed to my database of" Early Chinese Manuscripts" (Early China 23/24 1998–1999 and Early China website, http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/earlychina/res/databases/decm/). An" Appendix' provides a classification scheme for manuscripts from tombs.