Download or read book Wheeled Vehicles in the Chinese Bronze Age c 2000 741 B C written by Anthony Jerome Barbieri-Low and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book China in the Early Bronze Age written by Robert L. Thorp and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2013-03-25 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the great breakthroughs in Chinese studies in the early twentieth century was the archaeological identification of the earliest, fully historical dynasty of kings, the Shang (ca. 1300-1050 B.C.E.). The last fifty years have seen major advances in all areas of Chinese archaeology, but recent studies of the Shang, their ancestors, and their contemporaries have been especially rich. Since the last English-language overview of Shang civilization appeared in 1980, the pace of discovery has quickened. China in the Early Bronze Age: Shang Civilization is the first work in twenty-five years to synthesize current knowledge of the Shang for everyone interested in the origins of Chinese civilization. China in the Early Bronze Age traces the development of early Bronze Age cultures in North and Northwestern China from about 2000 B.C.E., including the Erlitou culture (often identified with the Xia) and the Erligang culture. Robert L. Thorp introduces major sites, their architectural remains, burials, and material culture, with special attention to jades and bronze. He reviews the many discoveries near Anyang, site of two capitals of the Shang kings. In addition to the topography of these sites, Thorp discusses elite crafts and devotes a chapter to the Shang cult, its divination practices, and its rituals. The volume concludes with a survey of the late Shang world, cultures contemporary with Anyang during the late second millennium B.C.E. Fully documented with references to Chinese archaeological sources and illustrated with more than one hundred line drawings, China in the Early Bronze Age also includes informative sidebars on related topics and suggested readings. Students of the history and archaeology of early civilizations will find China in the Early Bronze Age the most up-to-date and wide-ranging introduction to its topic now in print. Scholars in Chinese studies will use this work as a handbook and research guide. This volume makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in the formative stages of Chinese culture.

Download or read book Boot Hooves and Wheels written by Saikat K Bose and published by Vij Books India Pvt Ltd. This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page 595 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The books title has an apparent misnomer—boots were not used in early armies, at least as apparent from temple sculptures which depict bare-bodied and barefooted soldiers. But is it likely to have been true? Or social reasons led to suppression of footgear on temple walls? The book explores these and myriad other questions on the military experience of South Asia, hoping to construct a picture of how men, animals, and equipment were used on South Asian battlefields from the end of the Paleolithic till the dawn of our era. Further, as all that happens on battlefields is no more than the tip of the proverbial iceberg whose submarine mass conceals many cause–effect relationships in a wide variety of fields, the author, adopting a wide fronted approach, examines the evidence of anthropology, literature, mythology, folklore, technology, archaeology, and architecture, to reconstructs the military atmosphere of South Asia beyond the battlefield, which is the aim of this book.

Download or read book Handbook of Ancient Afro Eurasian Economies written by Sitta Reden and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-12-02 with total page 954 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The notion of the “Silk Road” that the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen invented in the 19th century has lost attraction to scholars in light of large amounts of new evidence and new approaches. The handbook suggests new conceptual and methodological tools for researching ancient economic exchange in a global perspective with a strong focus on recent debates on the nature of pre-modern empires. The interdisciplinary team of Chinese, Indian and Graeco-Roman historians, archaeologists and anthropologists that has written this handbook compares different forms of economic development in agrarian and steppe regions in a period of accelerated empire formation during 300 BCE and 300 CE. It investigates inter-imperial zones and networks of exchange which were crucial for ancient Eurasian connections. Volume I provides a comparative history of the most important empires forming in Northern Africa, Europe and Asia between 300 BCE and 300 CE. It surveys a wide range of evidence that can be brought to bear on economic development in the these empires, and takes stock of the ways academic traditions have shaped different understandings of economic and imperial development as well as Silk-Road exchange in Russia, China, India and Western Graeco-Roman history.

Download or read book The Archaeology of Early China written by Gideon Shelach-Lavi and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-26 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book covers Chinese archaeology from the first people to the unification of the empire, emphasizing cultural variations and interregional contact.

Download or read book Transportation through the Ages written by Michael Woods and published by Twenty-First Century Books TM. This book was released on 2024-08-01 with total page 83 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ancient world saw many empires rise and fall. But how did massive empires such as Babylon or Rome move information and resources across continents? They relied on one of the oldest technologies in human history: transportation. Ever since humans first began migrating within and outside of Africa, they have needed transportation technology to help move themselves and their possessions. Beginning with shoes to support feet over rough ground and boats to traverse water, humans quickly created a wide range of inventions to help them move faster and carry more over long distances. From prehistoric hunting paths to the widespread highways of Rome, learn about the ancient transportation methods that shaped human history and paved the way for planes, trains, and superhighways.

Download or read book Prehistoric Societies on the Northern Frontiers of China written by Gideon Shelach and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-08 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The northern borders of China - known as the Northern zone - were a key area of interaction between sedentary and nomadic people during the late second and early first millennium BCE. During this period the region's unique economy, socio-political systems, local cultures and identities took shape. 'Prehistoric Societies on the Northern Frontiers of China' analyses the archaeological record to examine the changes that took place in Northern China in the first millennium. Drawing on field work in the Chifeng area of Inner Mongolia, the book explores dramatic changes in the construction of identities alongside more gradual changes in subsistence strategies and political organization. The book is unique in integrating the archaeological data and historical records of this period with anthropological theory to examine the role of identity construction and the use of symbol in the shaping of East Asian society.

Download or read book Unlocking the Chinese Gate written by Galia Dor and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2024-05-01 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unlocking the Chinese Gate offers an innovative analysis of gates in early Chinese thought and material culture. Observing gates from various perspectives—including philosophy, architecture, and psychology—and through the conceptual lens of Chinese correlative thinking, Galia Dor conceptualizes the Chinese gate as a membrane-like apparatus that, from the space "in-between," efficaciously manifests (de) the Way (dao) into the "ten thousand" forms of actualized life. This methodology exposes an open-to-closed gradation between pairs of inside/outside (wai/nei) that resonates throughout the Chinese model of psychocosmic concentric circles. The consequential strategies (e.g., continuity/break, chaos/order) demonstrate how early Chinese cosmological, philosophical, and political idealities, as well as afterlife religious beliefs, were applied—including the various approaches to and practices of self-cultivation. The book sheds new light on ancient Chinese thought and material culture and offers points of comparison to Western thought and modern science, including a model of "decision-gating" that carries relevant implications and insights to our current lives.

Download or read book Empires of the Silk Road written by Christopher I. Beckwith and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-16 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An epic account of the rise and fall of the Silk Road empires The first complete history of Central Eurasia from ancient times to the present day, Empires of the Silk Road represents a fundamental rethinking of the origins, history, and significance of this major world region. Christopher Beckwith describes the rise and fall of the great Central Eurasian empires, including those of the Scythians, Attila the Hun, the Turks and Tibetans, and Genghis Khan and the Mongols. In addition, he explains why the heartland of Central Eurasia led the world economically, scientifically, and artistically for many centuries despite invasions by Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Chinese, and others. In retelling the story of the Old World from the perspective of Central Eurasia, Beckwith provides a new understanding of the internal and external dynamics of the Central Eurasian states and shows how their people repeatedly revolutionized Eurasian civilization. Beckwith recounts the Indo-Europeans' migration out of Central Eurasia, their mixture with local peoples, and the resulting development of the Graeco-Roman, Persian, Indian, and Chinese civilizations; he details the basis for the thriving economy of premodern Central Eurasia, the economy's disintegration following the region's partition by the Chinese and Russians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the damaging of Central Eurasian culture by Modernism; and he discusses the significance for world history of the partial reemergence of Central Eurasian nations after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Empires of the Silk Road places Central Eurasia within a world historical framework and demonstrates why the region is central to understanding the history of civilization.

Download or read book Ancient Transportation Technology written by Mary B. Woods and published by Twenty-First Century Books. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Did you know . . . • People first used skis more than 8,000 years ago? • The first wheels were used in pottery—not for transportation? • Traffic jams often clogged the streets of ancient Rome? Transportation technology is as old as human society itself. The first humans on Earth used simple transportation tools. They bundled logs together to make rafts. They used long poles and flat boards to carry heavy loads. Over the centuries, ancient peoples learned more about transportation. The ancient Indians trained elephants and horses for travel. The ancient Chinese developed the first compasses. The ancient Greeks built massive battleships. So what kinds of tools and techniques did ancient people use? How did maps of the world improve over time? And how did ancient transportation set the stage for our own modern transportation technology? Learn more in Ancient Transportation Technology.

Download or read book Next Big Thing written by Richard Faulk and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2015-06-16 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intro -- NextBigThing-BCFC -- NextBigThing-complete

Download or read book Social Memory and State Formation in Early China written by Min Li and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-24 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Li Min proposes a new paradigm for the foundation and emergence of the classical tradition in early China, from the late Neolithic through the Zhou period. Using a wide range of historical and archaeological data, he explains the development of ritual authority and particular concepts of kingship over time in relation to social memory. His volume weaves together the major benchmarks in the emergence of the classical tradition, particularly how legacies of prehistoric interregional interactions, state formation, urban florescence and collapse during the late third and the second millenniums BCE laid the critical foundation for the Sandai notion of history among Zhou elite. Moreover, the literary-historical accounts of the legendary Xia Dynasty in early China reveal a cultural construction involving social memories of the past and subsequent political elaborations in various phases of history. This volume enables a new understanding on the long-term processes that enabled a classical civilization in China to take shape.

Download or read book Granting the Seasons written by Nathan Sivin and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-12-19 with total page 663 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China’s most sophisticated system of computational astronomy was created for a Mongol emperor who could neither read nor write Chinese, to celebrate victory over China after forty years of devastating war. This book explains how and why, and reconstructs the observatory and the science that made it possible. For two thousand years, a fundamental ritual of government was the emperor’s “granting the seasons” to his people at the New Year by issuing an almanac containing an accurate lunisolar calendar. The high point of this tradition was the “Season-granting system” (Shou-shih li, 1280). Its treatise records detailed instructions for computing eclipses of the sun and moon and motions of the planets, based on a rich archive of observations, some ancient and some new. Sivin, the West’s leading scholar of the Chinese sciences, not only recreates the project’s cultural, political, bureaucratic, and personal dimensions, but translates the extensive treatise and explains every procedure in minimally technical language. The book contains many tables, illustrations, and aids to reference. It is clearly written for anyone who wants to understand the fundamental role of science in Chinese history. There is no comparable study of state science in any other early civilization.

Download or read book Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change written by Reuven Amitai and published by University of Hawaii Press. This book was released on 2014-12-31 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the first millennium BCE, nomads of the Eurasian steppe have played a key role in world history and the development of adjacent sedentary regions, especially China, India, the Middle East, and Eastern and Central Europe. Although their more settled neighbors often saw them as an ongoing threat and imminent danger—“barbarians,” in fact—their impact on sedentary cultures was far more complex than the raiding, pillaging, and devastation with which they have long been associated in the popular imagination. The nomads were also facilitators and catalysts of social, demographic, economic, and cultural change, and nomadic culture had a significant influence on that of sedentary Eurasian civilizations, especially in cases when the nomads conquered and ruled over them. Not simply passive conveyors of ideas, beliefs, technologies, and physical artifacts, nomads were frequently active contributors to the process of cultural exchange and change. Their active choices and initiatives helped set the cultural and intellectual agenda of the lands they ruled and beyond. This volume brings together a distinguished group of scholars from different disciplines and cultural specializations to explore how nomads played the role of “agents of cultural change.” The beginning chapters examine this phenomenon in both east and west Asia in ancient and early medieval times, while the bulk of the book is devoted to the far flung Mongol empire of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This comparative approach, encompassing both a lengthy time span and a vast region, enables a clearer understanding of the key role that Eurasian pastoral nomads played in the history of the Old World. It conveys a sense of the complex and engaging cultural dynamic that existed between nomads and their agricultural and urban neighbors, and highlights the non-military impact of nomadic culture on Eurasian history. Nomads as Agents of Cultural Change illuminates and complicates nomadic roles as active promoters of cultural exchange within a vast and varied region. It makes available important original scholarship on the new turn in the study of the Mongol empire and on relations between the nomadic and sedentary worlds.

Download or read book Bureaucracy and the State in Early China written by Feng Li and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008-12-11 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ook redefines the bureaucracy of Ancient Chinese society during the Western Zhou period. The analysis is based on inscriptions of royal edicts from the period carved into bronze vessels. The inscriptions clarify the political and social construction of the Western Zhou and the ways in which it exercised its authority.

Download or read book The Teleology of the Modern Nation State written by Joshua A. Fogel and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-05-15 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Japan and China did not begin to emerge as unified political entities until the nineteenth century. Yet scholars and politicians persistently refer to "Japan" and "China" in discussions of earlier periods, as if the modern nation-state had long been established in these regions. Joshua Fogel here brings together essays by eight renowned East Asian scholars to demonstrate why this oversight distorts our historical analysis and understanding of both countries. The nation-states of Japan and China developed much later and, indeed, far less uniformly than usually conveyed in popular myth and political culture. Moreover, the false depiction of an earlier national identity not only alters the factual record; it serves the contemporary engines of nationalist mythology and propaganda. This interdisciplinary volume asks deceptively simple questions: When did "Japan" and "China" become Japan and China? When and why do inhabitants begin to define their identity and interests nationally rather than locally? Identifying the role of mitigating factors from disease and travel abroad to the subtleties of political language and aesthetic sensibility, the answers provided in these diverse and insightful essays are appropriately complex. By setting aside Western notions of the nation-state, the contributors approach each region on its own terms, while the thematic organization of the book provides a unique lens through which to view the challenges common to understanding both Japan and China. This highly readable collection will be important to scholars both inside and beyond the field of East Asian studies.

Download or read book Framing the Mahabharata written by Saikat K Bose and published by Vij Books India Pvt Ltd. This book was released on 2018-05-01 with total page 527 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It all probably was a tale.However, serious research does identify some events, from about a thousand years before the Common Era, that qualify as the bases of the epic’s plot. Apparently, collective memory evolved significantly through the centuries before their stories, legends, and allegories took the forms that we know from the epic today.And yet, even if no set of historical events can be found to correspond with epic episodes, its many stories, legends, and allegories nevertheless conform to themes that were at one time authentic. In other words, whether or not epic episodes were historical, the ideas and concepts they represent were.It is with these ideas and concepts that Framing the Mahabharata weaves the pattern of South Asian society as it evolved through the cusp of the Bronze and Iron Ages, developing motifs we are familiar with today. Against this pattern, it reconstructs the military tactics, technology, and sociology that marked the interplay of nomadic and sedentary folks, most poignantly depicted in the career of war-chariots.