“’I Write, Therefore I Am’: Scribes, Literacy and Identity in Early China."

A recent article argued that “texts can be used as tools for enacting identities in social settings” (Reading Research Quarterly 44.4 (2009): 416). Considering the multitude of manuscripts yielded by fourth through first-centuries BCE burials, such a statement seems pertinent for early Chinese society as well. What does it say about the self-concept of an individual when his ability to write and / or read assumed a prominent role in funerary rites? This paper analyzes evidence of literacy that may be found in Chinese textual sources (received and archaeological) and tombs by applying identity concepts developed in anthropology and the social sciences to Chinese funerary data. It not only argues that the actual ability to write is palpable through certain kinds of texts that were associated with writing paraphernalia, but that literacy in particular was a crucial aspect of the self-representation of a particular group of people, namely the shǐ 史 (“scribes”)

Sacrifice vs. Sustenance: Food as a Burial Good in Late Pre-Imperial and Early Imperial Chinese Tombs and Its Relation [to] Funerary Rites

One of the medical manuscripts recovered from Tomb No. 3 at Mawangdui (dated 186 B.C.E.) states that, “When a person is born there are two things that need not to be learned: the first is to breathe and the second is to eat.” Of course it is true that all healthy newborn human beings possess the reflexes to breathe and eat. Yet, the implications of death should have been just as obvious to the ancient Chinese. Once the human brain ceases to function, there is no longer a biological need for oxygen and nourishment. Nevertheless, a large number of people in the late pre-imperial and early imperial China insisted on burying food and drink with the dead. Most modern commentators take the deposition of food and drink as burial goods to be a rather trite phenomenon that warrants little reflection. To their minds both kinds of deposits were either intended to sustain the spirit of the deceased in the hereafter or simply a sacrifice to the spirit of the deceased. Yet, a closer look at the archaeological evidence suggests otherwise. By tracking the exact location of food and drink containers in late pre-imperial and early imperial tombs and by comprehensively analyzing inscriptions on such vessels in addition to finds of actual food, the article demonstrates that reality was more complicated than this simple either / or dichotomy. Some tombs indicate that the idea of continued sustenance coincided with occasional sacrifices. Moreover, this article will introduce evidence of a third kind of sacrifice that, so far, has gone unnoticed by scholarship. Such data confirms that sacrifices to spirits other than the one of the deceased sometimes were also part of funerary rituals. By paying close attention to food and drink as burial goods the article will put forth a more nuanced understanding of early Chinese burial practices and associated notions of the afterlife

Genuine Prestige Goods in Mortuary Contexts: Emulation in Polychrome Silk and Byzantine Solidi from Northern China

Archaeologists across all fields of research usually conflate prestige and social status with their use of the concepts “prestige” and “prestige goods.” As a consequence, discussions of prestige goods focus on their active use in status competitions. Prestige is not equal to but one of several contributing factors to social status, however. Prestige is akin to the German noun ansehen, which expresses the notion of looking up to someone because of certain qualities possessed by that individual. This has serious ramifications for the traditional understanding of prestige goods. In order to distinguish genuine prestige goods from non-prestige goods in mortuary data, it is necessary to look beyond the motives of individual signalers and instead concentrate on the reactions of responders. Examining emulation of prestigious individuals unlocks the views of contemporary responders in ancient times. Copies of objects yielded from burials are tangible manifestations of ansehen (prestige). They convey the information that certain sets of individuals viewed the original items as more than mere luxury products or status symbols. To be sure, genuine prestige goods are most likely of high relative value, but they operate on a deeper social level than luxury items and status symbols. Genuine prestige goods highlight certain aspects of the attitudes of smaller pockets of society rather than universal social mechanisms. An in-depth analysis of various silk fabrics and emulated warp-faced compound tabby weaves (jin 錦) dated from the second to early fifth century c.e. burials in the Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, PR China, along with a brief survey of Byzantine solidi (gold coins minted by the Eastern Roman empire) and their copies found in early sixth to mid-eighth century c.e. tombs in northern China, serve as the material basis for the argument about emulation and ansehen