Art and Archaeology of the Erligang Civilization

摘要

It is more than 60 years since the Erligang type site at Zhengzhou was discovered yet, as Kyle Steinke and Robert Bagley point out in Art and Archaeology of the Erligang Civilization, Erligang culture remains unfamiliar, poorly understood and overshadowed by its more glamourous relation Anyang. In 2008, Princeton University hosted a conference that brought together archaeologists, intellectual historians and art historians for the purpose of remedying this situation. This book is a product of that conference. In his introductory chapter, Bagley reviews the archaeological record for early Bronze Age China and explains how and why it developed, including - how it was shaped by changes in archaeological and political attitudes and agendas. He then proceeds to make a convincing case for Erligang's importance by demonstrating that the achievements we attribute to Anyang - such as advances in bronze design and technology, factory organisation and more - should actually be credited to Erligang. He suggests that the main reason Erligang is not a 'household word' is due to a reliance on later historical texts. Bagley, who has made disentangling history and archaeology an objective, has long championed the position that material remains should be evaluated on their own terms. Here he concludes by suggesting that the way to correct misapprehensions and enhance understanding of early China is to approach it through the material record and cross - cultural analysis.