Description: Explores how the tremendous wealth of newly unearthed artifacts and manuscripts have changed our understanding of China's past.
Review Quotes:
"Throughout the book, the reader is exposed to the richness of early Chinese artifacts, in a digestible and clear format ... Besides writings on bones, bronzes, and bamboo strips, it discusses covenants and silk manuscripts, as well as artifacts that bear no writing but are equally informative of the people and environments in which they were produced." - H-Net Reviews (H-Asia)
"This volume is a tribute to Sarah Allan's enduring influence and a substantive contribution to early China studies. Grounded in newly excavated materials and diverse disciplinary approaches, its essays illuminate key developments in ancient Chinese religion, ritual, textuality, and intellectual history." - Religious Studies Review
"...offer[s] much valuable information and may be warmly recommended to readers with a serious interest in Early China." - Journal of Chinese History
"For someone with an appetite for information about early China, this volume is a delectable repast. True to its title, it offers an immense number of insights into Chinese written materials found on oracle bones, bronze inscriptions, and books composed of wooden and bamboo slats. There is no work I know of that is its equivalent." -Keith Knapp, The Citadel