Oracle Bone Inscriptions, 2, Dunhuang cultural relics, 3, Han and Jin bamboo slips.
In the hundred years after the discovery of the three major cultural relics, they gradually became three major international schools-Oracle Bone Inscriptions, Dunhuang Studies and Bamboo and Silk Studies.
Introduction:
First, Oracle Bone Inscriptions discovered that.
In the autumn of the 25th year of Guangxu (A.D. 1899), Wang (1845- 1900), who was appointed by the Qing court in Beijing, contracted malaria. I sent someone to Darentang, a food market outside Xuanwu Gate, to buy a dose of Chinese medicine. Some symbols that Wang accidentally saw were carved on the keel called in Chinese medicine. Keels are the bones of ancient vertebrates. How can there be carved symbols hundreds of thousands of years ago on this bone? This aroused his curiosity. Wang, who is famous for studying ancient stone carvings, carefully studied and found that this is not an ordinary notch, but it looks like ancient Chinese characters, but the shape is not seal (big seal) or seal (small seal). In order to find more keels for in-depth study, he sent someone to Darentang to buy all the carved keels in the drugstore at a high price of two taels of silver each. Later, it was collected by antique dealer Fan and others, and a total of more than 500 pieces of/kloc-0 were collected.
Wang, who was the first to confirm Oracle Bone Inscriptions, had not had time to study deeply and write a book. Eight-Nation Alliance approached Beijing, and he was appointed as the minister. 1900 In July, the invading army Enemy at the Gates and Empress Dowager Cixi led the royal family to flee hastily, and Wang was completely disappointed. He said to his family, "I can't live any longer!" " Then he wrote desperate words, resolutely took poison and fell into the well at the age of 56.
Later, people called the person who first discovered Oracle Bone Inscriptions "the father of Oracle Bone Inscriptions". 1989 In the autumn, on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of Oracle Bone Inscriptions's discovery, a memorial hall was built in his hometown, Fushan District, Yantai City, Shandong Province, to commemorate Wang's achievements.
After Wang's martyrdom, his son sold the antiques hidden at home to pay off the old debts, and most of the Oracle bones were transferred to his friend Liu E (that is, Liu Tieyun, the author of Travel Notes of Lao Can) at 1902. In addition, Liu E bought more than 3,000 pieces of Oracle bones from an antique dealer in Liulichang, and received more than 300 pieces from his friend Fang Ruo. He also sent his son to Henan to buy more than 1000 pieces, and his collection of Oracle bones increased to more than 5,000 pieces, making him the most famous Oracle bone collector at that time. With the advice and help of his good friend Luo Zhenyu, Liu E printed the book "Tieyun Hidden Turtle" in 1903 65438+ 10, and published the information about Oracle Bone Inscriptions for the first time. This book uses 1058 pieces in "Liu E Zang Jia Gu" edited and expanded by Luo Zhenyu himself, of which 5 pieces are forged, 3 pieces are dead weight, and 65,438 pieces are inverted. Soon, Sun Yirang, a scholar, wrote Oracle Bone Inscriptions's first monograph, The Case of Wen Qi, based on the information of "A turtle hidden in an iron cloud".
Second, the discovery of Dunhuang Grottoes
/kloc-in 0/900, the Taoist king who lived in the Mogao grottoes carried out a large-scale cleaning in order to transform some abandoned caves into Taoist temples. He happened to find a small door on the wall of the tunnel on the north side when he was cleaning the mud for Cave 16 (now numbered). After it was opened, a square cave (now hole 17) appeared, dating from the 4th century to 1 1 century (that is, from sixteen countries to sixteen countries)?
The inner wall of the Tibetan Sutra Cave is painted with images of bodhi trees and monks and nuns. Among them, there is a low altar in the form of a Zen bed, on which a monk is sitting all over the place, and there is a stone tablet, which seems unfinished. Judging from the documents unearthed in the cave, the latest one was written in the Northern Song Dynasty without Xixia characters. Therefore, it can be inferred that the Tibetan Sutra Cave was closed by the monks of Mogao Grottoes in the 20th century to avoid the Xixia army. ?
Buddhist scriptures in Mogao Grottoes are very important discoveries in the archaeological history of China. Most unearthed documents are written, and a few are engraved. About six fifths of them are written in Chinese, and the others are in ancient Tibetan, Sanskrit, Qilu, Sogdian, Hehe, Qiuci and Hebrew. The contents of the literature are mainly Buddhist scriptures, in addition to Taoist scriptures, Confucian classics, novels, poems, historical records, cadastres, account books, calendars, deeds, letters, plays and so on. Many of them are unique, unique. These are of great historical data and scientific value to the study of the history of China and Central Asia, and thus form a discipline-Dunhuang studies, which focuses on the study of Tibetan scriptures and the art of Dunhuang grottoes.
Third, bamboo slips.
/kloc-From the end of 0/9 to the beginning of the 20th century, Sweden, Britain, Japan, Russia and other countries excavated in China's frontiers and territories in the name of "expedition", and found many Han and Jin bamboo slips in Loulan, Dunhuang, Jiuquan and other places, which are still scattered in Britain, India, Sweden, the Soviet Union and other countries.
Although the bamboo slips and silks unearthed in Niya, Loulan and Dunhuang were first sorted out and explained by foreign scholars, China scholars Luo Zhenyu and Wang Guowei should be the first to apply them to historical research and make important achievements. The representative works are 19 14' s Slip of Quicksand and a series of related essays written by Wang Guowei later. Luo Zhenyu's main contribution to the study of bamboo slips lies in the textual research of Han bamboo slips yearbook. He recorded the phenomena of first crouching, middle crouching, second crouching and waxing from Annals of Han Dynasty, and linked them with historical records, which proved that the dog days in June and the winter "La Worship" had evolved into the social customs of "ruling and opposition" and "La Worship Hundred Gods" in Han Dynasty since Qin Degong. ? Lao Gan's Textual Research on Juyan Han Bamboo Slips divides Juyan Han Bamboo Slips into six categories: documents, records, books, letters, classics and miscellaneous categories. Except for letters and miscellaneous categories, the other four categories are subdivided into several small categories, which makes the classification more detailed. He limited his previous research scope to textual research and sporadic historical geography research, and expanded it to all-round research in the political, economic, military, religious and cultural fields of the Han Dynasty, and regarded Han bamboo slips as complete historical materials, hoping to textual research the history of the Han Dynasty from these direct historical materials. On the basis of reading the bamboo slips in Juyan, he investigated the unique systems of border counties that were not recorded in detail in some documents, such as beacon towers, official system, garrison troops and wasteland reclamation. And the political, economic, military, cultural and other issues of the Han Dynasty are extracted separately, and the bamboo slips, especially those of four counties in Hexi, are used for systematic textual research. In addition, his research in residency, guest service and biography has also made great achievements.
Common features:
First, the relics found are all words. About 3,500 years ago, Oracle Bone Inscriptions was carved on tortoise shells, shoulder blades of cattle and human skulls. The book of Confucius' Wall, the bamboo book in Jizhong and the bamboo slips of Han and Jin Dynasties in the Western Regions were all written on bamboo and wood materials around 2000. The scriptures of the Thousand Buddha Cave in Dunhuang were written on paper thousands of years ago. The documents and paintings written by our ancestors on bamboo and wood and later on paper were originally vast, and when our descendants found them, most of them were pitifully rotten. If 12000 years ago, Confucius's "The Wall Grass" and Zhu Ji Bamboo Book had not been discovered, I'm afraid it is still a question whether they can be preserved today. Even if it can be preserved to this day, it is still a question whether it can be discovered by us. Therefore, when these three cultural relics discoveries around the 20th century found literary cultural relics that could rewrite the history of China and even the whole East Asia and Central Asia, it was impossible not to shock the world. The results of archaeological discoveries of ancient and modern cultural relics at home and abroad have sufficient reasons to prove this shock-that is, about 95% of the ancient remains found have no words, which is another story.
Second, these discoveries belong to cultural relics rather than archaeological discoveries. The most concise and direct evidence is that when they were discovered, there was no such thing as archaeology in China. As we all know, archaeology appeared in Europe in the19th century, and was not introduced to China until the 1920s, that is, 20 years after the discovery of the three major cultural relics. Therefore, it is correct in principle to define it as a great discovery of cultural relics in academic circles. Professionally speaking, archaeological discovery is a field work to obtain ancient physical data through scientific means. To put it more comprehensively, it is to sort out and interpret the obtained information with scientific methods and theories on the basis of obtaining information. In other words, the discovery of cultural relics is basically not obtained through scientific field excavation. For example, the activities of breaking the wall, poaching, digging the keel, looting and so on in the above-mentioned major discoveries of cultural relics, the worst thing is that the original storage state of cultural relics has been destroyed, the bamboo slips compiled by the ancients that can be read in sequence have been scattered all over the place, and the Oracle bones put in the pit by the ancients have also been dug up by many people who are bent on finding the keel to sell money.