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Chinese archaeologists are striking out along the Silk Road

wsj.com

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Re: Chinese archaeologists are striking out along the Silk Road

#81

Post by pjmorris »

FTA: “We are studying the past to understand and shape the present and future,” said Wang.

I was of the persuasion that "History is written to say it wasn't our fault" - Sam Phillips, but it may play a more active role than that.

I recently read and enjoyed 'The Silk Roads', Frankopan, which, to oversimplify, takes as its thesis the idea that "...for millennia, it was the region lying between east and west, linking Europe with the Pacific Ocean, that was the axis on which the globe spun." I was persuaded that he has a point.

I'm currently reading 'The New China Playbook', Jin, together with an ideologically-varying friend as a way to base our discussions more on knowledge than opinion.

So I'm particularly interested in what others have found helpful in understanding China's past and present. Any recommendations?

Re: Chinese archaeologists are striking out along the Silk Road

#82

Post by coldtea »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #74
coldtea wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Roman Empire, at its time, meant nothing to those parts of the world, no influence, economic, cultural, or otherwise Rome, China and the North Indian kingdoms traded. > They had their own empires, and often far greater development and refinement This is as silly as claiming Rome was the centre of the world.

>Rome, China and the North Indian kingdoms traded

Yes, well established. But in limited amounts, and without much knowledge in either side about the other, not much influence, cultural, social, economic, military, and such.

Which is way Marco Polo's journey, which happened close to a full millenium later after the final centuries of the Roman Empire, is still a landmark of the civilizational meeting between Europe and China.

>This is as silly as claiming Rome was the centre of the world

Not anywhere near as silly.

For most of history, millenia before and after the Roman empire (until about the later modern era), China is considered by economists and historians to have been the top global economy.

And that's not due to population (in fact, it was smaller than the Roman Empire population wise, even about half), but with impressive organization, culture, and infrastructure.

Re: Chinese archaeologists are striking out along the Silk Road

#83

Post by ahazred8ta »

feedforward wrote: post #35

You see this in cross-Atlantic history education too. In US and European history, everything seems to flow out of Europe, or at least the Mediterranean. Menes becomes king of Egypt around 3150 BC. Then we fastforward to Honer and the Olympic games in 7th century Greece. Then there are the Punic wars and Rome wins the Battle of Cornith in 146 BC. Then the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and so on. With some things like the…

There was a cartoon of a high school history teacher asking "So how should we cover this - dialectical materialism, or Kings and Battles?"

Re: Chinese archaeologists are striking out along the Silk Road

#84

Post by maxglute »

dredmorbius wrote: post #77
tm-guimaraes wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That did happen to the big Central American civilizations. Killing by a mix of inter conflicts and mass desease

If I'm interpreting parent correctly, they're arguing that had the Chinese recently visited the Americas, the Portuguese and Spanish would have encountered native populations which were already decimated by disease. As this isn't the case, the epidemiological argument against shortly prior Chinese encounters with American populations is strong. That post Portuguese/Spanish contact native American populations were ann…

>native American populations were annihilated by disease is now well established fact

Conveniently formulated historic fact absolving settlers IMO. Apropo to topic.

Convincing argument from indigenous is that indigenous in NA didn't get wiped out "because of" disease, worst historic pandemics wipe out like 50% of population over ~10 years before some sort of immunity kicks into population and gen pop rebuilds a few generations after that. Indigenous NA got wiped due to generations of increased deprivation enforced by settlers over 100+ years that made them suspectible to disease/fatality. It's like how malaria, dysentery, starvation was primary cause of death in prison camps, but really it's the fact that prison camp conditions allowed those diseases to spread in enviroment of artificially sustained deprivation.

90% population wipes over multipe generations isn't how disease operates, it's not natural epidemiologic behavior on continental scale. 90% population wipes happens because of coordinated genocide over generations across continent, blaming "contact" and "disease" is deflection. Hence if prevous visitors (can be whoever) didn't stick around for 100 years to coordinate a genocide, the indigenous people would still be around to greet Portugese/Spaniards, because they would have had ~100 years to recover/rebuild from whatever contact disease from prior meeting.

Re: Chinese archaeologists are striking out along the Silk Road

#85

Post by profsummergig »

nuc1e0n wrote: post #55
Keysh wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gandhara (not "Ghandara") is mentioned in the Behistun inscription of the Persian emperor Darius, from about two hundred years before Alexander, so it's clearly not "a corruption of Alexandria".

Oh really? Maybe that's wrong then. Is the name a transcription or a translation? What script were the records written in originally? Names can be retroactively applied, especially in translation. Looks like I've got some reading to do. Edit: Maybe I got confused between different folk etymologies for the name of the city of Kandahar.

From what I understand (and I could be wrong), Kandahar is the modern name of Gandhara.

Re: Chinese archaeologists are striking out along the Silk Road

#86

Post by perspectivelife »

throwaway48476 wrote: post #70
peterfirefly wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> hesitate to trust archaeologists because they have, far too often, ignored the culture and concerns of descendants while digging up their ancestors. Or more likely: because they have, far too often, proved the natives wrong and also shown that the people the natives called ancestors weren't... or, if they were, they were also the ancestors of those terrible people from the Evil Enemy Tribe that Nobody Likes. Native…

Their political history also included a lot of slavery.

[dead]

Re: Chinese archaeologists are striking out along the Silk Road

#87

Post by aragonite »

nuc1e0n wrote: post #61
beloch wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Archaeology does not take place in a vacuum. It has always been a product of political human beings. Archaeologists are keenly aware of this. Mussolini excavated Pompeii with bulldozers to reveal the past greatness of Italy on a schedule compatible with his ambitions. British archaeologists conducted digs around the globe through the lens of empire. Natives in the Americas, to this day, hesitate to trust archaeologis…

Yep. They also did partial reconstuction work of the great wall in modern times and passed it off as ancient. Similarly, Stonehenge in the UK was also partially reconstructed in the 20th century. Sensoji temple in Tokyo was also rebuilt to its original design in the 1950s. The giant stone Buddhas of Afganistan could do with reconstructing IMHO as well.

> Yep. They also did partial reconstuction work of the great wall in modern times and passed it off as ancient.

Do you have a source for "and passed it off as ancient"?

Re: Chinese archaeologists are striking out along the Silk Road

#88

Post by perspectivelife »

peterfirefly wrote: post #64
beloch wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Archaeology does not take place in a vacuum. It has always been a product of political human beings. Archaeologists are keenly aware of this. Mussolini excavated Pompeii with bulldozers to reveal the past greatness of Italy on a schedule compatible with his ambitions. British archaeologists conducted digs around the globe through the lens of empire. Natives in the Americas, to this day, hesitate to trust archaeologis…

> hesitate to trust archaeologists because they have, far too often, ignored the culture and concerns of descendants while digging up their ancestors. Or more likely: because they have, far too often, proved the natives wrong and also shown that the people the natives called ancestors weren't... or, if they were, they were also the ancestors of those terrible people from the Evil Enemy Tribe that Nobody Likes. Native…

[dead]

Re: Chinese archaeologists are striking out along the Silk Road

#89

Post by limit499karma »

ramblenode wrote: post #31

Unlike many commenters here, I actually read the article, and this quote seems to be the basis for the tenuous link between archeaology and geopolitics suggested by the title: > The extent to which present-day politics hovers over China’s archaeological ambitions became clear during a Wall Street Journal reporter’s encounter with an Uzbek researcher at the ruins of an ancient Kushan city near Chinor. “Tell the Chines…

[flagged]

Re: Chinese archaeologists are striking out along the Silk Road

#90

Post by 77pt77 »

dredmorbius wrote: post #77
tm-guimaraes wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That did happen to the big Central American civilizations. Killing by a mix of inter conflicts and mass desease

If I'm interpreting parent correctly, they're arguing that had the Chinese recently visited the Americas, the Portuguese and Spanish would have encountered native populations which were already decimated by disease. As this isn't the case, the epidemiological argument against shortly prior Chinese encounters with American populations is strong. That post Portuguese/Spanish contact native American populations were ann…

At least someone gets it.
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