Archive for Announcements
June 17, 2024 @ 7:23 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Announcements, Language and religion, Philology
Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-forty-ninth issue — Benjamin Porteous, "Reading Genesis 22 and Analects 18 in Late Antiquity":
ABSTRACT: This paper compares modes of scriptural interpretation from two ends of the Eurasian landmass in the late antique period (400–600 CE). Juxtaposing midrashim on Genesis with the Lunyi yishu 論語義疏, a famous expository commentary on the Confucian Analects, the paper argues that the difference between late-antique Confucian and Jewish commentarial practice lies in differing senses of responsibility for the sacred text. The Lunyu yishu curates the full Analects text, while midrashim presuppose a reader who turns elsewhere for the full version of the Hebrew Bible. The paper provides full typologies of commentarial technique in the midrashim and the Lunyu yishu; this is designed to assist comparison and further understanding of the practice of medieval Chinese commentary.
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June 10, 2024 @ 7:51 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Announcements, Classification, Language and archeology, Language and art
Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-forty-eighth issue:
"A Historical Perspective on the Central Asian Kingdom of Kucha," by Angela F. Howard.
http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp348_kucha.pdf
ABSTRACT
The article reexamines the dating of the earliest Buddhist cave paintings in the ancient Kingdom of Kucha, which was located in what is now Xinjiang, paying particular attention to the site of Kizil. Based on multiple Carbon-14 results spanning thirty years, historical and religious documents, and the author’s in situ research, the dating proposed is earlier than the traditional one, considered to be circa 500 AD. The latter was formulated, close to a century ago, by the scholar-explorer Ernst Waldschmidt on the basis of the “Indo-Iranian” style and is still used in art historical literature. Relying especially on Kucha’s comprehensive history, this paper suggests that the earliest cave paintings might have been coeval with the flourishing of Buddhism in Kucha during the fourth century. Given the centrality of the Tocharian language to the Sarvāstivādin Buddhist school associated with Kucha’s monasteries and the relative stylistic independence of Kucha from India, the author recommends adopting the term “Tocharian style” rather than “Indo-Iranian style” to describe artistic production in Kucha prior to the Tang.
Keywords: Tocharian, Central Asia, Caves
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All issues of Sino-Platonic Papers are available in full for no charge.
To view our catalog, visit http://www.sino-platonic.org/
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May 25, 2024 @ 8:40 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Animal behavior, Animal communication, Announcements, Language and literature
Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-forty-sixth issue: "The Imagery of House Geckos and Tokay Geckos in Imperial Era Chinese Literature," by Olivia Anna Rovsing Milburn.
Keywords: House geckos; Tokay geckos; Chinese literature; virginity tests; magic; rain-making
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May 11, 2024 @ 7:19 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Announcements, Etymology, Language and archeology, Language and biology, Language and science
The first part of this series, "Indigo and cabbage", written the day before Thanksgiving in 2023, is one of the most satisfying and fulfilling posts I've ever made. This follow-up is even more of a delight, because here I get to introduce a new paper by anthropologist-linguist-textile expert Elizabeth J. W. Barber, and what a tour de force it is (see below).
Here I give an extended account of her scholarship, especially her early activities in the computer analysis of Chinese, because she was instrumental in helping to make that possible at its foundational stage.
She earned a bachelor's degree from Bryn Mawr College in Archaeology and Greek in 1962. Her chief mentor was Mabel Lang from whom she learned Linear B and who advised her honors thesis on Linear A. In addition to Lang, Wayland wrote her thesis under Emmett L. Bennett Jr. Her thesis used computer indices of the Hagia Triada Linear A texts in an attempt to decipher its signs and symbols. The computer indices were made via punched cards, a method which was preceded by the work of Alice E. Kober on Linear B. She earned her PhD from Yale University in linguistics in 1968. Her doctoral study at Yale University was supervised by Sydney Lamb, under whom she wrote her dissertation, "The Computer Aided Analysis of Undeciphered Ancient Texts."
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May 7, 2024 @ 11:04 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Announcements, Language and animals, Language and archeology, Language and art, Language and astronomy, Language and biology, Writing systems
Given that we've been discussing astronomy / astrology and their relationship to the alphabet so intensely in recent weeks, I'm pleased to announce this important conference that is about to be convened: “The Power of the Planets: The Social History of Astral Sciences Between East and West”, May 20–21, 2024, Dipartimento di Beni Culturali – Università di Bologna (Ravenna, Italy).
I warmly recommend that you take a close look at the header images of two objects in The Cleveland Museum of Art: Mirror with a Coiling Dragon, China, Tang Dynasty 618-907 (https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1995.367), Drachma – Sasanian, Iran, reign of Hormizd II, 4th century (https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1966.738).
The quality of the photographs is extraordinarily fine and detailed. Using the zoom and expand functions, you can see things not clearly visible to the naked eye. Especially noteworthy is the jagged dorsal fin / frill / spine that runs along the back of the dragon on the Tang mirror and is a conspicuous counterpart of many species of dinosaurs.
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May 5, 2024 @ 7:08 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Announcements, Etymology, Historical linguistics, Language and archeology, Language and culture, Language and history
In our studies of the transmission of Indo-European language and culture across the Eurasian continent, one of the most vital research topics is that of horse-drawn wheeled vehicles. During this past semester, I taught one of the most satisfying courses of my entire half-century career, namely, "Horses and humans". Among the many engrossing subjects that we confronted are the nomenclature for wheeled vehicles, how horses were hitched to them, and so forth. Many of these questions are now authoritatively answered in the following paper by three of the world's most distinguished scholars of equine equipage.
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Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-forty-fourth issue:
"From Chariot to Carriage: Wheeled Vehicles and Developments in Draft and Harnessing in Ancient China," by Joost H. Crouwel, Gail Brownrigg, and Katheryn Linduff.
https://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp344_chariot_to_carriage_in_ancient_china.pdf
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April 6, 2024 @ 6:25 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Announcements, Books, Language and literature, Writing
If someone is investigating texts, they can concentrate on the subject / content / style / linguistic nature of the writing. Increasingly, however, scholars have begun to concentrate on the objects and materials on which the writing takes place. From this, they tease out all sorts of interesting information about the social, political, and economic aspects of the texts. A new book on this topic is Thomas Kelly's The Inscription of Things: Writing and Materiality in Early Modern China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2023).
Why would an inkstone have a poem inscribed on it? Early modern Chinese writers did not limit themselves to working with brushes and ink, and their texts were not confined to woodblock-printed books or the boundaries of the paper page. Poets carved lines of verse onto cups, ladles, animal horns, seashells, walking sticks, boxes, fans, daggers, teapots, and musical instruments. Calligraphers left messages on the implements ordinarily used for writing on paper. These inscriptions—terse compositions in verse or epigrammatic prose—relate in complex ways to the objects on which they are written.
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April 4, 2024 @ 10:50 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Announcements, Books, Epigraphy, Writing systems
First Soundings
by Martina Galatello
This is the first book-length palaeographic study of about a thousand fragments in Syriac and Sogdian languages discovered between 1902 and 1914 in the Turfan area on the ancient Northern Silk Roads. This manuscript material, probably dating between the late 8th and 13th /14th centuries, is of utmost relevance for the history of an area that represents a crossroads region of various communities, languages and religions, not least the East Syriac Christian community. Palaeographic factors such as form, modulus, ductus, contrast, spaces between letters and ligatures have been examined. Particularly significant is a peculiar ligature of the letters sade and nun. One important observation that emerges from this research is the almost total absence of monumental script in favour of mostly cursive forms, most of them East Syriac cursive forms. These represent a valuable source for the study of the history of the East Syriac script due to the paucity of earlier and contemporary East Syriac manuscript evidence from the Middle East, at least before the twelfth century. Moreover, this research sheds light on scribal habits that are highly relevant for a better comprehension of the Sogdian and Syriac-speaking Christian communities, for the history of writing between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and for a greater understanding of the social context in which these and other communities in the same area read, wrote, and shared handwritten texts.
This study is part of the FWF stand-alone project "Scribal Habits. A case study from Christian Medieval Central Asia" (PI Chiara Barbati) at the Institute of Iranian Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
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March 29, 2024 @ 7:06 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Announcements, Language and archeology
The Archaeology of Ancient Southwest Asia: Investigating the Human Past in the Vedi River Valley of Armenia
Professor Peter Cobb
School of Humanities
The University of Hong Kong
Date and Time: April 9, 2024 | 12:30-1:30 pm (HKT) / April 8, 2024 | 9:30-10:30 pm (PDT)
Venue: Lecture Hall at May Hall, HKU
Join us in person at May Hall or via Zoom using the following link:
https://hku.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_o2GPhTHGSYitY_9FcnFzbQ
(Light refreshments will be served for those attending the seminar in person)
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March 20, 2024 @ 8:29 pm· Filed by Victor Mair under Announcements, Books
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March 19, 2024 @ 7:40 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Announcements, Language and archeology, Language and biology, Language and food
Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS)
Symposium on April 11, 2024
Registration by 4th April at the latest
11 April, 11:15 a.m. SYMPOSIUM
Indo-European Food: Linguistic, Archaeological and Biomolecular Perspectives
ABSTRACT:
The symposium Indo-European Food – Linguistic, Archaeological, and Biomolecular Perspectives aims to explore the intricate relationships between the spread of Indo-European languages, the archaeological evidence of food production and consumption patterns, and biomolecular insights into ancient diets. This interdisciplinary event brings together leading experts from linguistics, archaeology, and biomolecular sciences to discuss the latest research findings and theoretical frameworks that illuminate the role of food in the migration, settlement, and cultural integration of Indo-European populations.
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March 15, 2024 @ 8:57 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Alphabets, Announcements, Language and archeology, Language and astronomy, Language and biology, Writing
Sino-Platonic Papers is pleased to announce the publication of its three-hundred-and-forty-first issue:
"On the Origins of the Alphabet: Orion/Osiris in Need of a Head/Seed, the Roots of Writing, the Neolithic Europe Word as Sun/Seed System (NEWS), and a Solution to the Tartaria and Gradeshnista Tablets," by Brian R. Pellar.
http://www.sino-platonic.org/complete/spp341_alphabet_orion_osiris.pdf
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March 13, 2024 @ 5:57 am· Filed by Victor Mair under Announcements, Books, Language and religion, Language and society, Manuscripts
Forthcoming from De Gruyter, July 14, 2024 (ISBN: 9783111382746):
Vernacular Chinese-Character Manuscripts from East and Southeast Asia, edited by: David Holm.
Volume 40 in the series Studies in Manuscript Cultures
Keywords: Asia; vernacular; ritual; library collections; recitation
Topics: Asian Literature; Asian and Pacific Studies; Dialectology; Linguistics and Semiotics; Literary Studies; Literature of other Nations and Languages; Southeast Asia; Textual Scholarship; Theoretical Frameworks and Disciplines
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