China Archive
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The Pre-History of Gunpowder
Posted on February 15, 2015 | No CommentsThere is a Chinese tradition that a cook carrying a bowl of saltpetre slipped and dropped it onto a charcoal fire. That would certainly create a considerable conflagration but, as the ingredients were not mixed, hardly an explosion. -
Small Talk: A New Reading of Marco Polo’s Il milione
Posted on December 12, 2014 | No CommentsIt is perhaps not that surprising that we find the narrative pattern reflected in Il milione conforms nicely to the expectations of the Chinese genre of small talk. -
Maritime Southeast Asia: The View from Tang-Song China
Posted on October 16, 2014 | No CommentsThe following are annotated, critical translations of monographs from the Older and Newer Tang Histories concerning the foreign peoples and kingdoms of Maritime Southeast Asia. -
Which Chinese Emperor Are You?
Posted on October 11, 2014 | No CommentsTake this quiz to see which Ming or Qing emperor you are most similar to. -
A First Escape from Poverty in Late Medieval Japan: Evidence from Real Wages in Kyoto (1360-1860)
Posted on September 26, 2014 | No CommentsThis paper offers a first investigation of long-term trends in Japanese living standards from the mid-14th to the mid-19th century using urban daily wages and price data for a number of basic commodities. -
Odorico from Pordenone and his encounter with China (1318-1330)
Posted on September 18, 2014 | No CommentsOdorico from Pordenone was a Franciscan Friar, who made a journey from Venice to Peking in the first half of the fourteenth century -
Marvels and Allies in the East. India as Heterotopia of Latin Europe in the 12th Century
Posted on January 18, 2014 | No CommentsIt has long been said that Latin Europe lost its connection to the East, specifically to Asia, in the early Middle Ages. But this is only part of the truth. From late Antiquity on, there were Christians in many places between the Mediterranean Sea and China. -
Tremors in the Web of Trade: Complexity, Connectivity and Criticality in the Mid-Eighth Century Eurasian World
Posted on December 7, 2013 | No CommentsEvents within a fifteen-year period in mid-eighth century Eurasia included the Abbasid revolution, An Lu-shan's Rebellion in Tang China, and the collapse or emergence of empires from Frankish Europe to Tibet to the kingdom of Srivajaya. -
The Forbidden City comes to Toronto
Posted on October 14, 2013 | No CommentsThe Royal Ontario Museum will be hosting the exhibition 'The Forbidden City: Inside the Court of China’s Emperors' beginning on March 8, 2014. -
Islamic Astronomy in Medieval China
Posted on September 15, 2013 | No CommentsIn 1271, Kublai Khan founded the Bureau of Islamic Astronomy in Peking, which operated alongside the long-established Chinese Astronomical Bureau. -
Inter-religious Debate at the Court of the Early Tang: An Introduction to Daoxuan’s Ji gujin Fo Dao lunheng
Posted on August 22, 2013 | No CommentsDuring Six dynasties, Daoists as well as Buddhists gained access to the highest levels of society and to the imperial court in the south and in the north of China. -
Western Turks and Byzantine gold coins found in China
Posted on August 14, 2013 | No CommentsIn general, before the 1980's, most scholars treated these finds as evidences for the frequent connection between Byzantine and China, which could be further associated with the seven-times visits of Fulin (Rum) emissaries recorded in Tang literature. However, after the 1980's, more and more researchers tended to take these gold coins as a result of prosperous international trade along silk road. -
The Trebuchet
Posted on January 13, 2013 | No CommentsRecent reconstructions and computer simulations reveal the operating principles of the most powerful weapon of its time -
Dark ages and dark areas: global deforestation in the deep past
Posted on January 1, 2013 | No CommentsThe ‘darkness’ that envelopes the ages and areas of the forest of the past consists broadly of two elements. First, there are the problems intrinsic to forests as living ecosystems or entities. Many of these are still more or less uncertain and murky. Second, there are the difficulties of knowing what human activity took place. -
Why the Scientific Revolution Did Not Take Place in China – or Didn’t It?
Posted on November 11, 2012 | No CommentsWhy, between the first century BC and the fifteenth century AD, Chinese civilization was much more efficient than occidental in applying human natural knowledge to practical human needs -
Earliest historical records of typhoons in China
Posted on October 29, 2012 | No CommentsThe typhoon as a weather phenomenon was frequently mentioned, described, and discussed in many works, including history books, poems and government documents, in the ninth century AD. -
How Not to (Re)Write World History: Gavin Menzies and the Chinese Discovery of America
Posted on October 7, 2012 | No CommentsThe author's attempt to rewrite world history, however, is based on a hodgepodge of circular reasoning, bizarre speculation, distorted sources, and slapdash research. -
Lost Leviathans: The Technology of Zheng He’s Voyages
Posted on September 25, 2012 | No CommentsThe key vessels of the voyages, Zheng He’s ‘Treasure Junks’ or Bao Chuan, had the purpose of displaying the might and awe of China to encourage other nations to enter the tribute system. -
Singers, advisers, and servants: role of eunuchs from a historical context
Posted on September 24, 2012 | No CommentsAccording to the Book of Matthew, Jesus said that there were eunuchs made of men, who had made them- selves by their fathers to be that way for heaven’s sake, and if they have received such a procedure, then let them keep it. Jesus referred to castration as an infallible way to achieve celibacy. And records of Christian history indicate that many Christian religious figures were castrated. -
Prolegomena to the Ju-nan i-shih: A Memoir on the Last Chin Court Under the Mongol Siege of 1234
Posted on September 23, 2012 | No CommentsJu-nan i-shih is a reminiscence on the events at the refuge Chin capital of Emperor Ai-tsung (r. 1224-1234) at Ts'ai-chou, Honan, during the Mongol siege of July 1233 to February 1234, when it capitulated. -
Asian Origins of Cinderella: The Zhuang Storyteller of Guangxi
Posted on September 14, 2012 | No CommentsThe acceptance and understanding of the Asian origins of the “Cinderella” story should replace the widely held belief that the story is fundamentally Western or universal. The Zhuang, an ethnic group at the intersection of China and Vietnam, combined ideas from their own traditions and experiences with motifs from Hindu and Buddhist narratives circulating in their area during the Tang Dynasty, and should be credited with creating this subversive, virginal, talented, and compassionate heroine. -
Ending an Era: The Huang Chao Rebellion of the Late Tang, 874-884
Posted on August 26, 2012 | No CommentsHuang Chao was a rebel leader during the late Tang dynasty; he and his followers successfully marauded through China from 875 until his death in 884 C.E. During that time, he conquered and sacked many important cities of the empire, such as Guangzhou and the capital city, Chang'an. -
How did Persian and Other Western Medical Knowledge Move East, and Chinese West? A Look at the Role of Rashīd al-Dīn and Others
Posted on July 17, 2012 | No CommentsThis paper looks specifically in this larger context at one key aspect of the western knowledge arriving in China, Islamic medicine, which included major Ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Syrian Christian as well as Persian and even Indian components, making it truly international, and speculates as to how it got there. -
Near-Death Folklore in Medieval China and Japan : A Comparative Analysis
Posted on June 17, 2012 | No CommentsMedieval Chinese and Japanese literature provides numerous examples of near-death experiences, episodes in which the narrator claims to have gained personal images of the after life. -
Ending an era : the Huang Chao Rebellion of the late Tang, 874-884
Posted on May 7, 2012 | No CommentsHuang Chao was a rebel leader during the late Tang dynasty; he and his followers successfully marauded through China from 875 until his death in 884 C.E. During that time, he conquered and sacked many important cities of the empire, such as Guangzhou and the capital city, Chang'an.
