A Review of Teng Mingyu’s Book «The Qin Culture from an Archaeological Perspective: From Unitarian State to Empire»

Abstract

This review discusses a book by a Chinese scientist Teng Mingyu devoted to the archaeological culture of the ancient Chinese Qin state (滕铭予. 秦文化: 从封建国到帝国的考古学观察. 北京, 2003. 216 頁). The book introduces the notion of Qin archaeological culture and studies is based on the research of burial tradition and correspondent excavation reports. The classification of the graves is built on the set of stable characteristics, such as spatial orientation, corpse positioning, types of grave goods, etc. The changes of the archaeological culture in question are traced chronologically (periodization of the culture) and spatially (zoning of the culture). The resulting changes of the culture are interpreted as a transformation of the basic social unit of Qin society and are also deemed consequential to the changes of the ruling class formation process in Qin. The review, in its turn, studies the logic and consistency of the foundational notions and main methods of the book, the entirety of the archaeological material presented by the book, and the reception of this important research in global sinology.