Dunhuang Manuscript Forgeries

Dunhuang Manuscript Forgeries PDF Author: Susan Whitfield
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN:
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
The discovery in 1900 of a cave at Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China containing tens of thousands of pre-11th century manuscripts scrolls has been of enormous significance for Buddhist, central Asian and Chinese history. Yet it appears that some of the manuscripts reportedly from the cave and now in collections in London, Beijing, St. Petersburg, and Japan are forgeries, produced in the decades following the discovery by both local forgers at Dunhuang and at the home of a Chinese bibliophile, Li Shengduo, who acquired many original manuscripts in 1910. Professor Fujieda from Kyoto University, Japan was the leading figure in bringing the problem of forgeries to light and the results of his work and that of leading scientists, conservators, and scholars in the fields - using analysis of the calligraphy, use of ancient words, chemical testing of the dyes and paper fibres - are brought together in this discussion of this issue.

Dunhuang Manuscript Forgeries

Dunhuang Manuscript Forgeries PDF Author: Susan Whitfield
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN:
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Get Book Here

Book Description
The discovery in 1900 of a cave at Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China containing tens of thousands of pre-11th century manuscripts scrolls has been of enormous significance for Buddhist, central Asian and Chinese history. Yet it appears that some of the manuscripts reportedly from the cave and now in collections in London, Beijing, St. Petersburg, and Japan are forgeries, produced in the decades following the discovery by both local forgers at Dunhuang and at the home of a Chinese bibliophile, Li Shengduo, who acquired many original manuscripts in 1910. Professor Fujieda from Kyoto University, Japan was the leading figure in bringing the problem of forgeries to light and the results of his work and that of leading scientists, conservators, and scholars in the fields - using analysis of the calligraphy, use of ancient words, chemical testing of the dyes and paper fibres - are brought together in this discussion of this issue.

Dunhuang Manuscript Culture

Dunhuang Manuscript Culture PDF Author: Imre Galambos
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110727102
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
“Dunhuang Manuscript Culture” explores the world of Chinese manuscripts from ninth-tenth century Dunhuang, an oasis city along the network of pre-modern routes known today collectively as the Silk Roads. The manuscripts have been discovered in 1900 in a sealed-off side-chamber of a Buddhist cave temple, where they had lain undisturbed for for almost nine hundred years. The discovery comprised tens of thousands of texts, written in over twenty different languages and scripts, including Chinese, Tibetan, Old Uighur, Khotanese, Sogdian and Sanskrit. This study centres around four groups of manuscripts from the mid-ninth to the late tenth centuries, a period when the region was an independent kingdom ruled by local families. The central argument is that the manuscripts attest to the unique cultural diversity of the region during this period, exhibiting—alongside obvious Chinese elements—the heavy influence of Central Asian cultures. As a result, it was much less ‘Chinese’ than commonly portrayed in modern scholarship. The book makes a contribution to the study of cultural and linguistic interaction along the Silk Roads.

Fakes and Forgeries of Written Artefacts from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern China

Fakes and Forgeries of Written Artefacts from Ancient Mesopotamia to Modern China PDF Author: Cécile Michel
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110714418
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
Fakes and forgeries are objects of fascination. This volume contains a series of thirteen articles devoted to fakes and forgeries of written artefacts from the beginnings of writing in Mesopotamia to modern China. The studies emphasise the subtle distinctions conveyed by an established vocabulary relating to the reproduction of ancient artefacts and production of artefacts claiming to be ancient: from copies, replicas and imitations to fakes and forgeries. Fakes are often a response to a demand from the public or scholarly milieu, or even both. The motives behind their production may be economic, political, religious or personal – aspiring to fame or simply playing a joke. Fakes may be revealed by combining the study of their contents, codicological, epigraphic and palaeographic analyses, and scientific investigations. However, certain famous unsolved cases still continue to defy technology today, no matter how advanced it is. Nowadays, one can find fakes in museums and private collections alike; they abound on the antique market, mixed with real artefacts that have often been looted. The scientific community’s attitude to such objects calls for ethical reflection.

Manuscripts and Travellers

Manuscripts and Travellers PDF Author: Sam van Schaik
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110225654
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This study is based on a manuscript which was carried by a Chinese monk through the monasteries of the Hexi corridor, as part of his pilgrimage from Wutaishan to India. The manuscript has been created as a composite object from three separate documents, with Chinese and Tibetan texts on them. Included is a series of Tibetan letters of introduction addressed to the heads of monasteries along the route, functioning as a passport when passing through the region. The manuscript dates to the late 960s, coinciding with the large pilgrimage movement during the reign of Emperor Taizu of the Northern Song recorded in transmitted sources. Therefore, it is very likely that this is a unique contemporary testimony of the movement, of which our pilgrim was also part. Complementing extant historical sources, the manuscript provides evidence for the high degree of ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity in Western China during this period.

Scientific Investigation of Copies, Fakes and Forgeries

Scientific Investigation of Copies, Fakes and Forgeries PDF Author: Paul T. Craddock
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 075064205X
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 642

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Book Description
"Scientific Investigation of Copies, Fakes and Forgeries is a comprehensive guide to the technical and scientific study of the authenticity of a wide range of antiquities and artworks. It is the first book to provide a full survey of the subject of forgery from a scientific basis, examining a wide range of materials and techniques." "The demand for copies, fakes and forgeries is driven by rising prices in an international marketplace. The book examines the available new technologies and ever more sophisticated forging techniques, looking at production and distribution of fraudulent artworks. The subject is exemplified by numerous internationally based case studies, some turning out not to be as conclusive as is sometimes believed." "The book is aimed at those who need to understand the available approaches to and methods of scientific and technical authentication, be they curator, collector, conservator or scientist." --Book Jacket.

Eighteen Lectures on Dunhuang

Eighteen Lectures on Dunhuang PDF Author: Xinjiang Rong
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004252339
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 573

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Book Description
In Eighteen Lectures on Dunhuang, Rong Xinjiang provides an accessible overview of Dunhuang studies, an academic field that emerged following the discovery of a medieval monastic library at the Mogao caves near Dunhuang. The manuscripts were hidden in a cave at the beginning of the 11th century and remained unnoticed until 1900, when a Daoist monk accidentally found them and subsequently sold most of them to foreign explorers and scholars. The availability of this unprecedented amount of first-hand material from China’s middle period provided a stimulus for a number of scholarly fields both in China and the West. Rong Xinjiang’s book provides, for the first time in English, a convenient summary of the history of Dunhuang studies and its contribution to scholarship.

Manuscript Cultures: Mapping the Field

Manuscript Cultures: Mapping the Field PDF Author: Jörg Quenzer
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110384825
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Script and writing were among the most important inventions in human history, and until the invention of printing, the handwritten book was the primary medium of literary and cultural transmission. Although the study of manuscripts is already quite advanced for many regions of the world, no unified discipline of ‘manuscript studies’ has yet evolved which is capable of treating handwritten books from East Asia, India and the Islamic world equally alongside the European manuscript tradition. This book, which aims to begin the interdisciplinary dialogue needed to arrive at a truly systematic and comparative approach to manuscript cultures worldwide, brings together papers by leading researchers concerned with material, philological and cultural aspects of different manuscript traditions.

Tibetan Printing: Comparison, Continuities, and Change

Tibetan Printing: Comparison, Continuities, and Change PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004316256
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 610

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Book Description
In Tibetan Printing: Comparisons, Continuities and Change the editors publish the results of the workshop “Printing as an Agent of Change in Tibet and beyond” held at Pembroke College, Cambridge, in November 2013. This is the first study of the social and cultural history of Tibetan book technology that takes materials, living traditions and cross-cultural comparisons into consideration. Bringing together leading experts from different disciplines, it discusses the introduction of printing in Tibetan societies in the context of Asian book cultures with an eye to the questions raised by the study of the European history of printing. This title is available online in its entirety in Open Access. Contributors are: Tim Barrett, Alessandro Boesi, Peter Burke, Michela Clemente, Hildegard Diemberger, Dorje Gyeltsen, Franz-Karl Ehrhard, Helmut Eimer, Johan Elverskog, Camillo Formigatti, Imre Galambos, Agnieszka Helman-Wazny, Tomasz Wazny, Sherab Sangpo Kawa, Peter Kornicki, Leonard van der Kuijp, Stefan Larsson, Ben Nourse, Anuradha Pallipurath, Porong Dawa, Paola Ricciardi, Tsering Dawa Sharshon, Sam van Schaik, Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, Marta Sernesi, Pasang Wangdu.

Ritualized Writing

Ritualized Writing PDF Author: Bryan D. Lowe
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 082485943X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
Ritualized Writing takes readers into the fascinating world of Japanese Buddhist manuscript cultures. Using archival sources that have received scant attention in English, primarily documents from an eighth-century Japanese scriptorium and colophons from sutra manuscripts, Bryan D. Lowe uncovers the ways in which the transcription of Buddhist scripture was a highly ritualized endeavor. He takes a ground-level approach by emphasizing the activities and beliefs of a wide range of individuals, including scribes, provincial patrons, and royals, to reassess the meaning of scripture and reevaluate scholarly narratives of Japanese Buddhist history. Copying scripture is a central Buddhist practice and one that thrived in East Asia. Despite this, there are no other books dedicated to the topic. This work demonstrates that patrons and scribes treated sutras differently from other modes of writing. Scribes purified their bodies prior to transcription. Patrons held dedicatory ceremonies on days of abstinence, when prayers were pronounced and sutras were recited. Transcribing sutras helped scribes and patrons alike realize this- and other-worldly ambitions and cultivate themselves in accord with Buddhist norms. Sutra copying thus functioned as a form of ritualized writing, a strategic practice that set apart scripture as uniquely efficacious and venerable. Lowe employs this notion of ritualized writing to challenge historical narratives about ancient Japan (late seventh through early ninth centuries), a period when sutra copying flourished. He contends that Buddhist practice fulfilled a variety of social, political, and spiritual roles beyond ideological justification. Moreover, he demonstrates the inadequacy of state-folk dichotomies for understanding the social groups, institutions, and individual beliefs and practices of ancient Japanese Buddhism, highlighting instead common organizations across social class and using models that reveal shared concerns among believers from diverse social backgrounds. Ritualized Writing makes broader contributions to the study of ritual and scripture by introducing the notion of scriptural cultures, an analytic tool that denotes a series of dynamic relationships and practices involving texts that have been strategically set apart or ritualized. Scripture, Lowe concludes, is at once a category created by humans and a body of texts that transforms individuals and social organizations who come into contact with it.

Islamic Calligraphy

Islamic Calligraphy PDF Author: Sheila S. Blair
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474464475
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 720

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Book Description
No detailed description available for "Islamic Calligraphy".