The History of the Former Han Dynasty:A Critical Translation with Annotations Translated by Homer Hasenpflug Dubs

Translation is an important medium of cultural communication.It is not a mere transfer of two languages,but the interaction of two cultures.Cultural misreading,which results from cultural discrepancy and translator’s subjectivity,truly reflects where the blockade and conflict in the cultural communication is.Cultural misreading is an objective phenomenon that exists in the entire process of translation.This paper intends to make a comprehensive analysis and discussion on The History of the Former Han Dynasty:a Critical Translation with Annotations translated by Homer Hasenpflug Dubs.As for the reasons of cultural misreading,this paper divides them into three types—language,thinking habit,traditional culture.It is to be hoped that this paper will draw more attention from the translation circle to the phenomena,and make contribution to the development of literary translation.

Glimpse of the Han Dynasty from Han Stone Relief——Take the Han stone relief in Tengzhou For Example

Han stone relief is a kind of unique burial art in China and has a far-reaching influence in the whole history of art.Han stone relief is discovered in quite a few districts in China.Tengzhou is one of the districts that discovers Han stone relief at the earliest and has relatively abundant remains.The article takes Han stone relief that is in Tengzhou Shandong as an example,analyzes the subjects and contents of it,as well as its values,and explores the mainstream ideology which is reflected by these stone portraits at that time.

Aesthetic Research of Xu-style Gardens in Han Dynasty

From the aesthetic point of view,this paper summarized the artistic style of Xu-style gardens in Han Dynasty,and through the analysis of the historical and cultural background of Xuzhou in this period,explained the formation of the style of Xu-style gardens in Han Dynasty and its cultural origin.Through the interpretation of landscape,architecture,plants and other garden elements and typical examples,the connotation of the garden art style of Xu-style was analyzed.Clarifying humble beauty of Xu-style gardens would help to better apply local artistic style in future garden construction and promote the development of regional gardens.

Simulated Spatiotemporal Characteristics of Climate Change in China during the Han Dynasty(1–200 A.D.)

In this study,a 2000-year simulation forced by transient,external forcings is carried out with the Community Earth System Model.The authors investigate the spatiotemporal features of climate change in the Han Dynasty(1–200 A.D.)using the empirical orthogonal function(EOF)method.The leading EOF mode of the annua mean temperature anomalies shows a uniform variation of temperature over the whole of China,while the second EOF mode indicates opposite variations of temperature between western and eastern China.For the annual mean precipitation anomalies,the first EOF mode indicates a meridional dipole pattern over eastern China,with increased(decreased)precipitation to the south of the Yangtze River and decreased(increased)precipitation to the north.The leading mode of the 850 h Pa winds and sea level pressure in summer exhibits a southwesterly(northeasterly)anomaly over South China,which is associated with a strengthened(reduced)meridional sea level pressure gradient.Compared to reconstructions,the model can capture the majority of features of climate changes in the Han Dynasty,though it underestimates the magnitude.

Comparative Analysis of Imperial Gardens in the Han Dynasty

The Han Dynasty was the foundation period of Chinese feudal society and an important period for the growth and development of imperial gardens.Therefore,the Han Dynasty has always been a hot topic in the study of Chinese classical garden history.This study analyzed the background and mainstream thoughts of the Han Dynasty,compared creative ideas,construction techniques,and garden construction achievements of imperial gardens in the Han Dynasty,and elaborated on the similarities and differences between creative ideas,gardening techniques,and social functions of imperial gardens in the Han Dynasty.It is hoped that through this study,the status of the gardening art of the Han Dynasty in the history of Chinese classical gardens can be evaluated more scientifically and objectively,and some reliable theoretical basis for modern garden design is provided.

Study on the Brocades of Han Dynasty in Philadelphia Museum of Art

The brocades (jin 锦) in Han Dynasty is very precious for the study of the history of ancient Chinese textiles. This paper introduces the study on the brocades of Han Dynasty, which excavated from the tumuli of the ancient nomadic tribe “Xiong-nu” (Hun 匈 奴) in the Noin-Ula Mountains in Mongolia. The detailed analyses of the brocades in the collection of Philadelphia Museum of Art are given in this paper and a logical, reasonable conjecture for ancient weaving technology is proposed.

Changxin Palace Lamp A Beam of Light from the Han Dynasty

A palace maid in the Western Han Dynasty sat on her bare.feet, eyebrows slender, face plump, wearing headdress and dressed in curving-front robe. For more than two thousand years, she has never moved a step by herself However, she has set out from the Western Han Dynasty, bringing a distant beam of light. She was born for the light, holding the lamp in both hands and projecting the light forward. When you watch this lamp, it seems that you can see the era which it illuminated.

Brief History of Xu-style Gardens in the Qin and Han Dynasties

This paper studied the gardening activities and characteristics of Xu-style gardens in the Qin and Han Dynasties by combining ancient literature with the study of Han Dynasty stone reliefs.The results showed that by Qin and Han Dynasties,the imperial(royal)gardens and private gardens in ancient Xuzhou had developed in parallel.Imperial(royal)gardens were built by or for vassal kings,First Emperor of Qin Dynasty,Emperor Gaozu of Han Dynasty Liu Bang,for example,Pei Palace,Yanqi Tai,Xima Tai,Hanzu Temple,Lingguang Palace of Lu and so on.As for private gardens,stone reliefs in medium or small tombs owned by the bigwigs or the rich were collected from ancient Xuzhou,and from which we can see clearly the development of private garden from the court,the yard to the garden,rich garden plants and animal species,garden architecture types such as hall,building,pavilion,platform,boat,corridor,gate,gatetower,ornamental column etc.,particularly,hanging waterside pavilion was a unique architectural form of Xu-style garden.These achievements showed that Xu-style garden architecture had been transformed from the pre-Qin incubation period to the generation period.

A Textual Research on the Image of＂Gaomei God＂ in the Stone Relief of the Han Dynasty

As the most primitive and the highest-level media in ancient Chinese society, Gaomei God played a pivotal role in the social life of the Han Dynasty. The stone relief is a vivid portrayal of the Han Dynasty society, and we can use the format routine method to fred out the image of Gaomei God in it. Starting from the Gaomei portrait, a research on typology is carried out before the portrait is divided into three types on the basis of its development and evolution, which is followed by a comprehensive analysis of its time, distribution area, configuration combination, carving techniques, image composition, development in a way to sum up the law of Gaomei portrait.

Xu-style Garden Architecture of the Han Dynasty: Hanging Waterside Pavilion

Based on the Han Dynasty stone reliefs unearthed in the ancient Xuzhou area,a kind of pavilion above the water—hanging waterside pavilion(Xuan Shui Xie,built above the water with stilts and brackets as the base and seeming hanging on the water)was systematically collected and classifi ed into 2 major categories:single-bracket column hanging waterside pavilion and multiple-bracket column hanging waterside pavilion.The research showed that hanging waterside pavilion got ride of traditional pavilion’s reliance on rammed earth foundation.In addition to working as a connection part,brackets,or bucket arches(Dougong)had also tremendous load-bearing capacity,straight and curved brackets co-formed a giant multiple bracket system,staircases and one-side hanging structure were used to support the upper construction,so that a new towering but light wooden structure hanging above the water was created,which was an innovation of bracket technique of the Han Dynasty,and also a creative design in the development of wooden architecture.

A Brief Analysis of Competitive Sports Depicted on the Portrait Bricks and Stones of the Han Dynasty

The emergence of competitive sports in ancient China is closely related to military activities.With the evolution and development of society,many sporting events have been introduced to and accepted by,the people and later carried forward from generation to generation.In the Han Dynasty,thanks to the strong national strength and booming economy,competitive sports witnessed rapid development.People at that time,from imperial officials to common people,were all keen on various competitive sports and such sports were also very popular among the folk.Along with this,there emerged multiple monographs on sports.Portrait bricks are the remnants of the lavish burial rituals of the Han Dynasty.As the economy grew and social wealth amassed,the lavish burial custom prevailing since the Spring and Autumn Period reached its peak in the Han Dynasty,especially in the Eastern Han Dynasty.People would bury in tombs along with various articles they used before they died.They would also paint the life of the tomb owner on bricks to decorate the tomb by embedding them in the tomb chamber.The images on the portrait bricks unearthed from the tombs of the Han Dynasty are the most intuitive and convincing physical evidence to reflect the development of competitive sports at that time.We conduct a preliminary study on competitive sports in the Han Dynasty by using the portrait bricks of the Han Dynasty unearthed in Sichuan province and the Yellow River basin as examples,aiming to do our bit to build a sporting powerhouse and a healthy China.

Reacting to Epidemics:The Innovative Imperial Public Health System during the Late Northern Song Dynasty

Song China was a period in which China experienced a great increase in its population.Concurrently,the Song dynasty also experienced a rise in the frequency of epidemics and two major wars with the Western Xia and Liao dynasties during the 1000s and 1040s.The consequences of these changes were exacerbated by the increased geographical mobility of certain social groups such as traders and examinees attending civil service examinations.Thus,casualties of wars,epidemics,or disease,especially of people whose families were far away and could not care for them were left without care and“their corpses often lay bare along the roads.”This new social environment created a need for general relief.The Northern Song government(960-1127 CE),especially during the reign of Emperor Huizong,established an innovative public health system to address this issue.The public health system included poorhouses,public hospitals,and pauper’s cemeteries.The first were more of charity organizations,whereas the latter two promoted public health by providing medical services for the poor and burial for those that nobody cared for.In terms of rationale behind these institutions,on the one hand,they constituted an attempt to get the poor and homeless off the streets while providing them relief or burial.On the other hand,it seems that Huizong’s deep concern with medicine propelled him to design and implement a comprehensive public health system oriented to prevent contagion and outbreak of epidemics.This article depicts the background,the organization,and the functions of the system.The article also discusses the conditions and reasons that gave rise to such a unique undertaking by the Northern Song government.

A Preliminary Study on the Spherical Bombs(Huolei)of the Southern Song Dynasty,Unearthed in Chongqing

The military situation of the thirteenth century required that the Song and the Mongols construct a great number of defensive works,relying on the mountains or facing the rivers,in the mountainous Sichuan Province and Chongqing.In recent years,a special kind of explosive firearms,huolei火雷(bombs),was unearthed in the large-scale excavations of the site of Diaoyu Fortress钓鱼城in Hechuan District合川and the Baidicheng白帝城in Fengjie County奉节,both of which were defensive works constructed in this mountainous area during the Southern Song dynasty.In addition,the ruins of kilns and the clay molds that were relevant to the casting of iron huolei have been discovered at the site of Baidicheng,indicating that these huolei might have been produced locally.The Southern Song iron huolei unearthed in Chongqing are the most direct evidence of the evolvement of gunpowder and firearms,and are of great significance to the history of science and technology,in particular the history of military technology.

Beyond Agricola: The Multiple Origins of European Knowledge in Adam Schall von Bell’s Chinese Mining and Metallurgy Handbook Kunyu Gezhi(1640)

In 2015, a previously unknown manuscript was discovered in the Nanjing Library. It contained a Chinese mining and metallurgy handbook, and was identified as a copy of the Kunyu gezhi 坤輿格致, known as the lost Chinese translation of Georgius Agricola’s(1494–1555) De re metallica(1556) by Jesuit Adam Schall von Bell(1592–1666). A closer look at the text, however, reveals that, besides parts of Agricola’s book, content by at least four other European authors was included: Vannoccio Biringuccio(1480–1539), Modestinus Fachs(?–before 1595), Lazarus Ercker(1528/30–1594), and José de Acosta(1539/40–1599/1600). This study demonstrates how their books became available in China, why they were selected as sources for the Kunyu gezhi, and how they were eventually used and incorporated. From this, it becomes apparent that Schall and his collaborators spared no effort to conduct this ambitious knowledge transfer project, and to present European technology at its best to the emperor.

Political History of Books:A Case Study of Precedents of Ritual Protocol for Jin's Imperial Ministers and Annotations to the Report on Jin's Official Posts

This article takes Fu Chang's Precedents of Ritual Protocol for Jin's Imperial Ministers and Xun Chuo's Annotations to the Report on Jin's Official Posts as a means to observe the interactions between books and political processes during the Western and Eastern Jin dynasties. Both Fu Chang and Xun Chuo were employed as high-ranking officials, with a background of being from the Central Plain, by the regime of the Later Zhao founded by Shi Le. Their purpose for writing the two books was to provide guidance for the regime's institutional establishment. The collapse of Shi Le's regime led to the flow of people and their possessions to the south. During these movements, the two books along with other materials and records were brought to Jiankang and then contributed to the institutional and cultural development in the middle and late Eastern Jin Dynasty. As historical facts and references for political reformation, these books revealed the duality of institutional writings. The collection and dispersion of books after the Disaster of Yongjia, as well as the social and cultural changes, should be placed in a wider political process for further examination.

Politicizing the queue： The social, political and cultural symbolism of hair in Qing dynasty and young republican China

The human body, such as hair, serves as a prism through which historical and cultural contexts are effectively refracted. Despite its historical and cultural significance, the role of hair, however, remains curiously a marginalized subject among the renewed interests on the body in the academic fields. In this paper, the author attempts to politicize the queue from 3 perspectives： maintaining a certain prescribed hairstyle is a top-down gesture to construct national conformity; the boundary between Manchu and Han is invoked and reinvented through the battles surrounding the queue politic in late Qing and early Republic; the widespread debate between keeping the queue and cutting the queue at the turn of the 20th century epitomizes the haunting rhetoric of traditionalism and modernism pursuit of modernity in China.

Frontier of Military Defense Buildings in the Western Regions of the Han and Tang Dynasties Based on CiteSpace

Under the guidance of the “the Belt and Road” policy, the academic community continues to study the historical relics of the western regions and military facilities along the silk road in recent years. Focusing on the military defense buildings in the western regions of the Han and Tang Dynasties, CiteSpace software is used to conduct statistical and visual analysis on the hot issues of relevant literature in the military buildings on the silk road. Based on the analysis of frontier hot issues, the research trend of future topics is analyzed and predicted. The research shows that the frontier hot spots of military architecture in the western regions of Han and Tang Dynasties are extensive, and the research trend is steadily rising.

Yan Shigu, linguist of the Tang Dynasty

Yan Shigu, a famous linguist, scribe and historian of the Tang Dynasty, is most famous as a linguist. Since he has no monograph on linguistics, his main thoughts lie in books like Han Shu Zhu. His achievements in linguistics make a big difference in the history of Chinese linguistics.