Methodology

  • Introduction
  • Map of Archaeological Sites
  • Methodology
  • Dataset Use Guide
  • Bronze nao excavated from known archaeological sites in Northern China, c.1200 – c.1050 B.C.
  • Dataset – Hunan Province, c.1300 – c.1000 B.C.
  • Terms of Use

    • Methodology

    As stated in the introduction, the archaeology sites in this project on bronze nao in Shang China are grouped under four tables according to the research themes defined by Professor Lai:

    • Bronze nao bells excavated from known archaeological sites in Northern China, c.1200 – c.1050 BC
    • Bronze nao found at known archaeological sites in Hunan Province, c.1300 – c.1000 BC
    • Bronze nao unearthed from known archaeological sites in provinces along the Yangtze River  (except Hunan Province) (to be released)
    • Early bronze yongzhong bells excavated from known archaeological sites in Northern China, probably c.1100 – c.950 BC (to be released)

    They include sites in the major activity areas of the Shang people, as well as sites with bronzes discovered in different provinces along the Yangtze River.

    Information Included

    On the maps and in their corresponding tables we aim to include as much information about the site and its bronzes as possible. Because the sites and their finds were usually reported at different lengths, we standardized a list of guides along which we followed as we documented each site:

    • Locations and coordinates.  The coordinates are taken from the smallest, administrative unit of the reported location. Where such information is missing or incomplete,  the location of the closest administration unit is taken to suffice. The Chinese Government adopts their coordinate system (GCJ-02) which varies with the world’s commonly used one, WGS-84.  Since Google Maps adopts GCJ-02 for China map while other GIS software and tools usually go for WGS-84, coordinates for both systems are provided in the dataset table for reference.
    • Bronzes. The physical information of each bronze such as height and weight are given in the corresponding table.
    • Original quotations in archaeological reports. Wherever possible, the descriptions of the sites and the bronzes were quoted from relevant archaeological reports in the corresponding tables for future reference.
    • References.  The references that contribute to the site information are all listed.

    References

    Since some information on the locations of the bronze nao are not clear enough for the project team to identify a single spot on the map, additional references from the following sources were checked to extract more valuable information on a more precise site location and description on the bronzes unearthed/evacuated.  These included:

    • books (archaeological reports, catalogue on unearthed antiques, etc.)
    • journal article (most of them are in printed copy)
    • government and museum websites; and
    • other online materials

    Difficulties

    During the research process, it was found that some place names are no longer used / existed as the archaeological excavations were mainly done in the 1950’s or 1960’s. Some “公社” (communal) may have been demolished already, while some counties and villages may be grouped, merged or changed their names. Another problem with plotting in precise location was that many of the bronzes were unearthed because of urban development. Many sites have been developed into factories, residential area and other urban uses without preservation and those bronze naos were actually discovered/unearthed when they started developing the land. Unless the sites were well-known in archaeology / Chinese history, or with a clear site map from the reports, the project team can only guess the location from textual descriptions.

    Product

    An online database of maps and summary of findings including the following information are available openly to interested scholars, institutions and organizations:

    • Full reference citation with hypertext links to the library record
    • Quotation from references in describing the site/location and the bronzes
    • Remarks on the locations, e.g. change in place name, two sets of coordinates files for both coordinate systems (WGS-84 and GCJ-02)

    The information in the data tables are in Chinese except for one site as the references for this site are all in English.

    Data of this project is open for access in phases for research and educational purposes. Please refer to the Dataset Use Guide for using the shapefiles and kml files, and Terms of Use for using the datasets.