After four years of excavation work at the Longmen Grottoes (龙门石窟) in Henan Province, the largest excavation to be carried out at this UNESCO World Heritage-listed site since 1949, archaeologists report that their work at the Leigutai grotto complex is drawing to an end. During the past four years, over 1,900 artefacts have been excavated from the caves and restored by a team of archaeologists and researchers from…
As some of you already know, I've been hinting at a blog re-branding for a couple of weeks now. The Amateur Archaeologist has been a wonderful blog to work on but I felt it lacked any real focus. So I'd like to announce my new blog, China Heritage Watch.
China Heritage Watch will focus on Chinese archaeology and cultural heritage issues in modern-day China but I also plan to continue sharing links to educational resources for fellow amateur (and professional) archaeologists and lifelong learners.
Time for another portion of Eye on East Asia’s Tasty Links!
Chinese Moon Cakes (Photo credit: hto2008)
That’s all for this week. The next edition of Tasty Links will be posted on the blog on Saturday 6th October 2012.
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Shimogamo-jinja Shrine
(Photo credit: inkelv1122)
That’s all for this week. The next Eye on East Asia Blog Round-up will be posted on Wednesday 3rd October 2012.
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If you’re looking for a way to improve your Mandarin skills and learn more about Chinese culture and society at the same time, Thinking Chinese may be the website for you. It’s updated regularly, comprehensive, relevant and, best of all, it’s free!
According to the site’s authors, Thinking Chinese is “a place where modern China is exposed to the foreign reader in an innovative and revealing manner”. Visitors to the website will find a wide range of language learning resources at their disposal, such as bilingual articles on a variety of topics, a thematic dictionary of Chinese idioms, a section devoted to modern Chinese slang, and some fun puzzles that will help you get to grips with Chinese radicals, characters and vocabulary. Furthermore, there are dozens of articles on popular culture, contemporary Chinese society, online trends, and business culture which will give readers an insight into the Chinese mind.
There are no audio or video resources on this site and the thematic dictionary would be far more effective if the authors had included some example sentences to demonstrate how the idioms and slang are used, but, all in all, Thinking Chinese is an excellent resource for anyone who wishes to boost their reading skills and learn more about China and its people. Add it to your bookmarks today!
Thinking Chinese can also be found on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.
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Catalogue of Lost Chinese Artifacts on Display in Beijing (Global Times)
A catalogue which lists over 15,000 artefacts that were stolen during the Sino-Japanese wars and the Japanese occupation of China is currently on display at the Palace Museum in Beijing. Items listed in the catalogue include oracle bones, books, jade pieces, and traditional paintings, and heritage workers have hoped that the list will aid in the identification and repatriation of the missing artefacts.
Radical Overhaul at Forbidden City? (People’s Daily Online)
Beijing officials have put forward a proposal to move imperial artworks and antiquities out of the Forbidden City in a bid to alleviate overcrowding during peak season and public holidays. Tens of thousands of people visit the World Heritage Site each day and city officials believe that moving the antiquities into a new, purpose-built museum would help limit damage to the palace buildings. Some heritage experts disagree with the proposed measures and argue that the antiquities could suffer irreparable damage during relocation and would lose their cultural significance and historical value if they were moved out of their original setting.
Buddha Hall Oldest in China (Global Times)
Archaeologists are currently trying to determine if Leiyin Cave in Beijing’s Yunju Temple is the oldest Buddha hall in China. Artefacts unearthed at the site are believed to date back to the early 7th century and it is thought that the research conducted at the cave has advanced the historical record of Buddha halls by two centuries.
Laser Survey Reveals Possible Additional Burial Site at Ancient Tomb (Mainichi)
Laser surveys of the Mozu and Furuichi kofun tomb clusters in Osaka Prefecture have revealed a previously undetected dirt platform at the site of Emperor Ojin’s kofun tomb in the city of Habikino. The platform is 22 metres long, 16 metres wide and 3 metres high and archaeologists believe it may conceal a second burial site. Further research will reveal the actual purpose of the structure.
Sunset at the Forbidden City, Beijing
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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Are you feeling hungry for this week’s edition of Eye on East Asia’s Tasty Links?
Chirashizushi (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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Torii of the shrine in Hakone, at Lake Ashi
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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The folks over at Neo Mammalian Studios have put together an infographic which celebrates the insane glory that is “Gangnam Style”, the wacky viral hit by South Korean rapper Psy (real name: Park Jaesang, 박재상). I have to admit that I only got around to watching this video this week, despite the fact that it has been featured on countless TV shows and covered by numerous artists, including the group Maroon 5 and singer Nelly Furtado. My bad…
The infographic below was created when the song hit 100 million views on Youtube. At the time of writing this blog post, it had been viewed a staggering 214, 714, 667 times worldwide, making it one of the most viewed music videos on Youtube this year.
(Infographic found via 9Gag).
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Artefacts unearthed from the Jonoyama burial mound near the city of Tainai (胎内) in Japan’s Niigata Prefecture (新潟県) have led archaeologists to conclude that the Yamato Kingdom’s cultural and political influence did in fact reach as far as the Tōhoku region (東北地方) as early as the fourth century AD. Until recently, scholars believed that the northern extent of the Yamato Kingdom’s influence was the Noto Peninsula (能登半島) in Ishikawa Prefecture (石川県). However, these latest findings are being taken as proof that the kingom’s sphere of influence not only stretched almost 250 kilometres further north than previously believed but it also expanded into the Tōhoku region nearly three centuries earlier than originally thought.
Items excavated from the burial mound include a bronze mirror, a bow, a lacquered yuki (靫) quiver, comma-shaped magatama beads (勾玉), a long sword and traces of a wooden boat-shaped coffin. Many of the artefacts bear remarkable similarities with grave goods found in burial mounds in the central Kinki region (近畿地方), leading archaeologists to believe that the burial mound in Tainai may be the grave of a person who had close ties with the Yamato Kingdom.
(Sources: The Daily Yomiuri and Mainichi Shimbun)
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