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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
One of the fundamental tasks of archæological research in regard to thedating of archaic Chinese bronzes is to determine which bronzes date in the Chou period and which are pre-Chou, i.e. of the Yin (Shang) period. In my work “Yin and Chou in Chinese Bronzes” (in Yin and Chou Researches, 1935, also in Bull. Mus. Far East Ant., 1936), I have tried to establish a real dating in regard to a great number of inscribed bronzes by aid of their inscriptions. I found three types of inscriptions which I concluded to be of pre-Chou time: those containing the so-called ya hing, those which had the three symbols traditionally (but very tentatively) interpreted as si tsï sun, and those which had the symbol traditionally transcribed as kü. In this way I obtained a considerable number of illustrated bronzes which I used as research material for determining the types of bronzes existing prior to the Chou era.
page 35 note 1 I.e. of course: Chou time names and facts, as fully developed on pp. 30–83.
page 38 note 1 Mr. Herrlee Glessner Creel refers to his Chinese teachers (“an argument from authority rather than proof”) for the opinion that the Yin inscriptions extremely seldom run to more than one or two characters. This is a view not at all shared by many Chinese “authorities” (cf. e.g. the Yin wen ts'un and Sü Yin wen ts'un), and is decidedly wrong.