Discoveries or Forgeries?

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Discoveries or Forgeries?


Archaeology seems to have more then its fair share of academic scandals. From Howard Vyse’s graffiti and Heinrich Schliemann’s treasure until various bewildering claims of this day, we have seen them all. Since 1990’s, China has become the capital of such schemes, and this was partly related to the desire of the government to extend the length of the Chinese civilization beyond what is accepted by the academic world. The slogan of the day was “walking out of the Age of Suspicion”, as proposed by Mr. Li Xueqin in Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) (he is now in Tsinghua University), meaning that we should end the western influence of critical history and return to the blind faith to the oral tradition. From this perspective, Li is a true follower of Schliemann. They believed that this would enhance China’s image and pump up the level of nationalistic feeling to a new pitch. In reality, it merely created more controversies and help to highlight the ethical crisis in the society in general and the academic world in particular.

At this stage, I have heard of some allegations of forgeries related to Chinese archaeology in the last twenty years, which are listed below to alert everyone who might be interested in such matters:

1985 The mural in the Xiaoshan (little mountain) ruin of Zhaobaogou Culture simulated the Dunhuang murals of Tang Dynasty. (CASS)
1987 Inscription on the turtle shells (the “earliest writing”) in Jiahu was allegedly the earliest writing in China but is similar to the Shang writing thousands of years later and there is nothing discovered in the time between. (Henan archaeological team)
1987 The dragon and tiger images created with shells in Xishuipo (Western Water Slope) site in Henan was constructed with modern concept. (CASS)
1991 The inscription on a broken piece of pottery in Dinggong site in Shandong, which resembles the writing of Yi ethnic group in the southwest near the Burmese border, thousands of miles away. This “discovery” is also contradicted by a later finding of writing in the bone oracle style of Shang in the same area that only started to be developed more than a thousand years later. (Shandong University)*
1993 Another inscription on pottery in Longqiuzhuang site in Jiangsu. (Nanjing Museum)
1994 Bamboo slips from the Warring State of Chu of unknown date and origin, purchased from Hongkong, was probably made with ancient bamboo (there are plenty of them around) but the writing betrays signs of training in modern Chinese calligraphy. (Shanghai Museum)
1994 certain “5000-year-old artifacts” of stone, supposedly tied to the legendary Yellow Emperor in Tunlu, Hebei. Someone knew how it was manufactured. (local researchers)
1995 certain jade artifact from Jiangjialiang site, Hebei. (Peking University)
1996 certain “5000-year-old artifacts” of stone axe, supposedly tied to the legendary Yellow Emperor in Tunlu, Hebei. Someone knew how it was manufactured. (local researchers)
2002 a bronze vessel (燹公盨) purchased from Hongkong with unknown origin and bewildering inscriptions designed to prove certain theory of Chinese prehistory by Mr. Li. The composition style is unorthodox and the writing betrays signs of training in modern Chinese calligraphy.*
2008 Bamboo slips from overseas, of unknown date and origin, unpublished, also custom-designed to prove certain theory of Mr. Li (Tsinghua University).

I have predicted the two items with * sign as products of forgeries on internet.

[alexander]

There has and i think always will be archaeologists, and not just archaeologists, historians, linguists, etc who will go beyond every barrier to prove a theory, their theory, if it includes forgery, then forgery it is, some even go as far as destroying real historical data to make their theory fit, and if you disagree, you needn't look farther then any Christian church, and the book they pray to.

It's always a shame, and it's always hard to do good, honest work when you are under funded and your opposition is all powerful and has nearly endless resources and connections that they use your every step to try to discredit/disprove/show that you are wrong, even though both you and them know that such is not the case...

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I am not a professional historian. I think the worst thing Mr. Li Xueqin and his followers have done is an irreparable damage to the field of Chinese prehistorical archaeology very much like Lisenko have done to Russian biology. His theory will continue to poison the younger students even after his departure as the field is now dominated by his students. In China, this field currently splits into two camps: the "walking-out" faction who tries to uphold the old tradition, and the "archaeological" or "western liberal" faction who tries to introduce the skeptical tradition of the west. The former now dominates the academia and controls the public media while the latter becomes the cyber-dissident group.