InterAsian Networks and the Making(s) of the First Cities

INTERASIAN NETWORKS AND THE MAKING(S) OF THE FIRST CITIES 20. – 21. 7. 2022 Workshop organized by Annie Chan (LMU/CAS Junior Researcher in Residence) Speakers: Arnaud Bertrand (ArScAn Research Center, Paris), Puay Peng Ho (National University of Singapore/CAS Fellow), Maria Khayutina (LMU), Andrew M. Law (Newcastle University), Alexis Lycas (EPHE, Paris), Shing Mueller (LMU) Nancy S. Steinhardt (UPenn/CAS Fellow), Joshua Wright (Aberdeen). CAS LMU, Seestraße 13, 80802 München Registration: [email protected], www.cas.lmu.de Dr. Annie Chan Researcher in Residence, CAS LMU Workshop 20-21 July 2022 Venue: Center for Advanced Studies, LMU Munich Seestraße 13 80802 München InterAsian networks and the making(s) of the first ci9es The topic of this workshop is one part of a three-pronged investigation into environmental and anthropogenic factors that underlie the proliferation of long-distance contacts and transmissions emblematic of the dynamic of early China-Central Asia relations (from first millennium BCE through seventh century CE). The phenomenon in question is “city-building”— the creation of an organized, governed built space within which one’s identity as member of a political community is reified and manifested in shared iconography, practices, and beliefs that uphold the sanctity of the place and a sense of collectivity. A group of scholars each specializing in a different aspect of cityscapes in the history of Asia will convene to explore the making(s) of fixed urban locales in the context of mobility and regional connectivity as conditioned by differing needs of pastoral and agricultural cultures and economies in regions straddling the China-steppe contact zone. Subjects to be discussed include also territoriality, monument-making, social and environmental impact of architecture, urban planning, sociology of space, political geography of empire, spatial practices of sedentism and nomadism. Wednesday, 20 July 10:00 – 10:15 Arrival of participants 10:15 – 10:30 Welcome Address & Introduction SESSION 1 Placemaking and mobility concepts in early urbanism 10:30 – 11:30 Joshua Wright (University of Aberdeen) The foundations of urbanism in the Mongolian steppe Maria Khayutina (LMU Munich) Peripatetic kingship and royal residences during the Western Zhou period Puay Peng Ho (National University of Singapore) Centre and periphery: the nature of early silk-road cities 11:30 – 12:00 Q&A 12:00 – 12:30 Coffee break 12:30 – 13:30 Lunch Talk Annie Chan (LMU) Impetus for circum-Tarim cosmopolitanism at the beginning of cities Respondent: Puay Peng Ho (NUS) 13:30 – 14:30 lunch break SESSION 2 Across 40° N: Ecologies and geographies of imperial expansion 14:30 – 15:30 Arnaud Bertrand (ArScAn Research Center, Paris) Han empire’s expansion west towards the Gobi and the Tarim basin: new methods, new sources, new strategies Alexis Lycas (EPHE Paris) Geographical knowledge and administrative practices in Medieval Shazhou according to the Dunhuang manuscripts Shing Mueller (LMU) Pingcheng (398-494): A 5th-century megacity between the steppe and the agriculture zones 15:30 – 16:00 Q&A 16:00 – 16:30 Coffee break SESSION 3 First cities as a discourse for InterAsia 16:30 – 17:10 Nancy S. Steinhardt (University of Pennsylvania) China’s early cities and interAsian networks: Have the big questions changed? Andrew M. Law (Newcastle University) The uses of the past in Chang’an: selective remembering and the discourse of rejuvenation 17:10- 17:40 Q&A 17:40- 18:00 Summary/ taking stock for Day 2 18:30 Workshop dinner Thursday, 21 July 9:00 – 9:15 9:15 – 11:00 Arrival of Participants Round Table I (closed-door): Placemaking and mobility concepts in early urbanism 11:00 – 11:30 Coffee break 11:30 – 13:30 Round Table II (closed-door): Across 40° N: Ecologies and geographies of imperial expansion 13:30 – 14:30 Lunch 14:30 – 16:30 Round Table III (closed-door): First cities as a discourse for InterAsia Abstracts: Joshua Wright (University of Aberdeen) The foundations of urbanism in the Mongolian steppe This presentation will introduce the state of the art in the archaeology of the Mongolian Iron Age through the Turkic era. The first urban age of the Mongolian steppe follows this period, beginning in the 8th century CE, so there are few ruins or accounts of city sites from the proto-urban period. Without walled city sites we must focus on the archaeology political communities, place making, and production sites which, along with the few known towns in the steppe, form the network out of which the first cities emerged. When looking into the medieval era, where can be find the advent of the many steppe cities and extended urban hinterlands forming generational experiences of urbanism over the longue durée that we see then. Some questions for synthesis include, what are the nature and orientation of regional connections? As we consider networked approaches to the construction of places. What are the meaningful factors of connection, or what do we count? The place of monocausal explanation, for example population density, in the emergence of cities? Site(s) for discussion: Khar Balgas/Ordu Balik (The Uighur capital city) Terlziyn Dervelziyn, Khustyn Bulag and surrounding locales (Xiongnu period central places) Maria Khayutina (LMU Munich) Peripatetic kingship and royal residences during the Western Zhou period Both Chinese Classics and traditional historiography emphasized the role of the royal capital as a place of power and a hub of communication under both Shang and Zhou dynasties. Until recently, historians thought that the foundation of each new capital signified the abandonment of the earlier one. They sometimes juxtaposed Zhou kingship, centered on the capital, to the apparently more primitive Shang “peripatetic” model that, as oracle bone inscriptions reveal, required the king to frequently leave the capital and tour around. Excavated bronze inscriptions, however, equally show that Zhou kings were also mobile, but, in contrast to the Shang predecessors, that they moved between several cities where they had residences. Besides, archaeological discoveries and inscriptions alike show that earlier royal centers were not abandoned when the kings founded new ones. In my talk, I will share some thoughts regarding the impact of the royal mobility on the process of urbanization in the Zhou core territories. Puay Peng Ho (NUS) Centre and periphery: the nature of early silk-road cities In the study of formation of cities both in the west and China, there are several models that are established. Two of the most prevalent city forms are religious-centric cities or political-centric cities. To determine the nature of the early cities, we can rely on archaeological excavation, pictorial and textual evidence. In this preliminary exploration, I will look at several major cities on the rim of Taklamakan desert and hope to uncover their nature through the use of available archaeological records and other sources. The outcome will be to see if the this form of reading is significant in understanding the uniqueness of the development of city form in these cities. Annie Chan (LMU) Impetus for circum-Tarim cosmopolitanism at the beginning of cities In this talk, I present parts of the result of an analysis that attempts to reconstruct in quantitative terms characteristics of the cultural geography around the Tarim Basin accompanying the region’s urban transitions. It seeks to subvert what is traditionally a top-down approach to characterizing Inner Asian material cultures and landscapes through lenses of stereotyped homogenization of transEurasian or interAsian connections. Adopting cosmopolitanism as an analytical framework, I propose several ways the archaeological data can be dissected to uncover patterns of intercultural activities that discriminate between local and global impetus for change, and the subsequent effects. Arnaud Bertrand (ArScAn Research Center, Paris) Han empire’s expansion west towards the Gobi and the Tarim basin: new methods, new sources, new strategies “To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science”. This quote from Albert Einstein is probably exactly what is needed today in the study of the Han Empire’s expansions to the Western Regions from the first century BCE. We still find a huge scientific gap between the specialist of written and the archeologists working on the field. Along the “Hexi Corridor 河西⾛廊”, in Gansu province, more than two thousand years ago, stood the ancient remains of the Han Empire’s expansion. Walls, forts, cities of various size, and a very strong administrative system was put in place to keep firm grip over the trade routes leading towards the Western Regions. As the priority given to writing in China dictates, in addition to the Great Walls and its adjoining defensive installations, it is the discovery of thousands of administrative letters written on wooden slips of diverse sizes which holds the attention of experts. The content of these documents relates to the local administrative system of the Han Liangzhou 涼州 commanderies developed in the north-west of the Han Empire, since 115-110 BCE to the middle of the second century of our common era. These couriers provide information on the lives of soldiers and civilians living on the border of the Empire, and on the administrative functioning of imperial rank commanderies, but also on relations with foreign populations. According to the general mapping of Gansu province, we may count more than 2000 sites which have been identified as dating back to the Han Empire’s occupation of the lands beyond the Yellow River. Yet less than 10% are fully excavated. The many cities built by the Han, during their progression to the West, some measuring more than 500 meters wide, are simply too big, to vast, to be part of any excavation projects. In Western Gansu and Xinjiang, with my colleague Olivier Bordeaux (CNRS), we have thus undertaken an entire mapping of the forts and fortified cities built between the second century BCE and the second century AD. We investigate fortification technology, shapes of cities, material culture, coinage, textiles, and combine knowledge from transmitted and excavated texts. We have now a better understanding of the lines of communications, spaces of control and places of local trade during the Chinese expansion to the west, the rising powers of the Tarim city-states and the growth of the Yuezhi-Kushan beyond the Pamir. Site(s) for discussion: In this workshop, the mapping will be presented with a specific focus along the southern road between Miran and Yutian, and the second between Dunhuang and the Lop-Nor area. I will also present the archeological investigation of the jade (⽟门关都尉) and sun gate (阳关都尉) road located in Dunhuang, where new archeological sites can explain from which line arrived people from the Tarim basin. Finally, I believe it necessary to talk about the documents of the Xuanquan site (悬泉遗址), with particular attention to texts related to diplomacy with the Yuezhi, Sogdians, Ferghana kingdom and Tarim city-states. Alexis Lycas (EPHE Paris) Geographical knowledge and administrative practices in Medieval Shazhou according to the Dunhuang manuscripts I am interested in geographical knowledge and administrative practices in medieval China. I seek to understand what the former does to the latter, particularly in borderland areas. The Dunhuang local geography manuscripts are valuable because they fill a gap in our understanding of the process of knowledgemaking with regard to localities, before local gazetteers emerged during the Song dynasty. The study of the Dunhuang documents thus allows us to understand how the State and its agents make things work at the regional level and how their practices and knowledge construct a place, in this case, Dunhuang. Conversely, I also question what a place like Dunhuang does to the authors in charge of describing it, in order to understand the specificities of the spatial experience that takes place there. Site(s) for discussion: Mogao Caves Shing Müller (LMU Munich) Pingcheng (398-494): A 5th-century megacity between the steppe and the agriculture zones Pingcheng (398–494), the earlier Northern Wei capital in present-day Datong, was said to have harbored approximately one million people in its heyday. While the mentioned population figure may have been exaggerated, that Pingcheng was a crowded, multilingual, multicultural, and un-Chinese city can be evidenced both literally and archaeologically. Some special physical features also made the city unique: it was a city of wards which was followed by the 6th-century Luoyang and the Tang-Chang’an. The city was connected to the first Buddhist Cave Temple in interior China, and at the end of the Pingcheng era, the city received a Mingtang Ritual structure, while a site in the western suburb was reserved for Tengri sacrifices. This paper attempts to take a closer look at the location of the city, its food and water supply, as well as some textual and archaeological indications for the organization of the social life. Nancy S. Steinhardt (University of Pennsylvania) China’s early Cities and interAsian networks: Have the big questions changed? For longer than there has been a concept of dynastic China, the city has been considered a defining feature of civilization in China. How to define China, city, and Chinese city has been fluid and remains ambiguous. This talk tries to articulate the questions and presumptions that have driven the study and understanding of Chinese cities for the last seventy years, that is, since excavation revealed information about cities that could confirm or challenge writings and previous notions. It then seeks to articulate criteria for understanding China as part of an inter-Asian network. The focus is pre-third century (or pre-Han [206 BCE-220 CE] cities, but later cities have to be considered. All cities considered are premodern. Andrew M. Law (Newcastle University) The uses of the past in Chang’an: selective remembering and the discourse of rejuvenation In recent years scholars have noted the growth of historic city branding in China. Historic city branding has taken place in cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Wuhan, Luoyang and Dali City to name a few. However, one city that has attracted increasing academic attention, mainly because of its ostentatious branding, is the city of Xi’an – or Chang’an as it was known in the past. The branding of Xi’an has fascinated investigators because it has been tied to the urban development of the city and an economic strategy that is based around tourists, domestic investment and foreign direct investment (FDI). Indeed, the growth of a historic imaginary surrounding the city can be traced back to the 1980s where a kind of new culture of remembering emerged in post-Maoist China. In the main, the historic imaginary drawn upon by city officials is chiefly concerned with Han and Tang imaginaries, as well as a broader narrative of the Silk Road. Taking these issues into account, in this lecture, I want to do two things: 1) firstly, I want to explore the early history of the city and I will discuss its emergence within the context of the Wei River Valley and the Guanzhong area (in Shaanxi); indeed, as scholars have suggested the Guanzhong or Chang’an area ‘played host’ to 13 dynastic capitals from the western Zhou, (11th century, to 771 BCE), to the Tang dynasty (618-904 CE); in this regard, modern day Chang’an or Xi’an cannot be regarded as a palimpsest in that the foundations of modern-day Xi’an are from the Sui-Tang era only. Instead, historic imaginaries of Xi’an constructed by the city’s officials, can be associated with a range of urban settlements that existed in the Guanzhong area, including Feng, Hao, Qin Xianyang, Han Chang’an and Sui-Tang Chang’an. 2) Secondly, then, after this brief historical discussion, I will explore the modern-day branding of the city; particularly, I shall examine the way that city officials have drawn upon narratives of Xi’an’s (or more appropriately the Guanzhong area) ancient and imperial past in the pursuit of economic development: which has included tourist attractions, theme parks, retail plazas, malls, hotels, new business parks, and real estate opportunities. Particularly, it is suggested in this discussion that the historic marketing of Xi’an builds upon discourses of the exotic, cosmopolitanism, inter-Asian connections, past wealth and deep economic roots. It will be also contended here that these narratives, help to create a very attractive economic brand for the city; however, it will also be claimed that these discourses also reinforce broader nationalist narratives in China that are based upon ideas of the country’s ‘rejuvenation’. In summarising this talk then, it will be suggested that while the marketing of contemporary Xi’an through these narratives might well help the economic development of the city, the historic branding of the city also poses a threat to: 1) alternative historical narratives; 2) local ideas of the sacred and the spiritual; 3) social communities that are relocated as a result of the creation of new Han and Tang themed spaces; 4) and existing and undiscovered archaeological heritage sites that are damaged in the creation of new and intensive infrastructure and real estate. Site(s) for discussion: ⼤雁塔; Dàyàn tǎ, - or the Da Yan Tower or Big/Large Wild Goose Pagoda.