|
| Photo of the Inscription on the Sword of King Zhougou of Yue 越王州句 (r. 448-412 BCE, Excavated in Jingzhou in 1973), Jingzhou Museum. Photo by Trenton Wilson. |
Wuyuescripts.com is a searchable database of inscriptions on artifacts associated with the late Spring and Autumn and early Warring States kingdoms of Wu 吳 (early 6th century BCE – early 5th century) and Yue 越 (Late 6th century – late 4th century). These inscriptions often written in the so-called “bird and insect script” 鳥蟲書 (certainly an anachronistic misnomer) are mostly found on bronze percussion instruments and weapons. In addition, other "bird script" inscriptions from the neighboring states of Chu, Song, Cai, Zeng, and Xu have also been included.
Most of the information on this site comes from existing print collections by Dong Chuping 董楚平, Cao Jinyan 曹錦炎, Shi Xiejie 施謝捷, and Dong Shan 董珊.
All these sources have been cited for reference and can be found in the bibliography.
The advantage of this digital format is that this database can be continually amended and expanded to include recently excavated inscriptions.
Moreover, this digital forum has the space to allow for dozens of photos of an object from many different angles and close up images of individual characters.
High-resolution images and line drawings can supplement traditional rubbings for the study of epigraphy and orthography.
In the future these epigraphic line drawings can be layered onto photos or rubbings, and damage and other information can be added or removed at will.
The goal of this site is to become a public collaborative forum where users may edit and modify entries by correcting mistakes or adding new information
and images in order to keep up with recent archaeological discoveries.
Until that time, please email any corrections or suggestions to
wuyuescripts@gmail.com.
The content of wuyuescripts.com is for educational purposes only.
All copyrights belong to their respective owners. Although all these artifacts are public domain,
photographs and images may be protected by copyright, and owned by the photographer, illustrator, or epigrapher.
Any Images or text owned by other copyright holders are used here under the guidelines of the Fair Use provisions of United States Copyright Law,
and have been carefully cited. The text, images, and videos used on this site are not for commercial use,
but have been provided solely for the purpose of teaching, scholarship, and research.
Understanding that museums have an interest protecting their collections,
it is hoped that this website will further promote people to visit these exhibits.
These photos cannot replace the thrill of actually seeing a Wu-Yue sword firsthand,
and the joy of reading the actual inlaid inscriptions, beautifully
written by the talented Wu and Yue craftsmen some 2500 years ago.
This database has been made possible in part by generous grants from the David N. Keightley Fellowship and Elvera Kwang Siam Lim Fellowship in Chinese Studies. Many of the photos on this site were taken on a trip through Jiangnan funded by the CIAC Research Travel Grant provided by the Association for Asian Studies.
I am especially grateful to the Hubei Provincial Museum and Anhui Provincial Museum for giving me special access to their storerooms and allowing me to examine those artifacts which were not currently on exhibition.
This site is maintained by Benjamin Daniels, a PhD candidate in the History Department at UC Berkeley.