Named after an archaeological site discovered in 1951 in Zhengzhou,
China, the Erligang civilization arose in the Yellow River valley around
the middle of the second millennium BCE. Shortly thereafter, its
distinctive elite material culture spread to a large part of China's
Central Plain, in the south reaching as far as the banks of the Yangzi
River. The Erligang culture is best known for the remains of an immense
walled city at Zhengzhou, a smaller site at Panlongcheng in Hubei, and a
large-scale bronze industry of remarkable artistic and technological
sophistication.
This richly illustrated book is the first in a western language devoted
to the Erligang culture. It brings together scholars from a variety of
disciplines, including art history and archaeology, to explore what is
known about the culture and its spectacular bronze industry. The opening
chapters introduce the history of the discovery of the culture and its
most important archaeological sites. Subsequent essays address a variety
of important methodological issues related to the study of Erligang,
including how to define the culture, the usefulness of cross-cultural
comparative study, and the difficulty of reconciling traditional Chinese
historiography with archaeological discoveries. The book closes by
examining the role the Erligang civilization played in the emergence of
the first bronze-using societies in south China and the importance of
bronze studies in the training of Chinese art historians.
The contributors are Robert Bagley, John Baines, Maggie Bickford, Rod
Campbell, Li Yung-ti, Robin McNeal, Kyle Steinke, Wang Haicheng, and
Zhang Changping.
