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Drawn and Written in Stone' explores the religious history of the highest part of the Tibetan Plateau through its rock art and inscriptions. It is focused on facsimiles of ritual and ceremonial monuments carved and painted on stone surfaces together with rock inscriptions in the Tibetan language, vital archaeological and historical materials for appraising the development of religion in Tibet, ca. 100 BCE to 1400 CE. By probing the complexion of figures and letters in stone, this work considers how early cult traditions contributed to the establishment of Tibetan Buddhism and a rival faith known as Yungdrung Bon. Outside of the Indian cultural context, relatively little has been written about the historical antecedents of these popular Tibetan religions for a want of sources. This monograph helps remedy this large gap in Tibetan studies by drawing upon the author?s surveys of rock art and rock inscriptions conducted in upmost Tibet between 1995 and 2013.
Inscribed stones and stone sculpture form the most prolific body of material evidence from early medieval Wales, c. AD 400 1100. Crucial to our understanding of the region s degree of continuity with the preceding Roman culture, Irish settlement, and the development of the early Welsh kingdoms, these Latin or Old Irish inscribed memorial stones instruct us on the language, literacy, and development of the church, among other areas. These two volumes allow us to identify a range of early medieval ecclesiastical sites within a wider landscape and the trace the church s patronage by the secular elite. Accompanied by more than 170 line drawings and elaborate illustrations, this corpus provides fresh new studies of these aspects, revised interpretations of the stones, and many previously unpublished and newly discovered examples."
Stone inscriptions are the most important written source for 5th-7th century western-British history. Against a background for Old World prehistory and the classical civilizations, this book focuses on the inscribed memorial stones of Demetia (south-west Wales, modern-day Dyfed) and Dumnonia (Devon, Cornwall and part of Somerset). The author looks at cultural change after AD 400 by analyzing the evidence or "messages" left on memorial stones. The invention of the ogam script in Ireland and its use, with implications for both paganism and Christianity, on such stones is examined. A group of chapters is devoted to a praticular reconstruction of events in south-west Wales between AD 400 and 600 - the establishment of an Irish-decended kingdom of Dementia. The author demonstrates that the Dementians adopted first Latinity (use of Roman names, ets) and only then Christinity, influenced by sub-Roman native kingdoms to the east. The author then traces a remarkable "venture to the interior" - the foundation of a small Dementian kingdom in the upper Usk valley, and examines documentary evidence for the first settler-king - Brychan - and, as monk and saint, his connection with Lundy Island (in the Bristol Channel) and north Devon. Evidence for a post-Roman native kingdom in Cornwall, Devon and part of Somerset is next considered, as is minor Irish settlement in west Cornwall around the year 400, and an isolated introduction of Christianity from 5th-century Gaul. Inscribed stones show that the conversion of Dumnonia to Christianity - though field-work has revealed that, far from being a Land of Saints, the deep south-west did not become Christian until well into the 6th century.
What can stories of magical engraved rings or prophetic inscriptions on walls tell us about how writing was perceived before print transformed the world? Writing beyond Pen and Parchment introduces readers to a Middle Ages where writing is not confined to manuscripts but is inscribed in the broader material world, in textiles and tombs, on weapons or human skin. Drawing on the work done at the Collaborative Research Centre “Material Text Cultures,” (SFB 933) this volume presents a comparative overview of how and where text-bearing artefacts appear in medieval German, Old Norse, British, French, Italian and Iberian literary traditions, and also traces the paths inscribed objects chart across multiple linguistic and cultural traditions. The volume’s focus on the raw materials and practices that shaped artefacts both mundane or fantastical in medieval narratives offers a fresh perspective on the medieval world that takes seriously the vibrancy of matter as a vital aspect of textual culture often overlooked.
Introduces a wide variety of Greek inscriptions on stone slabs, pottery, bronzes, and other small objects, from simple names to more complicated texts, some in local dialects with distinctive alphabets.
Points East, A Publication of the Sino-Judaic Institute, Vol. 23 No. 2, July 2008 The Covenant and the Mandate of Heaven: An In-depth Comparative Cultural Study of Judaism and China. By Tiberiu Weisz (iUniverse, 2007) Reviewed by Vera Schwarcz, Director/Chair, Freeman Center for East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University, CT. This is, simply put, a bold visionary book. It invites readers to contemplate distant and disparate events and thinkers in a way that weaves a common tapestry. The author is generous minded, erudite and provides readers with all the information needed for this cross-cultural journey. The challenge of this adventure remains daunting nonetheless. Kang Youwei's words to Guangxu emperor in 1898 (quoted by Weisz on p 177) apply to reading this book as well: It is indeed like climbing a tree to seek fish - tough, but not foolish. In the end, the reward in understanding both Chin and Judaism is immense. Tiberiu Weisz is not a newcomer to cross cultural dialogues. With origins stretching back to Transylvania (like myself), he is familiar with the mixtures of languages and religions from back home. A long time scholar of the Kaifeng stones inscriptions and of the Jewish communities of ancient China, he was well prepared for a more wide ranging inquiry into the similarities between Chinese and Jews. To his great credit, Tiberiu Weisz took a full decade to assemble and re-translate key original documents from each of these different traditions in order to show a compelling complementarity between them. In the preface to The Covenant and The Mandate, he confesses trepidation at the scope of his inquiry. This is understandable since Weisz' book ranges from the ancient Liji and Tanach to the Cultural Revolution and the Holocaust. Even if one does not fully agree with author's conclusion that Judaism is the yang to China's yin -there is much in this important work to challenge, and to enrich, a wide variety of readers. The focus throughout this carefully constructed book is upon similarities that never quite devolve into a forced identity between Chinese and Jewish cultural values. Starting with ideas of holiness embodied in Elohim and Shangdi, Weisz invites readers to follow the travels of Lao Zi beyond the pass. Whether the Chinese and Jewish commitment to the one force underlying all natural phenomena or shared understanding of benevolent kingship can be traced to news of Solomon's rule spreading through Central Asia is not, in my view, the central question. Rather what is most startling in this book is a symmetry of historical experiences that does indeed lead Chinese and Jews to become experts in cultural survival. Weisz' study goes beyond our current understanding of Chinese and Jewish traditions as the two oldest, uninterrupted cultures in the world. Many previous works (including my own Bridges Across Broken Times: Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory) have circled this theme. What is fresh, and important in The Covenant and The Mandate, is the detailed, textual proof of exactly how Chinese and Jews confronted historical catastrophe and survived with renewed vigor. Three key moments, Weisz argues, defined and shaped Jewish and Chinese worldviews. For Jews, the exile to Babylon in 586-516 BCE, the expulsion from Spain in 1492 and the 20th century Holocaust provided fiery moments for self-definition and renewal. For Chinese, it was the imperial unification in 221 BCE, the Mongol conquest (1279-1368) and the more recent Cultural Revolution that challenged Confucianism and led to a new nationalist consciousness. Each of these events (as well as many others) is discussed at length and documented in terms of the thought-legacy that it provided for two civilizations growing more and more skilful in adaptation and survival. Weisz' analytical paradigm is most effective when he creatively juxtaposes important thinkers who are rarely considered side by side. For me, reading about the Han Dynasty poet-statesmen Han Yu alongsi
This is the first study in a Western language devoted to one of the most visually distinctive features of the landscape in China--moya or moya shike, texts carved into granite boulders and cliffs that are part of the natural terrain at thousands of sites of historic or scenic interest. These inscriptions, carved in large, bold characters, served as a vast repository of texts produced continuously for over two thousand years and constitue an important form of public art. Focusing on the period prior to the eighth century C.E., Harrist demonstrates that the significance of the inscriptions depends on the interaction of words with topography, so that the medium of the written work has transformed geological formations into landscapes of ideological and religious significance.