Noel Barnard’s Contribution To The Study Of The Western Zhou Bronze Inscriptions Forgeries

Noel Barnard, once served in the Australian National University, is a famous sinologist who has devoted himself to the study of ancient Chinese paleography and archeology. So far, he has published 13 monographs and more than 50 articles. He has made great achievements both on the study the bronzes and the Chu Silk Manuscripts. He also affects the fellow scholars both at home and abroad on the research methodology and the historical criticism. But it is a pity to tell that few people in China know his achievements well, for most of his researches are interdisciplinary, and most of the articles are published abroad in English. Especially on the bronze inscriptions forgeries area, no one has introduced and summarized it so far. Therefore, we make a full collection of all his studies on the bronze inscriptions forgeries, then introduce his achievements comprehensively and discuss the significance of his studies, especially the study of Mao Gong Ding, and the argument it causes.This article contents three chapters and the appendix. The first chapter is the Introduction. We first introduce Noel Barnard and his studies primarily, and then present the introductions and comments that have already made by Chinese scholars. At last we explain why we choose this topic and how we accomplish it. Chapter two is Barnard‘s studies on the bronze inscriptions forgeries. On this part we first introduce the principle of constancy of character structures put out by Barnard and then introduce Barnard‘s opinion on Mao Gong Ding, as well as the arguments those two cause. The last part is the study on relative issues. The third chapter is the achievements Barnard has made and the deficiencies of his study. The appendix is a chronological directory of Barnard.