A Comprehensive Study Of Pottery Inscriptions In The Warring States Period

Pottery inscriptions refer to the characters engraved,written,or printed on pottery.During the Warring States period,the use of pottery was extensive,and the phenomenon of stamping characters on pottery was quite common,due to the need for “marking the craftsman’s name” and “identifying the owner”.These characters on pottery carry rich information regarding different manufacturers or user information,and have significant value in the fields of linguistics,history,etc.This article focuses on the study of Warring States pottery inscriptions,which are based on publicly available Warring States pottery inscriptions materials.It combines photographs or diagrams of the artifacts and information on the excavation sites of the pottery to conduct in-depth discussions on relevant issues.The structure of the article and the main contents of the relevant chapters are as follows:The introduction section first introduces the relevant concepts and research materials,clarifies the research objects,defines the time range of the “Warring States”period and the divisions of the pottery inscriptions by states.Then,it reviews the research situation in the academic community regarding the discovery,organization,and study of pottery inscriptions,and points out some limitations in current research.Chapter 1 divides Warring States pottery inscriptions into two categories: “pottery inscriptions of government-run pottery institutions” and “pottery inscriptions of privately-run pottery workshops”.It then conducts a detailed investigation of the format and reading order of these two types of pottery inscriptions according to regional and state divisions.This chapter also observes and statistically analyzes the locations of the stamped characters on the pottery,discovering that the locations of the stamped characters on different artifacts vary significantly.Even for the same type of artifact,the locations of stamped characters differ because their respective states are different.In addition,this chapter introduces the styles of stamped characters and engraved characters.Chapter 2 examines the characters in Warring States pottery inscriptions.It first analyzes the patterns of structural evolution of the pottery inscriptions according to the categories of “simplification”,“complication”,“variation”,and “mutation”.Then,it discusses the regional features of the pottery inscriptions,focusing on the Qi and Yan pottery inscriptions due to limitations in the available materials.It further explores the correspondence between the forms and pronunciation and meaning of the characters,exhaustively collecting and organizing the phenomenon of “multiple character forms corresponding to one pronunciation and meaning”.The last section is the author’s interpretation and application of pottery inscriptions,totaling 13 cases.Chapter 3 discusses the pottery inscriptions related to the economic conditions of the Warring States period.It first analyzes the production organization,personnel composition,and products within government-run pottery industry reflected in the pottery inscriptions.Then,it analyzes the production patterns,personnel composition,and products in privately-run pottery industry.Comparative analysis uncovers substantial disparities in production patterns,scales,personnel composition,and product types between government-run and privately-run pottery industry in the Warring States period.The chapter also discusses the pottery text historical materials related to the market forms during the Warring States period,summarizing various levels of markets.Additionally,it conducts a study on market officials based on the pottery inscriptions.The issue of the capacity system during the Warring States period is currently a research hotspot,and measuring instruments are direct materials for studying capacity system.In Chapter 4,we collected more than a hundred Warring States pottery measuring instruments and vessels,combined with their actual measured capacity,and estimated the measurement systems of different states during the Warring States period.This inquiry extends to interrelated topics.Closely related to the issue of capacity system is the measurement of measuring instruments and vessels,which is more evident in bronzeware and its inscriptions,and has been extensively studied by scholars.However,research on the measurement of pottery measuring instruments and vessels has been scarce.This chapter bridges this gap,orchestrating investigations through the synthesis of pertinent pottery inscriptions and pottery artifacts.Chapter 5 discusses pottery inscriptions related to administrative systems during the Warring States period.It first discusses the officials mentioned in pottery inscriptions based on the absorption of the relevant research achievements in the academic community.Then,it examines the local administrative systems of the Qi,Yan,and Qin states.In the Qi section,it introduces the records about the Qi’s administrative systems in the literature and then counts and explores the appearance of counties,townships,and villages in the pottery inscriptions,further elaborating on the relevant issues based on the records in literature.In the Yan section,the main discussion is about the nature of the Du(都),and the author agrees that the Du(都)refers to the capital city.In the Qin section,it first analyzes the nature of the “ting” in Qin pottery inscriptions,then examines the current situation of the Li(里)in the Qin pottery inscriptions,and ultimately 57 Li(里)names are counted.Finally,some discussions are made around these Li(里).In chapters 6 and 7,the county-level or equivalent county-level place names appearing in pottery inscriptions were collected and organized.According to statistics,there are 24 instances of Qi state place names,with about 12 being identifiable.There are 15 instances of Yan state place names,with about 8 being identifiable.There are 23 instances of Three Jins(Zhao,Wei,and Han)place names,with about 20 being identifiable.There are 94 examples of Qin state place names,with about 84 being identifiable.For these place names,the author not only provides brief verifications based on the latest research achievements in the academic community but also draws an illustrative map of the “Map of the distribution of place names in the Warring States period pottery inscriptions”,which more intuitively represents the distribution of place names in the pottery inscriptions of the Warring States period.Chapter 8 discusses social and cultural issues pertinent to the Warring States period that are reflected in pottery inscriptions.Firstly,the issue of dating and chronology is discussed.New research has been conducted on the alignment of pottery inscriptions such as Li Shi Sui(立事岁)and“since eleven years”and“since twenty-one years”in the Qi and Han states.Then,it examines the surnames and personal names in pottery inscriptions,discussing the pre-Qin surname system and naming principles.Finally,it discusses the customs and culture reflected in pottery inscriptions,including the discussion on the Feng Fu system(賵赙制度),auspicious sayings,and the origin of seal imprints used by pottery workers.The appendices are divided into two parts.Appendix 1 is a “summary of Chu pottery inscriptions,” which collects all the currently available Chu pottery inscriptions and provides a comprehensive scrutiny of their characters and related historical insights.Appendix 2 is a “map of the distribution of place names in Warring States pottery inscriptions,” which maps out the place names appearing in pottery inscriptions,visually illustrating the relationship between the place name pottery inscriptions and their respective excavation sites,facilitating accessible reference for readers.