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Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

 
Venue: 
Online webinar
Event date: 
Wednesday, 28 October, 2020 - 17:00 to 18:30
Speakers: 
Event organiser: 

China Research Seminar given by Dr Hajni EliasFaculty of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge

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Through the examination of ritual bronze wares unearthed from the Sanxingdui, Jinsha and Dian sites in present day Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, this talk introduces a number of observable connections between the three cultures despite their distance in time and space. These connections highlight the presence of regionally transmitted traditions that linked multi-ethnic societies in the territories known from early Chinese textual sources as the Southwest. The talk aims to supplement established Sino-centric scholarship that considers the Southwest’s rich artistic tradition, especially the development of the striking bronze metallurgy of Sanxingdui, Jinsha and Dian, as subject to influences primarily from the cultures of the Central Plains in China’s Bronze Age. It also highlights the function of a network of trading routes in the region, referred to as the Southwest Silk Road in modern times, as the main facilitator of exchange, trade, communication, cultural and artistic reciprocation.

Hajni Elias is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, where she completed her PhD in 2018. Apart from pursuing her research interests on the artistic and cultural transmission amongst early societies along the Southwest Silk Road, she teaches on the subjects of early Imperial China and Chinese art and material culture.

 

Contact
Professor Adam Yuet Chau: ayc25@cam.ac.uk